Last-Minute Preparations

Tomorrow JT starts his preacademy. It's a two week long orientation for the academy--that should tell you how difficult academy will be! He went to pick up his uniform today, and then when he got them home he found they didn't quite fit. So he had to go all the way back (it's a long way from our house) and ask them to hem the legs.

Yesterday we bought him this fancy silver Cross pen and pencil set, which is apparently the only pen or pencil he's allowed to use while at academy. So today, I snuck it out of our closet and took it with me to the mall. I got the pen and pencil both engraved with a simple message: "MY HERO." It looks classy and I don't think his instructors will catch the deviation. I just wanted to give him some message of hope and confidence and thought this was the simplest, most meaningful way to do it.

JY is doing very well. She gets cuter all the time. She has long dark eyelashes and a beautiful smile and likes to squeal loudly--it's sort of like the sound a monkey would make if it were trying to quack like a duck! She looks like a princess but sounds like a chimpanzee!

We got her a little jumper yesterday, which she's still too small for but she's having fun with it anyway. She's so wonderful. You can hold her hands and lift her arms up and down and back and forth and she just lets you play with her like a little doll. If we could only all be so flexible, so pliant!

I wish I could spend more time playing with her but I have a lot of chores to do to help JT get ready. There's three loads of laundry, dinner, and shaving his head again (the hair grows so fast!). Plus other odd jobs helping him pack for tomorrow. He's been polishing his gun belt. So much to do!