Harvey with his little bestie- Jane. He’s reading Jane the book he wrote. 
Andy has been busy getting house projects finished before he was supposed to deploy. He pressure washed the front of the house and with a little help, painted our pillars. 
Max in another one of Andy’s projects: a 3D printed Hell Diver’s mask. 
Harvey show and telling the cat we used to have. His name was pumpkin and he was the cutest and sweetest thing.
When originally told of Andy’s deployment, we were told from April 2nd to December 1st. That’s what we told our kids too. Then when we got the orders it said April 2nd to September 10th. I thought, that is much more manageable, but let’s not tell the kids the new date, because the army is totally unpredictable and they could end up keeping him till December. Well… we didn’t predict this either. On Monday, Andy got an email that rejected his deferment of their spontaneous PCS orders. In the letter it said, “Find someone else for the deployment.” I didn’t read the letter… this is just what Andy told me. Well, Andy isn’t the one who gets to decide who gets deployed so he contacted his boss and told him what the letter said. After a day and a half we were told by his boss that he found someone else to send and that the PCS orders were Andy’s current orders. We’re still fighting this because 1) we don’t want to move… and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. 2) The DOD is supposed to freeze all moves 3) Army’s policy is to NOT move doctors unless the doctor specifically requests it 4) Army’s policy is to not move someone who has less than a year left on their contract- we will have 11 months. 5) They didn’t notify us when everyone else who was on the docket to PCS was notified. We didn’t get to pick preferences or anything.
But. It’s the Army so we’ll plan like it’s happening and even though it makes zero sense to send us instead of someone who has a lot more time on their contract, when has the army ever done something that made sense? I also have a hard time celebrating Andy not getting deployed because that means this other family that had no time to prepare for a deployment is now losing their dad for six months in two week’s time. Plus, we may end up sending Andy to Kansas for 11 months on his own so that I don’t have to uproot the kids.
So that was one piece of drama that we’re trying to wrap our heads around. The other was a phone call from the Assistant Principal. I’d been talking to her all week about Beverly’s absence and filling out the hospital leave paper work for Beverly so I thought it was about that, but nope. Some mom had called the school to tell them that Maverick gave her son a “focus pill” and he took it. After further investigation they found out Maverick gave his friend a mint. A MINT. What in the world is going on with this kid who told his mom he took a friend’s focus pill? Mav wouldn’t even know what a focus pill was. But poor Mav had to be questioned and treated like he’d done something bad for giving someone a mint. I think the real concern here is that this other mom’s kid was willing to take someone else’s focus pill… and the fact that he knows what a focus pill is… Really the whole thing is hilariously ridiculous so we can laugh about it now, but man I feel bad for Mav. No kind deed goes unpunished…
Beverly’s appointment on Monday went well. She needs to keep the cadaver bandage on for at least another week. We go back tomorrow to see if they can remove it. They may have to put her under to take it off if it doesn’t come up on its own OR they may have to put her under to do a skin graft if the middle lower back doesn’t heal. It wasn’t looking as good as the rest of the skin. Beverly said, “I’m going to have baby skin when this is all done!” I am glad she’s looking for the silver lining in all of this. She’s still itchy and uncomfortable, but we’re taking her to church today to see how she does sitting off the couch for two hours. We want her to get back to school, but as of Friday she was still too uncomfortable to sit on anything besides the couch. She’s been having a teacher come and work with her after school. If she has to take more school off she’ll becoming three hours a week. She also isn’t allowed to go back to school per the doctor’s orders between getting exposed to unnecessary germs and also the delicate nature of the cadaver bandage, it is better she is on bed rest at home. I know we are all excited for her to be able to get back to her normal routine.
Well, now that Andy’s not getting deployed we’ll have more time to get some projects done. Next on the docket is painting Max’s room, replacing the carpet in the office with life proof flooring and painting the walls, and then eventually we’ll get to replacing the cardboard-like cupboard doors with some sturdier wood.
On Saturday, since we didn’t get to do our Great Wolf Lodge vacation, we promised the kids a fun weekend. Andy took the boys to urban air and I took Bev to a family history fair, lunch, and to get a pedicure. At the family history fair we discovered that Jay Durrant and I are 4th cousins. Afton and Beverly were thrilled about this news because not only are they best friends but they’re also cousins. Afton said she’s going to start calling me Aunt Elise. I told her that was fine by me. It reminds me of my own childhood. We had second cousins that lived down the road from us, but in a way I was closer with them than with our own first cousins because they lived so close. We did family vacations, holiday dinners, etc with them. It was nice to feel like we had family nearby when we lived so far away from our other extended family. I also thought it was cool that one of my best friends, Holly Petty is my fourth cousin (maybe from the same line, I’ll have to check) just like Bev and Afton are. Afton said, “I guess I know why we moved in next door, God knew we were family.” Luke, one of their sons, came up to me and said, “Hey! You’re my closest cousins here!” I put my arm around him and said, “I always knew we were family.” Which is true, I’ve always felt close with this family, but now we know we’re actually blood related. Lindsay and I found out before we went to the family history fair because we were on a walk and I told her how I thought my ancestor was the William Wallace, but later learned it was William Wallace Casper. And she said, “No way! That’s Jay’s ancestor.” I thought I had remembered being related to him before but I thought it was 9th cousins or something like that. I can just imagine William Wallace Casper on the other side of the veil smiling that we’ve finally made the connection to how we’re related. I really do think and feel that our ancestors are among us and carry us through some challenging times. If the past few weeks have told me anything, it’s that I’m not alone. I have felt angels on both sides of the veil and it has made me feel more capable to handle whatever comes– whether Andy PCS’s or we all do, or hopefully, it all falls through.