Meanwhile, Back at the Hotel

I took the above picture after Brian and I got a night alone together and we were at breakfast. He was just so damn handsome that I had to capture the moment. I know I gush over Brian way too much, but, really, he is the greatest guy to walk the planet. Which sort of sucks when we are apart so much. I told him, "You know, Brian, if you were a schmuck like a lot of guys I know, I would be more than happy to send you on deployment--but seeing as you and I are soul mates, being apart even a week sucks!" Well, isn't that the irony of life? We're best friends cursed by the Army to spend months on end away from each other. I miss him so much and it's only been eight days. I think I have PTSD from last year's deployment because a week isn't all that long relatively speaking--that's just a vacation from meals and laundry. But, if we could be together I would do all of his laundry and not even complain. I wouldn't even complain about how he empties out all of the trash in his pockets onto the top of my dresser and leaves it there for me. . .

Anyway, moving on. . . Brian loves Korea. He says Seoul is like New York City, only clean and no homeless people. He says there is art work decorating all of the subway lines--like fine art, not graffiti tagging. He isn't really keen on kimchi yet and says the meals are very interesting. He is really excited to be there and is having a great time seeing the sights, riding the subway, going to broadway type shows, etc. He thinks we may end up staying indefinitely because he thinks it's going to be such a great place to raise our kids. We'll see. . .

Meanwhile. . . while Brian is out galavanting around a foreign country, we are stuck in a tiny hotel suite in Salt Lake. It's not actually too bad. (Come to find out that most of my relatives can't handle my children. Many have made comments to me about how difficult they are. Some even refuse to babysit Sophia and Giselle. It makes me sad because I think they're all great kids and very responsible. But, oh well. . . that's a topic for another day. . . I just mention it to show that I guess it is a blessing for family relations that we are in a hotel and not trying to stay with relatives.) We spend most days swimming in the pool. The old lady who works in the club house is always picking on my kids and harrassing us to use our towels properly and don't slide on the handrail and don't go near the hot tub. I guess it's the seven kids thing--people see me coming and automatically assume my kids are out of control. Nope--they're just regular old kids--just like the ones who happen to be children with only one or two siblings.

We also try to go out and do an activity every single day, otherwise we are sort of tripping over each other in our small space. We have walked around downtown Salt Lake City trying to learn what it's like to live in a city and not the suburbs. We went to Liberty Park and the kids found used ice blocks and used them to slide down a giant hill. They loved that. We went and read books at the city library, went to the city/county building and walked over to my favorite bakery. I am attempting to make the best of less-than-ideal situation. Some days it works, some days it doesn't, but time is passing nonetheless. We are still praying for our miracle, but we'll see what happens.