February

February is going to be a good month. I'm judging that by the fact that today is the first day of the month and its the first day in almost 2 months where I've had absolutely NOTHING to do! Its a fantastic feeling, especially since I have been so stressed and overwhelmed lately.

As for other good things during the shortest month of the year:

~In less than 2 weeks I'm on my way home to New Jersey. I'm excited because the last time I went home was in October, and that was for my Grandma's funeral, so it wasn't exactly a happy vacation. This time its to visit my other set of Grandparents who are turning 80 (Grandma in February and Grandpa in March). My grandparents have been pretty bummed for the past few years because I have been moving around and not living anywhere close to NJ and my mom moved to Georgia a few years ago. Couple that with the fact that my aunt lives in Vermont, and they have no family nearby anymore. Its sad to me because the few times that I have seen my grandparents, my grandfather always cries and tells me how much he misses me. I've always been really close to this set of grandparents so its so hard for me to see him like that. Anyway, my mom is planning a surprise 80th birthday party for them. They know that my mom will be coming into town and taking them out to dinner. They don't know that I'll also be in town and thats the surprise :-). My mom wants to keep it a secret that I am coming out there for a few days so I'm getting excited. I know they are going to be thrilled to see me and I'm thrilled that I am going to see them! The only downside is that Mr. V can't come with me so I'll miss Valentine's Day. I guess we can always celebrate earlier or later though.

~Less than a week after getting back from New Jersey I'm off to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I figured that since I live closer to Canada than to Seattle, then I might as well try to get tickets to the winter games. I've loved watching figure skating in the Olympics since I was a little kid, so I hunted out some tickets for ice dancing and will be headed that way on the 19th. Mr. V is less than thrilled about going to see figure skating, but since he wasn't nearly as excited as I was about the Olympics being so close, he just went along with it. He's not sure if he'll be able to get off of work to go with me (and he won't know until the night before...grrr), but thankfully I have a friend who will be my "backup" if he can't make it. I doubt he'll be too upset if he misses figure skating though :-).

~And finally, about a week ago Mr. V passed his PPC board (Patrol Plane Commander). For P3's this is the farthest he can advance job wise in the actual plane (its not a rank promotion). This means that I will hopefully be able to see a little more of him this month. Each advancement requires hours upon hours of studying so I feel like I actually talked to him more when he was in Iraq, than I have since he's been home. So thankfully, while I'm sure he'll still be overworked, at least he won't have to hide away in a room on base to study anymore. Maybe I'll really have my husband back now :-).

And that's February for me! Hopefully it will continue to be a happy month!