This weekend Paula and I had the privilege to go to Ft. Carson and donate 500 books to the little ones. We read our stories, asked some questions and got some wonderful hugs! Here are a couple of the people that helped us do that, friends from the West Childcare Development Center on Ft. Carson, as they assemble the books with dogtags to pass out to the children there

After the passing out of the books , we heard of a tradition there are Ft. Carson that we had never heard of before. We were told that if we came back to the post late at night, 300 or more soldiers were coming home from Afghanistan! The tradition is, that as the busloads of soldiers come in the gates, the firetrucks, lights flashing , horns blowing, drench the buses with water, symbolizing the washing off of the dirt of foreign soil and welcoming them back home.

Because this particular homecoming was happening inthe middle of the night, families anxiously awaited their arrival at the event center about a half mile from the gate’s roundabout. The only ones to witness the firetrucks and that part of the celebration, were one little boy and his mother, and these two grandmas!

As we joined the families of our brave service-members, we were struck with the beauty of the welcome. Prayer, the Army song, a reverence for the completed mission and thanks to the families who had endured or lost. Then a joyous reunion of smiles, snapshots, laughter, hugging and tears. What a privilege to be there.

As we left I thanked a young soldier and asked if he would mind if I gave him a hug. I had never gotten to see the homecoming of my own boy, twice from Iraq. He obliged me.

Welcome home each and every one. Thank you, from all of us, for the work you do and have done. May God bless and keep you, and your families!

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Here it is! We are so excited! This is a great coloring book, substantial in size and feel, and just fun!
We think that kids will love these. The Military phonetic alphabet is great for them to learn, the coloring pages full of humor , with the well loved characters of We Serve too!

Since my grandkids are the We Serve Too! kids, I can’t wait to give them each a coloring book of their own tonight, so cool to have a coloring book with you as the star!

These books would be great for a birthday party, a pre-deployment kids day, a way to keep military kids busy on vacation, a fun way to introduce civilian kids to some things military, a way to teach kids a new way to clarify what they say , a way for new recruits to have fun learning the military alphabet! On an on I can think of ways these coloring books could be used.

The books are 3.00 each, which makes them an affordable way to entertain the kids.
To order call Complete Book and Media at 1-800-986-1775

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Today we had lunch with our dear friend Elaine Dumler. Her books   I’m already Home… Again, and her newest, The Road Home, are staples in the Military world. These books give helpful tips, advice and stories of real life Military Families and how they cope with deployment and reunion.

Paula and I are blessed with not only a great business relationship with Elaine (she carries our books in packages with her books),but we share the passion to help and address the struggles common to all Military Families. http://www.imalreadyhome.com/cart.htm :this link takes you to Elaine’s store page that features several packages that have books on deployment, reunion or both, for adults and children to help smooth the rocky road of being separated from loved ones.

If it were not for Elaine’s support and coaching, we would never have had the joy of publishing books that reach the littlest members of the Military Family. We hope you will visit her website and check out all the helps and offerings there!http://www.imalreadyhome.com/index.html

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Today we hear that our son has orders. He has not even been home two weeks, and already they have decided on his leaving. This is not a complete surprise, since we know as a Military Family, this is how it works. I guess I had hoped for some breathing room!

He has an apartment, one that he now does not need to worry about decorating, or buying anything for. After a year away in Iraq, we had visions of sugerplums dancing in our heads, that maybe he might be here for Christmas. Instead it seems December he will be embarking on a brand new adventure, one I hope will be a good one.

Germany seems to be a theme in this family . My parents were stationed in Berlin in WWII, my daughter has a new boyfriend that is a german citizen, and now Justin is heading there as well. Three years seems a bit long, but I remind myself that we do not honestly know what  a day will bring, no sense griping about anything that far reaching. Who knows what will happen? Maybe we will all get an opportunity to see that beautiful country. Maybe he will find that this was a fabulous place to get to know.

The Army is an exciting ride, even when your heart wishes they would slow down a little and let you have your soldier once in awhile! It won’t be easy, but as our book We Serve Too! A Child’s Deployment Book says “our family’s tough!”

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The long year of praying and waiting is coming to a close. Justin will be coming home very soon and we can’t wait! It wasn’t long ago that he was back on leave, but this time he will be back on American soil…at least for awhile! We never know what the next thing will be, but our little ones will get to be with daddy again, and that is worth all the waiting.

I was thinking about our book We Serve Too!2 A Child’s Reunion Book, and feeling that though it is never easy to negotiate the changes in life, it sure helps to know you are not alone. We hope as we get our books into the hands of little ones, that this is something they learn. Soon we will be living some of the things in the book, and for now, we just look ahead to that still obscure date in September!

We have had two wonderful reviews lately. I am putting them here so that if you are considering our books for your own young ones, or as a gift, you can get opinions other that mine and Paula’s! If you want to get more testimonials, just check our website .

http://excellentorpraiseworthy.org/2009/08/children-serve-too-2/

http://cwahm.com/wordpress/2009/cwahm-columnists/ideas-and-resources-to-help-kids-cope-with-deployment/

P.S. As I typed the final letter and posted this blog, the phone was ringing….He’s HOME!!!! Justin is back in the U.S.ofA.!  I can’ begin to tell you how happy I am, except to say that the hour and a half I just spent on the phone was like being a kid in a candy shop! I wish we all could have been there at his base in Virginia for his homecoming, but in two weeks, we will get our homecoming here in Colorado! WooHoOOO!!!!

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Well, Paula and I had an interview with our local paper about We Serve Too! It was an interesting time with a very nice reporter who sat with us at the kitchen table. Paula’s cat decided that not enough attention was being paid to the house feline, and walked past the french door windows with his catch…a squirrel he had successfully hunted.

Short of that, we had a nice visit and look forward to the story coming out next week. The photographer came today to get a shot of us in the barn. This had to be a quick photography session because we were having wild weather and possible tornado in the area, which as anyone knows, is just a little more exciting than two grandmas who have written a couple of books. We understand completely, and breathed a sigh of relief, when our photographer did not fall off the table he was on to get the right angle.

Well, it has been a fun experince really, even though we have felt media shy for the last year, and so never pursued any attention. My grandson’s sweet preschool teacher Marsha, was the one who decided that we should get a little press.

We’ll let you know how it goes…we hope it will mean that more little ones will get a book to help the lonely days of deployment and the readjustment times of reunion!

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Some days Paula and I get to really see why we wanted to write books for Military children. Those are the days we get the blessing of spending time with the kids! On Tuesday, we travled to Ft. Carson, Colorado to read our books to four classes of preschoolers at the Beacon School. We had so much fun!

These children were engaged, polite and of course ,adorable. We loved reading to them and asking them questions. If you have ever been around preschoolers, you know they are very interested in anything new, and Paula and I had been introduced as real authors/illustrators.

I asked the kids in our afternoon group, “who can tell me what deployment means?” Preschoolers are a bit unprecitable, and I was not sure what the answer would be, these kids live on base and many have parents who are deployed . At first no hands went up, then a little boy raised his hand and said: “It’s when your Mom takes you to the doctor”….Ohhh, an APPOINTMENT…yeah that does sound the same! We then explained that deployment is when dad or mom has to go away to work for while…Oh, OK.

We read the stories and sang our song “The Creed of a Soldiers Child. Then becasue sitting still is not a preschoolers best thing, we sang and marched together.

A big Thank You Salute to Charoltte Nal who invited us to visit, and has been so encouraging to us in regard to our books. Also to the dedicated teachers who allowed us the time to be with the children they get to enjoy every day. Thank you to Mike Neustedter who took the photos of us with the kids to document our visit. Lastly, a thank you salute, to each of the little ones to whom our books are written.

Paula and I love this part of our adventure in books, meeting the wonderful people who serve too, those who support our troops and their families as they serve our nation. Thank you Beacon School for a wonderful day!

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Paula and I and our small team, (the two of us, Ramona Baker and Beth Johnson), had a fabulous time in Wyoming last week!

We had the privilege of spending two days with 11 military kids at Warren AFB . One part of our program, consisted of preparing and making the Homecoming Boxes. We have a game we play with the Homecoming Box Paula and I have made. Inside are 15 items, and as the kids pull out the items that remind us of stories, then we tell them. After a day and a half, the kids still could recite every item that had been in our Box, and the story that went with them. Just goes to show that the Homecoming Box is a great tool to keep those memories alive. The memories will be even more meaningful, when they belong to them!

We also watched the DVD of the first book, and read the second book to the kids. We learned that age is of no real consequence with the We Serve Too! series. Even our oldest kids, age 12, loved and responded to the books, and the conversations about the content.

Our program ran 6 hours, and the kids loved every minute. At one point we showed them how a book was made (” a behind the scenes”, one child said) and then they did what we call “The Book Game” and created and book of their own complete with “blurbs” written by other children in the group.

Each child received a copy both We Serve Too! A Child’s Deployment Book, and a copy of We Serve Too!2 A Child’s Reunion Book. The parents received a Parent Pack: a copy of the Parent Guide for each book, directions to make The Homecoming Box , Tear Bottle, a sample copy of the Sticker Packs and some website information.

We had so much fun, and really enjoyed the wonderful kids we were with. Our best compliment came from one young man, age 11, who turned and said “I sure hope this program is here for my kids!”

Well, you can’t get a better review than that !

Thank you so much, to Denise Rampolla , Robin Gorsuch, and Bill Breckenridge, for inviting us!

I am posting the photos of a couple of the children’s finished Homecoming Boxes, pending permission to post the photos of the children at our Wyoming National Guard Weekend.

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We finally have it in our hands, and it is everything we had hoped it would be!

It is vibrant in color,  is of good quality ,and we are really proud to offer it to the Military Families whose children serve too!

This book is also good for those civilian children as well, who also have hard times missing parents, or coping with difficult feelings.  I will be writing soon about this past weekend, when we were invited to present a program to children at Warren AFB in Wyoming. We met some wonderful kids there. We learned alot of things. One thing was that even older children, age 12, loved the books. This  confirmed what we had hoped… that the whole family can relate to our simple stories, and that it is a catalyst for family conversations.

I can’t wait to post some pictures of our adventures with books, Homecoming Boxes, and all that went into a wonderful weekend! Right now though, we are celebrating our new release, and are thrilled with the reponses we are getting!

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I was thinking that creating and publishing a book , is a little like waiting for a baby . This is an exaggeration of course, because a baby is so much more life changing and precious than a book, but I thought I would share a little of the agony with you. Paula and I have put a years worth of work into this (actually as a good friend said to us, over 50 years of our experiences are being used here, so maybe it has been 50 years in the making!). From the research that makes it relevant to families travelling this road, to the illustrations which we want to capture and draw little eyes and hearts, we have changed, rearranged, prayed and struggled to make the final book something that will be a treasure to Military Families. These books are a reflection of the life of my military grandkids, yet, not totally. It is also a reflection of other Military Families we have been blessed to talk with, things we have read, and of all of you who live deployment and reunion in realtime. Paula and I never knew the in and outs of a children’s book until we began with We Serve Too! A Child’s Deployment Book. Through that we learned about printing, colors, shipping, credit cards, Google checkout and marketing, and the making of a dog tag. Our new book introduced us to more editing, color concerns, paper differences, the endless variations of things that can hold up a printing. We experinced the ordering of a ball that says “You can’t keep us down ,we bounce back!” We also have now experienced a blessing in the form of our book distributor, Complete Book, as they expertly handle our orders and shipping…and are becoming good friends as well. This list is not complete without mentioning the wonderful gift of the families and children we have met along the way, and our deep desire to offer our best for them. As of this moment, a few of the changes that had to be made, have now pushed back our date of having this baby in our hands, but all for the better, each change has improved the book, and now we just wait, and pray it is safely delivered…welcome to the world, We Serve Too!2 A Child’s Reunion Book!

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