A Fun Evening at the Grocery Store

We may have had a bit too much fun in the grocery store today. Daniel decided he wanted to chronicle our evening out. So the slideshow below will show you just how crazy the Albrecht Squad can be when we go out as a family. I can't tell you the crazy looks we got, people were probably wondering what we were doing, lol. We had a lot of fun. Daniel was the main photographer so please excuse the cutoff heads and weird angles, lol

A picture says more then I could ever write

If I had to describe this picture I would say:

They are my heart and the reason I wake up everyday. They are my tears, my laughter, my smiles, my heart.

My Bassoon Boy

Well the time is finally here...the time to play in band. Michael has chosen to play the Bassoon. We are very excited. It's not a common instrument and it's usually not one a beginner chooses. He was going to play the flute but came home and started asking about other woodwinds and I mentioned the bassoon and after reading up on it, he decided that is what he wanted to play. I am all for it, I played the bassoon in junior high and had fun with it. It has a great sound to it and Michael has the double reed mastered. I am excited that in a few months him and I can play duets as I dug out my flute and have played with them. I hope that all three of my boys can have an appreciation for music and will enjoy it throughout their life.

Here he is with his basoon.

I'm Angry

I am angry. I am livid, angry, pissed, however you want to put it. I just got done sitting at our dining room table explaining to my three boys who are 11, 9 and 6 what 9-11 is all about. My kids are almost too young to really remember that day, heck my youngest was barely weeks old when it happened. At school they had a ceremony to commemorate 9-11. Guess what, my kids had no clue what it's about. They wanted to know why. This is not a simple explanation. I am angry that I have to explain to my kids what terrorists are. I am angry that my kids want to know who Osama Bin Ladin, Sadaam Hussein and what Al Queda are. I am angry that I had to explain what hijacking, terrorist cells, suicide bombers and IEDs are.
I am angry that my sensitive 11 year old shed tears about the people killed. Not just the many who died in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the field in DC but the troops who have died since then serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am angry that they now see the bigger picture. I could have just given them a simple explanation...if one existed. I cannot lie to my kids. They are not pacified with a oh people died or it was a tragedy in NYC. I am angry that to our family 9-11 isn't something that happened away from us that we can "never forget" the other 364 days of the year. My kids see their daddy training, they know he goes to Iraq. They know it's dangerous, I'm angry that I have to explain why. I am angry that I cannot promise that daddy will be safe when he goes back next year. I'm angry that I had to explain all this to them by myself without my husband home because he is in the field preparing for deployment train-up.

I am angry.

I just had to vent and I don't expect people to share my thoughts or feelings but I am angry that my kids innocence was stripped and I want to sit and bawl about it but I can't because I need to be their strength and rock.

9-11

Well I was just going to copy and paste my blog from last year because I figured I pretty much feel the same way. But as I've gone throughout my day I've had lots of other thoughts so I'll probably still copy and paste but I'll start off with some new thoughts.

It's hard to believe that it's been 6 years. Time is a funny thing. 12 years ago yesterday (9-9) I found out I was pregnant with my oldest son. How much life changed that day. Six years ago another life altering event happened.

I wasn't in NY, DC or PA but that day changed the course of our life. Some people don't think that 9-11 and our current war situation are related and I'm not here to get into political talk but I don't understand how people think that. What I do know is that the military changed on 9-11. We went from the train as you "would" fight mentality to a "we're going to war" mentality.

We were stationed at Fort Riley, KS that awful day. I know it was a scary day but seriously sometimes I look back and I have to laugh at the chaos. The rumor mill was flowing and some of the things that people were saying were crazy. All of a sudden Fort Riley was a target and people were freaking out. I was sad for my kids and the future they now had. I remember leaving post to go pick up a friend's daughter to babysit her for the day. I had just been off post and was able to go on and off. I thought it would only take about 15 minutes so I left my two youngest boys who were 3 1/2 and 2 months old with a neighbor. I could not get on post for 4 1/2 hours. Not a fun time with two kids under 5 and a starving 2 month old left with the neighbor. As I sat in my van that day with my t-shirt soaked from missing two feedings, I was so angry at how our life was being changed. I was angry that I was not able to get to my child who was only 5 miles away from me. I suppose that was a small indication of what life would be like in the future, the separations to come.

Later that evening after numerous phone calls from friends and family about how this would affect us, I was drained. Kevin was at Drill Sergeant School in Missouri so we weren't able to be there for the physical support we both needed. Michael who was only 5 at the time crawled on the couch and asked me if me and his daddy were going to be killed or hurt. My heart broke to hear his question. I asked him why he thought such a thing and he told me it was because people hated America and Soldiers were America's police. At the time I was still in the Reserves and our unit had been called up. The part that made me so angry about his question was that I could not assure him that we wouldn't be hurt or worse because I just didn't know.

Here we are 6 years later and what is it that I know now that I didn't know then? I know that 9-11 has hurt Kevin and I. It has hurt us deeply. It has taken the innocence of my children, it has taken away our security. We are an Army family, a title we bear proudly but one that comes with much sacrifice. My children have had to watch their daddy pack up his belongings and go to war. I have had to fend off the questions of whether daddy will come home alive and keep it together when I answer "I don't know, we just need to pray". My children know kids who's daddies won't come home, they know of our friends who will not be coming back from Iraq the way they left. They know there is always a chance that daddy will go away and not come back.

I know that we lost over 3,000 on that day alone but the sacrifice did not end there, since then we have lost over 4,177 more, at least six of those being people I knew personally. Six might not seem like a big number but I beg you to ask the families of those six special men and tell me that their sacrifice was not significant!

So anyway, that is my ramble for this year's blog. I could write this blog any day of the year as I don't have the luxury of pushing 9-11 into the back of my mind. I'm reminded daily when I watch my husband put on his uniform and go off to "train-to-fight". I'm reminded daily when I look down at the black bracelet I wear always that bears the names of two men who made the sacrifice to defend our nation against another 9-11.

God Bless America and all who sacrifice to keep it free.