He's Almost 10

We are two days away from a very big day in the Smith Family. Our oldest son Jaeden will be turning 10 on August 5th. He now stands very tall and comes to just below my chin. He is a funny kid with a dry sense of humor and a memory as good as an elephants. He is easy going, but has started getting a little more expressive when he does become frustrated with his siblings. His best friend is still...and probably always will be...his little brother Brandon. They do everything together. Jaeden has always been shy...even when he was a little baby. Who am I kidding, the boy was never little. He arrived on this earth weighing almost 10 pounds. The sweet little newborn outfit I bought him to go home in wouldn't button around his chunky neck. He was so young when we brought Brandon home from the hospital, but I so believe God knew what he was doing when he blessed Jaeden with a little brother.

I am grateful that God blessed our family with Jaeden. He reminds me to stop and appreciate all the great things in life.....like airplanes. He loves airplanes just like his Dad. He tells us often that he wants to be an air traffic controller. He knows the names of more planes than his Dad and that is saying a lot. I can't believe he is 10. I will never forget the day he joined our family. We don't have a video of that moment.....I don't need one. I remember every detail and replay it often. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years of Jaeden's life will bring about. I hope he always knows how special and wonderful our family thinks he is.

The Last Plane has Left.............

and my husband was not on it. It all seems a little surreal really. Keith was cleared to go...he had papers in hand that were stamped "cleared to deploy". He headed over to the med clinic to pick up Maleria pills that he'd forgotten and when the pharmacist pulled up his file there was a flag on it. His file was flagged because of a medication he takes for blood pressure. They told him they'd have to submit a waiver for him to deploy with that medication and told him it'd be back in the morning. When he went to get the waiver it came back DENIED. But not because of his blood pressure medication....it was his back. Most of Keith's friends know he's suffered from a back injury for about 8 years not and it was the elephant in the room that no one in his unit wanted to talk about because they needed him in Afghanistan. We were worried and we thought for a couple of days they would force him to medically retire due to his non-deployable status. I don't think the Army would let him off that easy....seems Keith is non-deployable to Afghanistan, but he is still deployable to other places in the world. Needless to say we were excited to hear he didn't have to go, but Keith had to battle with the emotional demons that told him he should be there with his men....for a soldier I don't think those ever go away. I too felt a little guilty at rejoicing that he didn't have to go when so many men did. But we would soon discover what God and the Army had in store for Keith.

Five days after finding out he was staying state side, Keith was chosen to take over the rear detachment company and will serve as First Sergeant for the year. I had forgotten how big of a responsibility that really was....Keith hadn't had a first sergeant in 7 years. Being responsible for 180 soldiers and the families of those that are overseas serving has turned out to be a huge job, but one Keith is absolutely up for. He has worked long hours, sat at the side of a spouse whose husband was dying, delivered news to children of Charlie Simmons that their dad was very sick, he remembered to deliver that coin to Charlie's son and a saber necklace to his daughter, he's helped a young soldier of 19 who didn't quite know where to turn, helped a soldier that had been written off as no good. I don't know what kind of difference Keith would have made over in Afghanistan....I'm sure it would have been immense. Here at Fort Hood, he's making a difference and we're only 2 months in. I'm anxious to see how this year will go while he serves in this capacity. As he would say, he's busier than a one armed paper hanger with an itchy nose. I am so very proud of him.

I wish you could have seen Jaeden's face when Keith told him he didn't have to leave. He had a pretty rough year...that ended great. But I was worried with Dad gone, he might have another rough start to the school year. I don't know why God chose to leave Keith with us, but we're not asking questions.....we intend to make this year COUNT!!!

June 15th, 2011 - Getting Ready for Dad's Deployment

This time last year, we were wrapping up our four and a half years in Budapest, Hungary. I never imagined then that we'd be in the position of getting ready for a year long deployment. I don't know why.......I am married to a soldier. However, for the past 6 years Keith has belonged to a specific section of the Army that only deployed to war zones 2 or 3 months at a time. I think I got a little too comfortable in that part of the Army.

It seems that the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan are drawing down (that is atleast what our President is saying). I am not kidding myself though, he's going to a dangerous place that is full of people who do not want him there and don't like him simply because he is an American. I think many soldiers going these days wonder what the heck are we doing there. Regardless of why we are there.....there is where my husband has orders to report to. We passed a truck the other day with the words - Welcome Home Daddy....we missed you! In midsentence Keith stopped and said to me, "that's why I'm going Holly...so some other guy whose spent a year away from his family can come home".

Things have definitely changed though since the last time Keith was deployed almost 11 years ago. Our communication will be much more frequent. We have skype, email and he can even have a phone on him. With our itouch and ipad we can do face time whenever we are near wifi. Believe it or not...that's available on the base Keith will be on. He assured me last night that if something as simple as a broken leg happens I'll probably know within hours and will probably be contacted by him. Keith has more than once exclaimed to me his top priority is to keep him and his younger soldiers safe and return them to their families. I will cling to that statement.

Three hundred and sixty four days ago we returned from overseas. It feels like time has flown since that day we stepped off of the plane. I am praying that the next 364 days (starting next weekend) will go by just as fast. In that time we will celebrate one 15th wedding anniversary, four kids birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and the end of another school year. I love my soldier so very much. His safety will be my first prayer in the morning and my last prayer in the evening. I'm hoping to use this blog both as a place for me to make sense of my days and for Keith to read about our days while we are here in Texas...........................................

Waiting on Our Soldier.

Jenny Paige's 3rd Birthday Week.

We of course had our family celebration. She enjoyed having all of the attention on her. We sang happy birthday and she opened her family gifts.

She is one of the happiest little girls I know.

We see this smile all of the time.

The Party room is ready. I had so much fun planning this party.

It was a lot of work, but all of the little fairies had a great time.

Mommy and her tiny fairy Jenny Paige

She truly is the sweetest

Jenny's big birthday party went off without a hitch. The girls arrived, we made wands, played games and had a great little lunch together. My friend Marion told a wonderful story of fairies in her great British accent. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but all the work was well worth it.

Our Little Fairy Jenny Paige

has turned in for the night.

Another Great Vacation with the Bobbitts.

Another Bobbitt-Smith Trip to Edelweiss Lodge and Resort

In Beautiful Garmisch Germany.

On March 17th we left Budapest for another great trip to the Bavarian Alps. Garmisch, Germany was our destination and Mary was so excited because she would be strapping on some skis again this year. The drive there was made much easier because of some amazing technology. What did our parents do without this stuff when we were kids.....I remember Chris and I having stare out contests, hand slap and an occasional game of find the license plate....yawn! No, my kids had a dual screen dvd player, there were 3 ipods in the car (all video capable) and Jaeden had his PSP that he and B shared during the trip. Yeah, I guess we could have been having wonderful conversations with our kids, but instead we had a very quiet trip and Keith and I had some great conversations....when does that ever happen.

Jenny with one of the many forms of media

essential for an 8 hour drive to Germany.

We're almost there because there are those

beautiful mountains.


The ladies lounging in the lobby
after a great dinner.

Mary had two whole days of private instruction and she finished the week off with her instructor deeming her an intermediate skiier. She had a great time with Peyton and Avery learning some

new skills. I got to see her scream down a large slope. Scared me to death watching her, but she obviously had a handle on the slope and loved every minute of it.

Here are some great shots of Mary on the slopes of the

Hausburg Mountain.

There they go!!!!!!!!

And here they come.



Our little snow bunny.

Brandon and Jaeden were happy to spend their time in the heated indoor pool at the Edelweiss Resort. For that matter...so was I. The big kids enjoyed getting in the outdoor hot tub, but what a cold walk back inside.


The picture below was the view outside

the back of our suite. Can't beat waking up to

this in the morning. We had some great weather

while we were there.

We had an awesome time on our vacation with the Bobbitts. We've been able to spend our last three spring breaks with them because our children all attend GGIS. We're grateful that the Bobbitts will be spending a couple more years here in Budapest now that Mike is the new head guy at the Task Force. They've truly been that little extra thing that has made Budapest such a great place to live for the past 3 years. We have one more year left and I'm already not looking forward to the goodbyes that will surely be hard to say when it comes our time to leave. But we have made some amazing memories here in Budapest and in the many vacations we have taken to some amazing places.

Time to Go Home :(

So..this is what a quiet weekend is like. Our family was kind of forced to take it easy this weekend. Keith is recovering from a pretty bad sinus infection and Sunday morning we
awoke to hear the boys coughing and sniffling in their rooms.

Saturday we took a quick trip to Decathlon to get a tennis racquet for Mom and we went
straight back home. Sunday we decided not to take the boys to church and get other people
sick. So we've literally taken it easy this weekend. In the middle of the quiet...while watching
on of the many documentaries available on Hungarian cable, I said to Keith that these kind
of days are the best.

The boys played in their room, Jenny played in hers and Mary watched a movie. We slowly tidied up the house for Iren tomorrow and caught up on our laundry now that we have all
three washers and dryers back. I hope that we have many more days like this in the coming
months. Looking at the calendar there is not much chance of a quiet weekend happening too
often. But when I can see one coming...I think I'll welcome it.

Mary's birthday celebrations.

Our family of course celebrated Mary's birthday on Wednesday the 18th. She received flowers from mom and dad ( I asked the florist for a kisci bouquet and this is what I got). Oh well, Mary loved them. Along with her wii that she loves she received a teddy bear, an Itunes card, a snow globe, angel ornaments to add to her collection and a teen magazine from America.

Her big gift was coming on Friday when I would be taking Mary and her friends to Aquaworld and then a slumber party. I'm pretty sure Mary felt very special and enjoyed all of her friends. She received very thoughtful gifts from her friends and had a blast staying up late with them. I think Aquaworld tuckered them out because they all fell asleep before midnight.

Sally, Ha Eun, Peyton, Adie, Mary and Hunter

Fun in the Sun....Kind Of.