Day Three - February 3, 2010

Good evening!! Another no-school day for the girls today, so a full day of entertaining for me! Could be worse jobs though. The schools have already notified us that they will have school tomorrow - the 2nd grader is happy and the high schooler not so much.

Weather wise, it was a beautiful day - we had some rain over the night yesterday and combined with the warmer weather (low 50's) a great majority of the snow has melted. On our way to church this evening, we only encountered one small patch of road that still had ice on it. Our yard is about 75% clear of snow - at least the dog can go potty without too much drama.

Had a chance to talk with my wife as she went to breakfast this morning so that was a positive start to the day - of course with a three hour time difference, we were getting ready to fix lunch as she called. But she had a few extra moments and was able to talk with both of the girls. This week she is spending her time on the rifle range, qualifying with the issued weapons. Her normal job as an OR Nurse doesn't usually call for a rifle in the daily scheme of things so she's struggling a little - I'm sure her country girl roots will kick in shortly and she'll do fine.

The past two days have been a little out of the norm so today I was able to get back to more of a routine. After breakfast digested a little, I was able to get on the treadmill and have a good workout. One of the things I strongly suggest to anyone going through a deployment is to invest in a heart rate monitor. You have to be able to maximize your time and get the best out of each workout and chore you do so a heart rate monitor will do that for you. Depending on what is going on in your life, you will either work out too hard or not hard enough - an investment of less than $100.00 will get you a quality monitor that keeps you on track when you work out. I ran for 30 minutes today, kept my heart rate between 124 and 132 and still made it almost 3 miles on the treadmill. I prefer to run outside but the icy sidewalks and roads early this morning prevented that. I also suggest you have a blood pressure machine and keep track of what is going on with your body - you know the first thing a military doctor is going to ask you if you have to visit is "how's your blood pressure" and "have you been working out?" I just give them a list of what I've been doing with resting heart rate (heart rate first thing in the morning), my heart rate range during a workout and blood pressure readings. The machines you use at home will register differently than the ones in the doctor's office - it doesn't do any good to argue their machine is incorrect, trust me.

Our food choices today were good. We also worked together (the three of us) on meal planning for the next few weeks. Of course I got a lot of "corn dogs, hot dogs and burgers" - oh wait, that was me saying those things!! No really, we have a very good plan but we still struggled with the veggies and fruits. I tried to get the website to accept fruit roll ups as a fruit but alas, it wouldn't. That would certainly make things easier!

Our breakfast today was a sausage, cheese and egg omelet, yogurt, banana, english muffin with butter and jelly and a glass of milk. Everyone took their vitamins as well. Lunch was a grilled ham & turkey with cheese sandwich, watermelon, carrots and soup with a glass of water. I'm really proud how well everyone is doing with the water consumption! Supper was a mixture of chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, onions and peas - we swirled them all into a chinese sauce and it was relatively good - we'll use a different sauce the next time we have this dish. For an afternoon snack we had kiwi fruit; the evening snack was grapes and a cheese stick.

The one thing I did forget to bring up that we took care of before my wife left was a visit to the drug store - we stocked up on children's cold medicine and some adult stuff as well. It never fails the moment you need cold medicine, there is never any in the house and of course it will be either freezing cold or pouring rain outside as you run to Rite Aid or Wal-Mart. I'm kind of hoping having adequate medicine in the house will help ward off any colds. I also scheduled dental appointments the first week in January for the entire year so that is done - we just need to show up in March and September!

Some very positive news on the Youth Group front today! Dr. Walter Yoho has agreed to come speak to our teen group on Friday, February 12th! I am the Youth Director for our church and we have started a new program for the teens. Actually the credit goes to our pastor's wife, it was her original thought - she wanted to teach a group of teens at her grocery store to cook and then sit around and talk. We morphed this plan into a fellowship program and it is working well so far. The teens work with the pastor's wife on a recipe and once it goes into the oven to bake, they all slide over and I get to give them a devotional talk. Dr. Yoho is simply fabulous - down to earth with an incredible amount of biblical knowledge and he is so great to listen to. Our family has the wonderful privilege to support his Missions 300 group and I look so forward to seeing him again. On the 12th, the teens will cook lasagna for the church fellowship, we will all listen to Dr. Yoho and afterwards have a nice supper together.

The Wednesday night prayer meeting was excellent as always. It is always an honor to spend time with this group of people in our church and glorify God. We are currently building a baseline of knowledge within the church as the pastor is leading us in the ABC's of Christian Growth. Tonight was our 4th night in the book - the previous 3 nights were an overview/primer and tonight we talked about the letter A - Assurance. It is so comforting to know that we have God's assurance of our salvation and salvation is something we can never, ever lose once we freely accept His gift. If you are going through a deployment or a rough stretch in your life, open your heart and go to a good, bible believing/preaching church - you cannot go through this alone.

Speaking of devotions, I owe you an update from last night on the girls' reading - on 2/02 they read "Telling it like it is" and the reference was 2 Corinthians 4:1-6. Tonight they read "Bearing Fruit" with a reference of John 15:1-5, 8. My devotion was subtitled "The recognized ban of relationship" and referenced 1 Corinthians 4:9-13. I've been deep in the bible today preparing for Friday's teen devotion - the working title right now is "Filling the container in the wrong order" - I know what all of you bible scholars are saying "Your title is too long, it should never be more than five words" - I say tough and stick with my argument that 7 is the perfect number, just don't tell Dr. Carroll!!

It is well past 9pm and everyone is in bed for the evening and the dog is snoring - for as loud as she snores you'd think we had some kind of mutant mutt in the house, not a 20 pound eating, pooping and sleeping machine! Here's looking to Day Four!