Well, one of the mantras of the Army that I've come to a love/hate relationship with is "Hurry Up and Wait!". The kids and I did this last Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we first went to a Regnum Christi Bible Study at St. Anne's (the local parish that I've most closely become a part of), which was very nice - although the kids were too shy to join the day care room. They were really quiet and allowed conversation to move smoothly. There was about 6-8 moms there, and a few of them were military, so it was nice both to meet other Catholic women and Catholic Army wives.
We skid-addled out of there in order to get to noon Mass on base, which we arrived 5 minutes late to... and then found out that the chaplain on base is AMAZINGLY solid and orthodox, but has also absolutely perfected the fastest Mass ever! He says all the prayers, gives a great homily, great petitions, and doesn't leave anything out at all, but it is not over 15 minutes long! So... we got there for the end of the Eucharistic prayer, but stayed after a few minutes... because daily Mass on base takes place in the Blessed Sacrament chapel of the main chapel, which is used for all denominations' services - so in this little chapel was packed about 3 beautiful Marian statues, icons, a huge Divine Mercy, beautiful crucifixes, and anything else that would freak out a protestant! It was great! Everywhere David looked he was saying "Jesus" or "Mary"! (He started saying Mary the first weekend we were here. Before that he would say "Jesus Mama"... but now he definitely says Mary!)
After that we found the Base Post office to mail Nancy's letter and headed over the the Commissary (Military-speak for grocery store) to get some food supplies in case Joe had the weekend off. After all of that... here is the results when we finally reached home past lunch time:
Once we were done with all errands outside of the house, all we did Friday morning was catch 7:30 Mass at St. Anne's, and then we headed home to CLEAN HOUSE! My great-grandma, Nancy, actually introduced me to this type of cleaning: pick one day a week and dedicate the morning to an over-all cleaning. Then forget about it for the rest of the week, knowing that you cleaned well before. Just focus on simple cleanup of messes, and wait for the next cleaning day to come. Then our house is pretty much always ready for guests (or husbands). Well... I chose Fridays to be my cleaning day, at least here in GA, because that is the day that Joe will come home, if he is given a weekend pass off base.
So... the kids and I found our aprons and hit the deck running. In just a few hours the apartment was looking and smelly fit for our king - Daddy! And, of course, there were a few moments of the kids "helping" in ways that weren't always appreciated. They were trying to organize, but it just didn't always work... or work fast enough for Mama!
And once the house was done, we had to sit back and wait for Dada to call and let us know if we cleaned the house for him to see, or just for us to enjoy the cleanliness for the week! He finally called near the end of nap time and said that they had received and "on-post" pass for the weekend, so he could not leave, but we could go and see him. A bit of a let down, but still great to be able to see Dada!
We made plans to meet up with him that evening... which I'll write about later, but the kids and I had a few hours to eat up before then. The sun had finally come out in force after a week of dreariness, so we got on our swimsuits for the first time and headed to the pool! The week of rain had made the water freezing cold (should have thought of that one!) - but we still had fun. You can see how deep Therese got - pretty good! David wasn't interested in the least... but we soon moved to the playground where he enjoyed himself. It was just a quick dip, because we had to take early baths and GO SEE DADA!
