Repictured Life: The Summer Days and The Father Days

Minnesotan's have adapted over the years of long winter's and usually beautiful summer's to behave like bear's. Yes, bear's. The winter months come along and their okay. We have Thanksgiving to feed ourselves, we have the first snow fall that is always beautiful, and we have Christmas. After Christmas everyone hibernates unless there is work, drinking, ice fishing, or maybe a hockey game. The residents in this state, myself being the worst, have learned how to only go through the motions during the winter month's. Then something great happens after some rainfall we get a SUMMER! Which happens to be the best time of the year and I love Minnesota for it's summer's it the only things that keeps me here and not backing my bags and tricking my husband into going all the way to California. Believe me when I say, I have plotted and pleaded during the winter......

My first approach on trying to get my husband to leave this state is the guilt trip " Before you asked me out I sold everything I owned and I was about on my way to California" (this is actually a true statement). Then I layer on the excuses "I can't go it's TOO cold" and I repeated that over and over and over and it becomes my answer to everything. Then I add in complaining, " I'm so cold, I need 50 blankets, it's so cold", and I keep turning the heat up as he's calculating the bill in his head. It drives him nuts that the house sits anywhere from 72-74 in the winter and there is 50 blankets on the bed, but I have excuses he can't argue with. Then of course, I make him explain to me over and over again why we live in this cold state that I hate. As he explain's why over and over again. I fantasize about giving him some sleeping pills while I pack and load everyone in the car and when he wakes up we're to far to turn back. Suddenly as we're driving there, I come in to a bunch of money, and we're living in Malibu chasing the dogs on the beach as a family. Every night all the windows in our house are open and we all fall asleep to the waves crashing on the beach. That doesn't happen to be in the cards at the moment.... but then SUMMER! The lakes. warm sun, and the memories are the best.

Finally it's summer and I'm almost sane again, I can finally feel my toes, and both my body and my heart regain warmth! Then something happens, I go insane trying to pack in a year's worth of stuff into a few months. This actually happens to be most of the residents in this state's problem. Trying to pack it all into the warm months. It gets to be an overload. This very reason is why I will have inconsistent blogs all summer long............ Please keep reading there is more to explain!

My husband's work load is the worst during the summer...
My husband hates when I talk about this, but he is a police officer. He does have a hard job! You can hate him or even us for what he does for a living if you want to, but we're normal people. My husband has a job. Yes a JOB. He does not wear his uniform all the time and he is a good person who is a lot of FUN. He does have a job that people no longer respect (Side Note: He doesn't make the law, he enforces it, if you want to fight someone fight your law maker's, you know, those people they call congress person or senator. They create the laws my husband enforces). With being a police officer come crazy shifts which are the easy part. Then you add in court, yes he has to go to court because he arrests people. He has to appear every time a person does not plea out. Also, in the State of Minnesota cops are required to have certain amount of training and have certain standards to keep their Peace Officer License (Minnesota as a state has the highest police standards/ requirements in the country). On top of that, departments have their own training, guild lines and meetings. There is at least some kind of training a couple to a few times a month. It also might not be a written rule, but police officer also work special project shifts and overtime. To add in the daily threat of dealing with crazy people there is a lot to police work people don't even realize because court, training, and overtime are not included in the 40 hour week! I've come to realize that the average person knows nothing about police work. To those that are clueless please keep in mind most departments offer ride-a-longs, try it.
With all this work he already has; he also runs a paintball business with his family. This is his PASSION! This passion includes running the field and a team!!! A fricken paintball team of 25 guys who seem to ask about 50 questions a day! Between the police work, the field work, and paintball team my husband doesn't seem to ever have a free second. When he's not at work. He's on the phone with paintball companies, paintball people, other field owner's and manager's. He reads the paintball websites and the blogs. He keeps up on what is said about his own field. He also runs the fields website, two Facebook pages, and an Instagram. He's creating idea's and making deals on how to be better and busier. Then he has the team and the team has questions, practice, tournaments. They also need guidance, structure, a schedule, equipment, a friend, and a good coach. He also a FATHER and a husband! His plate is beyond full.
All of this creates the phone always going off! Work is always on! Therefore, most of the time everything else is pretty much on me. When there is a period of no blogging or progress it is because I love my husband and he also needs to succeed and I need to succeed as a wife and a mother. Of course, I have my own life and my own goals. Someday I hope to reach them all, but my family will always come first. I am so in love with being a mother and having a family. So much so that sometimes I need to put stuff on hold to support my family sometimes.

To my hard working Husband,
You have been a great new Dad! I'm so proud. You have no idea how much it means to me to see you with our daughter and to be there for her. I watch you work so hard for your family. Nothing you do goes unnoticed even when nothing is said. Thank You for everything you do every day.
Happy Father's Day!