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Hello and Goodbye

I just returned home from one week in Kauai with my husband and son. We have been planning this trip since last December as a kind of reward to our son for completing his first year at the Naval Academy. He only had a few weeks off this summer. While all of his friends were coming home from college for the entire summer, he was on a training exercise on YP boats, and then on a submarine somewhere in the pacific ocean experiencing his first "Summer Cruise."

Our Kauai trip was wonderful and true "R&R." We are tanned and rested and now back at work. Our son is now looking forward to his second year at the academy, free from the restrictions of being a first year "Plebe."

As difficult as it always is to let him go, nothing will ever compare with Induction Day last year, when we left him at the Naval Academy for the beginning of "Plebe Summer." Later this week, we will take him to the airport and not see him again until either we travel back east this fall, or wait until Thanksgiving when he comes home. We are fortunate to have had a few weeks together this summer. I got to be a mom, and he got to be my kid again. But on Saturday, he will put his uniform back on, stand a little straighter and taller, and immediately get back into academy mode. Our communications will be by email and short phone calls. My house will be quiet and tidy again. However, I've learned to love the mess for all it stands for.