Our Marine

WOW! We had the best experience the week of the 16th. We got to go to Paris Island and see Evan graduate from basic training. I have never been to any military ceremonies before, and I really enjoyed it. Billie was so proud, too. Matt was beaming, of course! Evan is still his sweet self, making time to talk to all of us on family day, but you could tell he had done some growing up. He had 10 days leave and headed to North Carolina yesterday to begin his Infantry training. Matt talked to him yesterday and said he was excited to start his Infantry training. Our prayers are that he will not be deployed. Billie is especially worried about that. God knows best, and we will put our trust in him to watch over Evan and keep him safe. Billie made a poster and took it to school Monday to tell her friends all about the time we had with Evan and his wonderful family. She wore her shirt we bought her at the base in support of Evan's battalion. She was so excited to go to school, especially after having 11 days off! She jumped right out of bed and got dressed so quickly.

We had a good week off with her, she had fall break all last week. We went to the opening day of High School Musical 3! It was a very exciting day for her, and we all had fun and enjoyed it. The movie was adorable, if not a little cheesy. We went with our friends Larisa, Caiden and Brenna. The kids especially enjoyed themselves. Saturday was Billie's last in-season soccer game, unfortunately it was not a win for us, but they played hard. She has a tournament in Morristown this weekend. It is her first tournament, and I just hope she makes it through the weekend. It is a lot of soccer for a 7 year old! It should be a fun weekend.

We are all geared up for Halloween! Billie is going as Glenda the "Good Witch" from the Wizard of Oz. Grandma Rosecrance made her a beautiful gown! She got to wear it last Monday to fantasy week at dance. She looks so adorable in it. I will post a picture of her after Friday night.

I am doing better emotionally, finally I almost feel like myself again. I am back at school and working on a class I had to take an incomplete in last semester when we were travelling for the boys. I have my schedule all worked out for the Spring semester, and will begin that in January. I am looking forward to it , all except for organic chemistry! Hopefully it won't be that bad. We will see. I feel myself coming out of that debilitating fog, though. I knew I would eventually, and I just had to be patient. We still miss Joshua and Caleb so very bad, though. Matt and I both have lots of dreams about them, most of them are not good dreams. We gave a video testimony, a very short one, for our church on Sunday. We did it together, and that was so good to do together. It did get our subconscious working though, because we both ended up with bad dreams that night. The video will be shown some time in November. It is about pain and experiencing God through pain. We only had a minute to tell our pain and how we experienced God, I had so much to say it was impossible to narrow it down to just one way. I have shared so much of how God has been with us through all of this, how God has been in control of everything and how God is so good to us. There is still so much I could and will share, eventually. We are so blessed by God. When I actually think about all God has done for us, it is truly amazing. I think working on giving that short testimony actually helped me emotionally. It forced me to really acknowledge all that God has done for us. It's not that I don't realize it daily, but I don't concentrate on it daily. I need to, obviously, because it makes me a better person. It makes me more myself, happy and healthier. It also makes me so sad for people that do not accept God and his blessings for themselves. I know I would never have made it through my life without God. How anyone makes it through hard times on their own, I do not know. God makes it so much easier, so much better, just possible even. God is Good!

I will try to update again soon, but I do realize I say that at the end of like every blog and then I still go weeks in between. What can I say? I am a busy person!! I love you all and still need your prayers and support. Have a wonderful week.

I Owe You an Apology

I am so sorry, I have done a terrible job of keeping everyone up to date on my blog. I was just looking through a history, and I had no idea I had done so little. Please forgive me, and while I will promise now to try to do better, I know it may not be possible. But, I promise I will try. We are so busy all of the time, but not a whole lot changes and there has not been that much new stuff going on. Billie keeps us going with Piano lessons, soccer practice and games, ballet class, school and church. She is busy every night of the week except Friday! But it is all fun, and she enjoys it so much.

We went to Atlanta weekend before last to check on Matt's house there. We have renters that are wonderful. We just needed to check in because we had not since they moved in almost a year ago. They are fantastic, we could not ask for better renters. We are hopeful they will stay a long time, since now is not the time to sell a house. We got to spend time with our friends Greg and Leslie and their children, Keaton and Lauren. We had a nice visit, and Billie and Lauren had an excellent time together. We hope to get down there more often, and this trip was a quick one, we would rather have more time with them.

On the 16th we get to go see Evan graduate from basic training. We are so excited for that. The time has passed so quickly, I can't believe it is time for him to graduate already. I am sure it has not passed as quickly for him, though. We are going to get to spend some time with him and his mom, Joan. It should be wonderful. Billie gets to miss two days of school to go, so I know she will be happy! Although, she loves school, she would rather have fun with Evan than be at school. The next week is fall break, so she will have lots of time off. We still haven't decided how we will spend her fall break, but it will be fun no matter what we do. Last year she got to go to Disney with her grandparents! Nothing like that is planned this year, but we will make it fun.

As far as how we are doing, we are doing better, I think. We still have bad days, sad days, and just hard days. Yesterday we both missed Joshua and Caleb so much. I don't know why yesterday, but we did. This weekend Cathie, Matt's mom, bought all kinds of stuff to make some decorations for the cemetery, so her and Janet and I worked on them together. We ended up with two beautiful arrangements, and one amazing wreath. They looked so good, very fall-ish and she got two little teddy bears for the wreath that were adorable. It warmed our hearts and made us feel closer to our baby boys. I guess I have been angry for a few weeks now. I don't know why or where it comes from, or even who it is directed at. But I just have some anger that I am trying to deal with. I think it is just a part of the grieving process. It is just something I have to deal with. It isn't over powering, but it is there. So, I pray about it and try not to feel sorry for myself. I don't like feeling this anger, and I am going to get rid of it with God's help. It's not that I am angry at God, not at all. Like I said, I am not sure who it is at and maybe I need to figure that out before I can really get rid of it. Maybe it is just at the situation. When I figure it out, I will let you know.

I promise to try harder to update you more often! Don't give up on me. I still covet your prayers and your encouragement, and so does Matt.