Danielle and I just bought a new bright-red high-tech three-wheeled stroller for Sean because we try to go for a walk every day. Trust me. We needed it. Newport was founded in 1639, and I think some of the sidewalks are almost as old as the city. Some are concrete, some are brick, and some are gravel. Some curbs are stroller-friendly and some most definitely are not.

Anita’s post about their United Through Reading experience got me thinking how lucky Danielle and Sean and I are. Being a Navy family we go back and forth between sea tours and shore tours, and shore tours are a real treat after the 60-80 hour workweeks and frequent week-long underways common to shipboard life. And that’s not even counting the six-month deployments.

Danielle is currently taking advantage of the Navy’s 18/12 Graduate Education Voucher (GEV) program to get her MBA in a year. That means she doesn’t have to get up and go to the office every day. She doesn’t have to put a uniform on (except for the twice-a-month musters to make sure no one has dyed her hair blue). And, since we’re both working from home, we get to experience Sean’s first year together.

We wake up when the baby wakes up - and that’s usually around six or seven o’clock, so it’s not like we’re sleeping in. We have breakfast at the house or go down to the corner diner, and then we spend the rest of the day working at the house and taking care of Sean.

Because we’re a military family, we realize how rare family time can be.  We try to maximize the time we have now by doing pretty much everything together. Anita’s post really reinforced the importance of this for me. There’s no substitute for spending time with the ones you love.