An Interesting Day...

The kids had their last session of the Deployment Support Program this morning. There was a bit of grumbling from Connor, but he went anyway. I had to scramble a bit as it started while I was at my hair appointment. Thankfully, Arlene was free, so she dropped them off and picked them up. The kids all ended up having a great time, yes, even Connor. There were a few kids there whose Dad's were already home, and the kids were envious of that, but there were a lot more whose Dad's hadn't come yet. The highlight of the day was eating ration packs. All the kids got to try the ration packs like their Dad's have been eating in Afghanistan. Poor Daddy, some were disgusting, though Connor did like the "steaky one". They also watched a puppet show about how Daddy will feel when he gets home. Of course, I then got the lecture from Katty, "Mommy, daddy is not used to being at home, and it will be hard for him at first. We can't be too noisy (ha), and well, you shouldn't expect him to do any work like mowing the lawn ( no problem our grass is dead anyway) or taking out the garbage right away." Well, I'm thinking, reintegration or not, I'm pretty sure he can manage to take out a bag of garbage.

So, the last few days there's been a gaggle of older teenage boys hanging out at the park across the street. A couple of times, the kids have tried to go, and they couldn't get on the structures because these kids are sitting on them, cursing and swearing. The other day, they started hanging out there in their long goth like trench coats, and yesterday, Arelene intercepted them getting ready to fight with two kids who were on their bikes in front of our house. Today, Katty and her little friend Melissa came home from the park, terrified because these guys were back, and they were at it again, cursing, and swearing. This time, they had gone over the fence, and were inside the water tower, lurking around with their toy weapons. Now, they may have been up to something very harmless, but I certainly wasn't going over as there were about 10 of them, and they were all bigger than me. So, I called the Town Hall, and they asked me to call the OPP as they did not have permission to be in the water tower. I was surprised, the OPP sent two cars right away to see what they were up too. Turns out, one of their Dad's had got a friend who works for the town to let them in, and they were apparently filming an action film, and it was purely innocent. Right. And that so wasn't pot they were smoking behind the tower. Whatever. At any rate, they left, and might think twice about hanging out there again. And maybe the little kids can start playing at the park again without being scared.

If you haven't heard the news yet, two more soldiers were killed today in Afghanistan. I'm not sure my nerves can take much more of this. Jen and I were both walking around with a sick feeling in our stomachs all evening. They are so close to being out of there, but not close enough. We are so ready for this deployment to be over. Only a couple of more days, and they head out to Cyprus for Decompression, and we open the wine to celebrate it being over. Unfortunately, there are too many families out there who won't get to celebrate their loved ones coming home. How sad is that?

"As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see."~~Julius Caesar