here in tacoma washington...

So good to see Benjamin!!!

Paul with Ben...

The happy mama with some Seattle's Best coffee...WITH half and half, Aaron. Poor Aaron. And Margaret. We stopped buying half and half at home, substituted it with whole milk...what a suffering we must endure to save a few bucks. I overheard some conversations about buying some when Mom left, because I so nicely left them with a credit card to buy what they "need". No shopping sprees, I said.

Anyway. We are here in the lovely state of Washington. Relaxing in our hotel room. We had our breakfast of hardboiled eggs (yuck, I just ate the white part with lots of pepper, and shh, don't tell my nursing student/children that I also had...shh, salt! on them). Plus a yummy green apple with peanutbutter, an orange, and a few bites of a chocolate drizzled rasberry danish. They put those there just to trip me up! But I only had a few bites and put the rest on Paul's plate.

After Benjamin and Ashley picked us up at the airport last night, we went to Applebee's. Ben has to re-acclimate to Real Life. He felt funny. He has been with soldiers for months, soldiers who don't exactly hold back what they are thinking while they are speaking. No language filters. I jokingly told Ben we should just call a truce and all say the "f" word. I told him not to worry, our family around the dinner table pretty much says what we think without thinking too much, although the kids say the forbidden "freakin" instead of the real "f" word.

Anyway, he was very tired. I know how we felt after leaving our house at 7:45 am, and arriving in Washington state at 5 pm, 8 pm New York time...only twelve hours of travel, and I was feeling light headed and silly...he traveled for like five days, and had only been there for a few hours when we arrived.

So we are chilling now. I took a quick swim last night before taking a dip in the hot tub with Paul. The pool and hot tub are open 24 hours!! I am thinking of heading down for a swim soon again, before Ben and Ashley pick us up to show us the base and pick up our rental car....

Relaxing is very nice. I think the degree to which one enjoys it is directly related to how busy one normally is. I know my days tend to be a bit quieter now, so quiet isn't unheard of in my life...but out here I am not stressing about laundry or who is driving to Activity club or what's for dinner...

In other words, I am having a great time!!!!

Not that I don't miss the kids...I do. But. This is nice...