It's That Time Again!!!

So yesterday was a rough day. You would think that after 21 years of being married to a Coastguardsman I would have gotten use to him getting underway. That is so not the case. I have to say looking back at when we were first married and he would leave I have gotten better in the crying department.I only did it twice this time. I guess what made it a little harder yesterday was the fact that Mark had OOD. His first "official" day. During this last in port he was a "break in" OOD. For those of you that are sitting there reading this going "what the heck is an OOD", it mean Officer of the Day. He is basically in charge of the whole ship. Anyway, so back to my little pity party...so because Mark had OOD, I had to drop him off at the ship around 6ish yesterday morning. To make matters a little worse, they were suppose to leave at 3 pm so liberty expired at 1pm. So others got to spend more time with their hubbies. Oh well, old news now I suppose. So I drove into town to get the boys, because they wanted to see their dad off and since they got out of school at 2pm I had plenty of time to go get them. We made it to the pier around 2:30pm just in time to give him one last quick (and I mean quick) kiss goodbye! The plan was to turn the ship around and do some weight testing on some thingymajigger. To make my long story shorter, they didn't actually leave the pier until 6pm! But I did get to chat with Mark in those 3 1/2 hours we waited. You see every since we were married and he has been on ship, our closure is seeing the ship leave. We have always watched, except for one time when Patrick had an ortho appointment and we missed it. I rememer when Matthew was just a little guy and we were living in Port Angeles. Mark was stationed on the CGC ACTIVE. Matt about 6 years old at the time. We were standing there as the ship pulled away, there was this little old lady standing with us watching (it was a public pier). Matt screams out "please don't take my daddy". The little old lady burst into tears! I am not sure who was crying more, her or Matt. Anyway, so we have always been there. Not quite as long as we were yesterday though. So once the ship started to leave, my friend Trudy and I (and the boys) followed it out of Woman's Bay. Below are shots of the ship leaving, the boys throwing rocks into the bay, the small boat behind the MUNRO. Enjoy and keep an eye out for the homecoming. Because of OPSEC rules, if you are on my Facebook, please don't ask me when they are due home. I will also post some more wonderful snow pictures once it starts falling again next month. NOTE: some of the pictures below were taken by Trudy they are also out of order!

My first Puffin siting. Thanks Trudy for getting a shot in of him!
My handsome husband

MUNRO from Deadman's Curve

Patrick skipping rocks

MUNRO from Deadman's Curve

MUNRO in Woman's Bay

The boys looking for rocks to skip

That would be Patrick

The ship pulling away from the pier Mark is just behind the gun along the railing.

The boys and the MUNRO

MUNRO with the small boat following behind. Trudy and I were wondering if they were every going to let them back on the ship.

This shot was from Jewel Beach