A long week.....

Whew!  What a long, long week this was.  Joe had to travel for work and was gone for 9 days.  He left last Saturday morning and flew to Korea, and from there flew to China and returned home on Sunday.  So that meant I had two full weekends plus the week in-between to entertain the three munchkins.  I love my kids to pieces, but let me tell you- that is A LOT of time spent together!  We made it though and everyone was happy that Daddy was home (Tate asked Joe when he got home if he saw the gangnam style guy in Korea :).  Joe has traveled many times for work before, but never for this long.  These are definitely the times I wished we lived closer to family! 

There are so many families and close friends of mine in my neighborhood who have a spouse deployed and they are doing the single parent thing right now- and it is definitely for more than 9 days!- so I have nothing to complain about.  I have such a respect for them and have a new appreciation on how nice it is to have your spouse around.

The kids and I ended up having a good time (although there might have been a couple times when I was pulling my hair saying "I can't wait for your father to get home").  I tried to do a couple of special things with them, we played outside a lot and they got more TV and electronic playing than they usually do.  Tate and I played a lot of catch with the football (and I think he will tell you that I have a pretty good arm!). 

Here are some random pictures of this past week:  (Notice Tate isn't in them because the kid is never home on the weekends.  He is always at one of his friend's house on our block playing football- all day long!)

 

(this picture was from a couple weeks ago, but I thought it was cute!)

 Some pictures Joe took in China (it was the Chinese new year when he was there):