Week Two dawned bright and sunny... a gorgeous day perfect for washing the car. So we did. :) It's been a nice day filled with little errands and sunshine, and now a quiet spell with TV and naps. All good. I'm getting itchy for more contact from the man of the house... this business of having gaps of a few days between emails is a little harder to take than when he was still on Canadian soil and we could text or talk most every night. It's a good thing I'm not usually the needy/clingy/overly dependent type, or this would be really, REALLY hard. (Actually the whole lifestyle would be hard, but this kind of separation would be brutal.)

Which is not to say this is easy, because that would be lying - it's not easy to step into the functional role of two parents simultaneously. But I keep a positive focus on things - like being grateful that I don't have to juggle a job on top of everything else, grateful that unlike generations past we actually do have fairly regular communications, grateful that I have a rock-solid relationship and am not plagued by some of the worries that I hear expressed by some girlfriends and wives, grateful that I have two sweet little ladies to keep me busy and grounded... Focusing on the blessings, both big and small (sometimes especially the small ones), helps me to stay in the happy place for riding through times like this.

Now we are into the one-week countdown to our trip back home to visit friends and family, which C is mucho excited about! I'm looking forward to it as well, with the possible exception of wrangling kids and luggage through three airports in one day. At least at the third stop I'll have help!! And I'm really hoping that at the first stop the hotel's shuttle driver will be kind to me!! We need to be there at 7:00 am, which makes me grateful for continental breakfasts that start at 6:00!! We'll get a good breakfast and stock up on fruit and such to take with us on the plane, so we'll be all set. It should be a good trip. I'm really praying that the check-in staff will be generous and allow us to sit up front so that if the kids start kicking their feet against the seat in front I won't have to hear from the likes of Mrs. "Can't you make that child sit still?!?!" from the last time I had an excited two year old on a plane. That, and it will make our 40-minute connection much easier if we don't take 20 minutes to get off the first plane. With any luck they'll get a little sleep on the second flight and be fresh when we arrive - although I'm not 100% counting on that.

Now, to see about finding a portable DVD player for the kids...