Row, Row, Row your boat

David's ship has spent the last several months in the shipyard undergoing an overhaul. It has been a long process with a LOT of long hours! On Wednesday, we got to go down to the waterfront and watch the tugboats push this massive aircraft carrier down the river! It was quite a site. For those of you that have not seen a carrier in person, here are a few details:

• It is 1092ft in length
• It houses more than 3000 sailors on a regular basis and adds another 2500 during deployment times! That is nearly 6000 sailors on one ship! It is really hard to fathom!
• During deployment times, it also houses 90+ fixed wing aircraft and helicopters!

So, now imagine this large ship being pushed by several little tug boats down a RIVER! It is amazing! The kids really enjoyed watching! They had a lot of fun seeing "Daddy's ship."

The ship as it approached us

Notice the "little people" on the flight deck

Goodbye shipyard...Hello workups!

So, another chapter begins in our story! The shipyard is long and hard for the crew...especially the reactor department! But the nice thing about the shipyard is that our sailors are able to return home for dinner on a somewhat regular basis. Now we start "workups." Workups are all the little trips the ship takes out to sea to receive special qualifications and certifications in order to be ready to go on deployment. Begining this week, the ship is out to sea for varying lengths of time. Sometimes the ship is only gone for a few days at time. Other times it is gone for over a month at a time. We have done this before, but the kids were much younger and handled it quite well. Now they notice more when Daddy is gone. They whine for him when they don't like what I am telling them. They even blame their bad behavior on his being gone! (So far only Ian has pulled that one on me! But I know that Isabelle is a quick learner!)

Needless to say, this will be a challenging time! I am hopeful, however, that we will not have to live through the entire workup period as we are working on getting orders to leave here! Orders can not come soon enough at this point!

Don't get me wrong, I have great friends, a great church, the kids are in great schools, etc. There is just something tugging at both David and me telling us it is time to go! We are hoping we will get to see what that is in the VERY near future!

No matter what is in store for us, we know that God has an amazing plan for us! Life attached to the USS Theodore Roosevelt has been quite an adventure and we know that God won't disappoint us with our next adventure!