Fun in the Sun!

So we decided to get a small plastic pool for our kids to enjoy for the summer. They are 2 and 3 years old so we figured they would love it. They already had a slide swing set combo and putting the pool at the end of the slide just made sense. Then daddy would hold the water at the top of the slide to make a water slide. My daughter fell in love with this idea and it has been great watching her.

Now I had to convince my son to try it out and that he did. I was so proud of him for what he did because I didn't think he would do it but the look on his face afterwards was priceless. My son is a true warrior.

Now that they both had a turn and daddy was already wet from them splashing me I decided to give it a try. We had the water setup on a sprinkler under the swings so they could still get wet as they swung but it was also creating a stream on the slide. This was my opportunity to give this a try. Why should the kids have all the fun?

Now that was some fun!

Some times I wonder.

I wonder about my family sometimes and where I went wrong. I wonder how long my wife will hold on to her sanity after taking care of our two children. They seem to find a new button to push every day with her and just drive her up the wall. Where did we go wrong that our 3 year old daughter takes off her cloths and then pees on her brothers bed? I know she doesn't watch this kind of TV or anything so where does she get these crazy ideas? She then proceeds to helping her almost 2 year old brother take off his onesie, which we put on him to keep his diaper on, so that he can take his diaper off and join her in peeing around their bedroom. The added bonus if he ends up poopy and then she has to deal with that.

Now I am home during the morning to help her relax because of the current pregnancy and some minor complications with it. So we put them down for afternoon naps so that I can go into work for 4 or so hours and they end up pushing my wife to the breaking point. So the question always rolls through my mind in what did we do wrong or what are we missing that she is trying to reach out and get attention for something, anything at all. I guess time will tell how we end up doing in raising our children and hopefully the new baby will not be able to pick up on the bad habits of its older siblings. I guess I can only pray and hope God can guide me in the right direction. I do not want to make the situation worse but something needs to be done. I just don't know what that is yet.

Far to long!

It has been far to long since I last posted and so much has happened in almost a year. My family is about to grow by another one coming in September. We are so excited with the coming of this baby so much that we are not going to find out what the gender is because we already have one of each. I love my daughter to death and she keeps amazing me everyday with the amount of stuff she is learning. My son who is about to turn two years old is amazing me as well with his verbal skills. He has started saying sentences and picking new ones up everyday.

For Christmas they got a swing set from there YaYa! and man were they excited. Almost everyday I come home from work they ask if they can go outside to play on it. When you take them out you can just see how their little faces just light up and it makes them so happy that I can't help but smile no matter how hard of a day I had at work.

So up to the present day I have finished my degree in Information Technology Management and I am actively studying to take my Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification. This will help up my salary and also make me more marketable in my current field. So for now I study for that and kind of relax and play with my kids as it seems I am not stressing as much about school but still have to worry about my wife and the new baby as they are having some minor problems.

That is all for now and I will try to post more often than I have been.

Religion

While I was in the Air Force I stepped away from the church. I am not really sure why I did, but I just didn't go anymore. I then married a woman who was not religious at all. She had went to a Catholic Church when she was really little but her whole family is non religious. I am a Baptist but not really that active. My kids are born and then we start to have miscarriage after miscarriage. My wife then turns to me and says she wants to look at joining the Catholic Church. I agree so we start to look into what needs to be done. They have a year long program that teaches you about the Catholic Faith and what they believe in. They recognize my baptism with the Baptist Church, so when we get through this class I will not be baptised again.

Going though this RCIA Program with the church has made me realize why I became religious in the first place. Knowing that God is watching over me and has an ultimate plan for me makes it easier to accept things that I normally wouldn't. My wife always wonders why I don't cry when things go wrong. I never cried when we lost our babies before we could even meet them and it bothered her. She felt like she was the only one suffering. The truth is I wanted to cry so bad and just punch something. I was yelling on the inside WHY GOD WHY US? I just wanted to know what we did wrong to deserve this and then without a second thought it was gone. My mind was filled with peace and a verse came into my head. I am not a scholar so this is not word for word, but here is the gist of it. "The lord will not test your faith but believe he has a plan for you." I was still angry but I knew what it meant. I just had to trust in him and let me take the pain. My wife said in RCIA one day that I was the "Rock" of the family. I am the solid part in it that will never waiver or be pushed aside. I took this to heart and remember every time she asks why I never cry when things go bad and all I can think now is because I am the Rock and I have to be strong to keep us going. I know in time God will give us another child, but only when he says its time. For now we will have to trust in him to get us to where he wants us to be.

The best way to sum this up is by saying I am glad we have come back to the faith and knowing that my wife will be there to grow with me in it makes it even better. The only thing I can think now is from the Footprints poem, "Why lord during the tough times I look and see only one set of footprints in the sand. Why did you leave me alone during these times?" and he answers, "I did not leave your side during the good times or the bad, but when you only see one set of footprints that is when I was carrying you." That part strikes so hard with what I have been through, that I know the Lord has carried me several times and I would see only one set of footprints.

Starting All Over!

Now we are in SC and starting all over. We have no family near by to help us out or watch our kids if we want to get away. This has been tough for the last 6 months. I think our family has grown stronger together and have come closer as well because we know we do not have a safety net just down the road. Being out o the military is a lot different for me too. I no longer have a uniform set for me to get dressed in everyday. I get a choice of what to wear which is nice.

It has been six months since we moved out here and we still have not settled all the way in. We bought a house after being here for like 2 months so we have been in it for 4 months and loving it. We have added to our family with a dog as well. We just got her so she is still a pup and need a lot of attention and care. The house training is going well but will take time. Her name is Lila and she is a beautiful Cane Corso (Italian Mastiff). My daughter just adores her and my son is starting to open up to her as well and get use to her walking around with him.

That is good for now and I will try to post more frequently. These long in between points don't work to well.

Love finds me!

So now I am in Cali and through my second engagement. I really didn't want to jump into another relationship. I just wanted to make some friends and get to know some people who weren't really military related. Have you ever heard the saying when your not looking for love, love will find you. After Julia and the short period of time with her, I met my Wife. We started talking online and then decided to meet. She only live like an hr away and I went to visit her. After meeting her and talking to her we became good friends. The first night we went out some other guy showed up and I guess really liked her. He never made a move on her and I went ahead and made the move myself. We started to see each other more often and we both stated that we didn't want a serious relationship. We were just looking for a friend to talk with and have understand one another. This is how we first started out and it went well for awhile. Soon we both found ourselves falling for one another. Even though we both weren't looking for love, we found each other and ended up in love. After talking one late night after about 2 months of casual dating, we decided to date exclusively.

We ended up going to a new years party where we both got drunk as ever and all hell broke loose. We ended up having a huge blow out fight that ended me up to driving like a crazy man and wrecking my car only 100 feet from the hotel we were at. A friend of hers ended up driving my car back to the parking lot and parked it before the cops showed up. They gave us a warning and left for the night. Later that night while we were both still drunk and talking everything out we agreed to get married. We had originally planned for a summer wedding but Cass ended up pregnant. We then went to the courthouse and got married there on 24 April 2004. We have been happily married ever since.

My daughter came on 26 December 2004 and has been one of the best things in my life. We have also had a baby boy who was born on 20 July 2006. yes my kids are less than 2 years apart but that is the way we wanted it. I have been living a life as a young family man and continue to grow as a parent and a husband each and every day. I could not ask for more than what I have in front of me each and every day. I am blessed to have my beautiful family and wonderful in-laws. I have since left the military and moved across the country to SC. We literally moved from coast to coast.

Now that the history is done and my life is going on, I will start to talk about the things that happen in life at the moment.

The Continued Background Story

It has been awhile since I posted. I have been busy attending my school and work as well as making time for my wife and kids. It has definitely been a challenge to manage all these things. I am not sure how I came about doing all of this at one time. I knew I wanted a family while I was young and knew I wanted to finish school as well. It is weird how things play out in the end and we always have to remind ourselves that we will not be made overnight. I have to continue to tell myself that everyday.

So I left off with being dropped by my fiance and having my world crumble around me. I went up to a buddies room and told him what happened. He immediately told me to get my swim gear and call up another buddy of ours. I asked him what for and he told me that were are going to the beach to get drunk and forget about all of this. I don't usually condone all of this type of action but at the time I didn't care and just wanted the pain to go away and this seemed the best logical approach. I ended up getting pretty drunk and fell asleep on the ferry while coming back from the island we went to. It was good times and it helped me get the process of grieving started and over with.

After all of this happened I went back to talking with some old friends and an old girl I used to talk to but never dated. We talked the rest of the time I was at Tech School and when I went home on my 2 week vacation in between my duty station and tech school we met up and started dating. I thought I was falling in love all over again and wanted this to work so bad that I made myself believe it was going to work. So we ended up dating for awhile and I even flew down to see her and ended up proposing to her. She accepted and everything was happy until I went back home and felt all alone again. I have probably only one fear in life and that is of being alone. She also became controlling to the point when I left my dorm room I had to call her and let her know where I was going. This was not what I was wanting and it showed me that she did not trust me in what I was doing. So I called off the engagement and she reacted probably about the same way I did when I was dumped just a year before that. I realized I didn't love this girl and that she was a rebound from my ex and that I needed time to heal first. I had to take time for myself and get my life straight to move on. That is what I did and made a new friend along the way.

In my next post I will talk about who I met and where things went from there.