Family Pictures

Hubby is gone a lot. At this point in our relationship (from first dating to now married) we’ve spent almost exactly as much time together as we have doing the long distance thing. On the one hand, it’s great because our communication is spectacular! Not that we’re perfect at things, but we’re way ahead of the game when it comes to talking, because there’s not much else you can do when you’re 2 time zones apart. On the other hand, it sucks. C’mon, no one likes being apart, especially when you’re missing stuff like my joining the Catholic Church or his graduation from Tank Commander School. I sent pictures via cell phone from Coors Field when our favorite baseball team, the Colorado Rockies went to the ’07 World Series while he studied for a test in New York. I don’t know what’s worse, missing the fun stuff, or when the rough stuff happens; pets die, basements flood and the fact of the matter is, life doesn’t go on hold until you’re together again.

Lately we’ve been staying busy and his work schedule is getting intense, focused on preparing for an upcoming deployment. It’s obviously on our minds that before too long, before we’re really ready for it (are you ever ready?), he’s going to take his troop overseas for 12 months, and I’ll be here. As if the deployment wasn’t approaching quickly enough, he’s also being sent out in the field for training, to other posts for training, and even when he’s just at the office, the hours can be long. We’re not quite ready to slip back into long-distance mode yet, and in an effort to have some fun and capture our time together for when we are long-distance again, we had pictures taken on Sunday.

We found a great photographer here in the area, La Brisa Photography, and met with her at the park on Sunday afternoon. We took the dogs with us, because they are an important part of our family too. Although he is also a special part of the family (and the favorite pet, but shh, don’t tell the dogs!) the cat had to stay home.

Things went really well at first, the weather and sunshine were wonderful, the dogs were staying relatively calm and we were getting some good shots, then we let the dogs loose while we took a few pictures without the “kids”. A few minutes into the humans-only shots, we lost sight of Buford, our black lab. Normally, when we call them, both dogs come running, but this time we only caught a glimpse of Erika (See last post to learn about Erika) at the edge of the trees. We grumbled as we went over to collect our German shepherd and look for Buford (AKA, Ben), then “SPLASH!” a frightened goose came flying out of the river and Ben started crying! He’d jumped, or perhaps fallen, at least 15 feet into the river! By the time we made it past all of the trees and bushes, we weren’t sure where he was in the water. The 3 of us took off running for a clearing where we could access the water; our photographer already had her pretty sandals off in case of an aquatic rescue! I slowed my pace to look more closely at the other side of the river bank, when I heard his labored breathing behind me (Ben is, and was when we got him, slightly overweight and out of shape!). My baby was alive! Soaking wet and smelling like, well, a wet dog, but alive!

Most of our pictures will depict a soggy black lab and cuts and scratches on my legs, and the shots we’d hoped to get in the sunset barely happened, but we had a great time anyway. Enjoy these teasers we got this morning!