When soldiers are away, Army families find what makes them special and what sets them apart from the rest of the world. In our Army Family world, we got busy taking part in making memories: memories for ourselves, memories with our Army family, memories for our soldiers.
Lily, Emma and I helped our unit stuff Christmas Stockings for each soldier in John's unit. We had a chance to see Santa that day - almost every kid their asked Santa for their Daddy to come home safely...Santa was touched! :-) Lily and Emma rolled up their little sleeves and each manned a stuffing station - they did awesome, I was really proud!
A few days later The Ladies of our FRG (Family Readiness Group) had the priviledge of getting the barracks ready for our single soldiers. We had snacks and drinks for each room, a few small toiletries and we made each bed, placed a card and put a little love into it! Most of these soldiers are young boys and we made sure the room they came home to was ready for a good night sleep. The woman I had the priviledge of working with this deployment are truly amazing - they love soldiers and that is why they do it! Each worked hard to have huge quantities of items donated for our soldiers. All with a smile on their faces....a memory of deployment that I treasure as unique and special!!
One of our friends returned home from deployment with his family unable to meet him. We got to be a special part of their memories by being the "stand in" family. All 5 Moris's showed up for our friend Scott with a picture on a stick of each of Scott's family! We gave him his first hug and took lots of pictures and video clips so that his family could welcome him home! Emma felt very responsible with the task of giving M's Daddy his first hug in her place! Beautiful!! We love our friends!
Our neighbors have been the friends that God has placed in our lives to take care of us! Anne, Haley and Madeline are special to us - friends that we will have in our lives forever! Those friends become your family and we couldn't help but join them in their excitement when their Daddy Sean came home too! 
I could probably write a book on Memories you make during a deployment. Deployments are hard on families, no doubt. But, we love finding out what we are made of, how we can serve others in our midst and seeing what is special about the life that we uniquely live. Our prayer is that God is honored in our actions and a big part of our very special life!
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