The rest of block leave

The Army handles vacation time in an interesting way.  The higher up people decide what weeks everyone in the Battalion will go on vacation.  It's called Block leave. Then members of the battalion decide how many days they will take off during block leave.  They can do anything between not taking time off or taking the whole two weeks. 

Soldiers accrue a lot of vacation days (like 3 a month) and Brandon hasn't taken any leave since Christmas so he could have taken the full two weeks off.  But we wanted to save most of his vacation days for a trip to Utah.  So he only took a week off.  He was off from Friday October 31 to Friday November 7.  We planned on spending Saturday and Sunday recovering from our road trip.  

When Brandon requested his leave time he didn't realize that Veterans Day was the Tuesday after we got home.  He pretty much always gets a four day weekend for every Federal Holiday.  So that meant that not only did he have Saturday and Sunday off, but he also had Monday and Tuesday off as well.  And none of those days were taken away from his leave time.  We couldn't have planned it any better.  

And after he did go back to work on Wednesday it was a pretty easy week.  Most of the battalion was still on block leave so there wasn't much to do. I knew that would be the case so I scheduled several doctors appointments for this week.  Brandon was easily able to leave work and watch the kids. And then he usually didn't have to be back at work until final formation in the afternoon. 

So basically that's a long way of saying that this week was really relaxing.  It was the perfect followup to our busy vacation.  

We spent all of Saturday cleaning up from our trip.  I did load after load of laundry.  Here is what our laundry room looked like.  (If I remember right, I'd already done a few loads when I took this picture.)       

Brandon set up the tent so it could dry out in the back yard.  After it was dried and put back in the bag, Brandon said it weighed about 20 lbs less.  

Brandon also vacuumed out the Honda.  It looked so good when he was done.  On Monday he took it to a car wash with the kids so the outside could be as clean as the inside. 

 Veronica found some of Brandon's screws and stuff and made a giant mess.

She also was really happy to see her slide again.  She loves to stand at the back door and yell, "si-DAh" for "outside."

 The girls were happy to be back home with all their toys.

 The weather was slightly cool all weekend,  On Monday the kids decided that it was warm enough to play with water in the back yard.  I agreed with them and even let the twins get into their swimming suits.

 I'm glad I let them play outside because after that things got COLD.  We've had freeze warnings and overnight temps have been in the low 30s.  It's been kind of depressing.  Veronica has been going crazy to be cooped up inside all day. We also have been battling colds.

We're still doing our "Little School" every day.  The kids have been learning about numbers.  They color a worksheet about a different number every day.  We made it to 14 this week.

 I put Veronica into a tutu one day.  I said, "You're wearing a tutu."  And she could mimic "Tu tu" right back at me.  She also can say "Up" when she wants up into my lap. She also likes to yell, "Zah" all the time.  We have no idea what it means, but it's super cute.

 Here is another picture of our "Little School."  Veronica is more interested in participating than Derrick is.  She's really just interested in trying to eat the markers though.  She loves to do things that her older siblings are doing.  She's started running with them as they race through the house.  The other day she stood up against the wall and I'd say "Ready Set Go" and then she'd run around and then come back.  That's a game that the older kids have played since I was pregnant with Veronica.  I can't believe she is old enough to play it now.  

 Derrick made progress with his own language ability this week.  He's started saying "Daddy" every time he sees Brandon.  That alone is amazing!  He also started saying, "Ready Set Go!" and "Here you go"this week. I'm so excited that he's starting to say three word phases.

We got out some of our dress ups and Charlotte wanted to dress up like Santa and have me take her picture.

 And then Lydia (who was dressed up like Cinderella) wanted to be in the picture.

 And then Veronica backed up against the wall too.

 And then Derrick joined in as well.  I don't know why they don't do this when I want them to pose for pictures.

I took Charlotte and Lydia into the doctors for their 4 year old check up and shots.  They did really well up until it was time to get their shots.  Lydia went first and as soon as she started crying Charlotte joined in.  It was pretty sad.  I'm glad we are all done with shots for a while.

They girls totally milked the fact that they'd had shots.  I told them the best way to make their legs feel better would be to walk on them, but they didn't believe me.  Lydia kept pulling herself around the livingroom with just her arms.

I went to the doctor as well this week.  After Veronica was born I vowed that I wouldn't go to the doctor for a year.  With all the other kids I was pregnant again before I made it to a year postpartum.  I was sooooooo sick of going to the doctor.  Well my year is up so it was time to start scheduling appointments again.  First up was a dentist appointment.  I hadn't been since I was pregnant with Derrick.  I was shocked to find out that I don't have any cavities.

Then I had the doctor's appointment.  It was a good appointment, and my doctor said I was healthy, but I was concerned about my weight. I weighed about 10 lbs more than I did when I was pregnant with Veronica.  That's understandable considering I just went through a stressful deployment, but I still wasn't happy about it.

Worrying about my weight was another thing that I vowed not to do for the past year.  But now that Brandon is home it's time to get serious about losing weight.  I came home from the doctor and set some weight-loss goals and talked to Brandon about how I'm going to accomplish those goals.  I've already made a lot of changes.  In the future I'll do a post with all the details.  But in the meantime I just want  to say that I already feel so much better.

Anyway, block leave ends tonight so tomorrow things will be back to normal at Brandon's work.  We don't really know what normal is though, so this should be interesting.