So this is an exciting weekend that's coming up. Ed and I are reaching the halfway point in this deployment in a few days, and hopefully it will be his last deployment so I never have to deal with this again. (Maybe I will, maybe I won't, I don't know. But I will always pray that I don't ever have to do this again 'cause it's really not fun..) Esther is also coming home today! . We're going to hang out tomorrow and share some pictures from Bok Towers (mine) and Costa Rica (hers). I'm trying to get my dad to scan the ones from Bok Towers so I can upload them on here but so far no luck. There's two really nice ones that would be perfect with my new layout on here too. Hopefully I can get that done real soon. After we hang out and just basically chat for a bit, we're going to sit on Josiah's Truth Project meeting. I've been to it before and it's really cool, I just can't drive to St. Cloud every Saturday night and again on Sunday mornings. (If I drove myself, that'd be different.) I'm also going to get information about Cornerstone's mission trip. Apparently they've already started having a few meetings for it, says Josiah. I might still get a chance to go though, I don't think they have had *that* many meetings yet. And Esther might come too! Her plans to stay in California over the summer don't seem to be working out the way she'd hoped, but I would love to hang with her all summer in St. Cloud or Ecuador. If I don't go to Ecuador, I'm going to apply for the internship, I guess. (Is there a deadline for that?) I gotta talk to Pastor Karl; I also need to have him redo my reference form for Trinity College cause I lost it when he sent it back to me. This time I'm going to give him a fully addressed envelope so he can send it straight to the school. (That's actually what he was supposed to in the first place, but I forgive him. I didn't give him the envelope like I was originally supposed to, so it's not totally his fault..)

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I just found out early this morning, my fiances tour of duty in Iraq may be extended for another 4 to 5 months. He's already been over there for about 7. I'm praying my fiance's extension won't actually happen, but I have some doubts. Stupid military!!

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So this weekend started out great. Esther came home and we got to hang out on Saturday. We also discussed some of our plans for the next few months-none of them are one hundred percent yet. She gave the idea of me staying with her in the dorms and going to classes with her at Trinity College for a week or two in April. That would be fun-I'd get to see what it's like to be away at college before I'm actually away at college come August/September. She might stay here in St. Cloud over the summer and intern at Cornerstone which would definitely give us a lot of hang out time together-I hope she does that. Her original plan was to spend the summer in California with her grandma and her cousin, but it doesn't really look like that's going to work out. She's still trying to make up her mind though. There's so many things she wants to do. I'm definitely still trying to go to Ecuador; I've got a meeting tonight with the missions group. Yeah, I finally found who I needed to find for that, yay!! Hopefully that works out so I can have something confirmed for the summer.

Sunday was okay-that's when I found who I needed to find, and I got the house to myself that afternoon which was way cool. I love having the house to myself. I did miss bible study though; my parents actually wanted it to be family movie night, but I wasn't interested in any movies that are out right now. Next weekend, I want to see..um, something that I can't remember the title of right now..

Anyways, just when we reached the halfway mark in our first deployment-there's bad news. Ed starts hearing that they may have to stay overseas another 4 or 5 months beyond their originally anticipated return date. . I immediately see the downside to this, but Ed, optimist he is, sees the good to an extended tour in Iraq. He'll have less time left in the Army when he does return, and less chance of redeployment. I'll also get to stay at school with Esther for a couple more months. I still don't want his tour extended though--I miss him so much; I want him home NOW.

Oh, and to top off this weekend, my cat has gone missing. We're not sure if she's run away or she's just hiding, but someone left the backdoor open long enough for either cat to escape. We got Scrappy back indoors, but Addie is still missing.

[Thanx for the prayers ikamashokie, hikarixgaki, and Nuttz.]
{Edit: We found Addie; she was hiding.}

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So I found out at church last night that Sydney is going to be having two surgerys, one this month and another next month. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE when people I know and love are in hospitals..mostly because I can't stand hospitals. I guess that fear comes from the fact that the first person I ever visited in the hospital, my grandma, passed away that same night. Okay, well now I'm scared..and her first surgery isn't until Apr 17th. But that's not really that far from now.. I won't say what the surgeries are because I don't really know, just that it's something to do with her heart like missing a valve or something, and her ribcage needing to be pushed down or whatever. You add that on top of my other worries, the ones about whether or not Ed will have to stay an extra four to five months in Iraq, and I'm bound to be hysterical. I had to leave and go to the restroom after everybody prayed for Sydney just so I could be alone and cry. I was already on the verge of tears before I found out about the surgeries 'cause I keep thinking about something that Ed said while he was here on R&R. Something he considered doing but didn't..I won't expand on that, but I can't stop wondering how different everything would've been had he done it. God, I don't know. I need someone to talk to right now; I want to talk to Ed, I hope he gets online tonight so I can talk to him. I miss him so much right now. Pray for them, okay? And that I'll get some sort of peace in the very near future and learn how to deal with all of it.

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Stupid computers-stupid internet. The cable went out last night, so I wasn't able to get online to talk to Edward. And wouldn't you know... that's the night he actually gets on! I emailed him from my phone to tell him my cable was out, but I haven't clue as to whether or not he got and read those messages. I really wanted to talk to him last night too. I wanted to tell him about how I got into Trinity College, and how about excited I was. I wanted to tell him about how Esther and I have set a tentative tent for me to go and visit her at Trinity in a few weeks. I want to tell him that my dad has almost got the webcam working-he found the software and everything, but Yahoo Messanger is saying it's behind a firewall and can't allow it to run. Even when the firewall is disabled! There are so many other things I wanted to talk to him about, and I didn't get to last night because the cable was out. You have no idea how irritated I am right now. And not even a quick email, a quick comment on my page or my last blog to let me know he's thinking about me, and may have gotten my messages about getting into Trinity and the cable going out? Hmph. This week is so a high and low week--and it's barely even Tuesday morning. I found out on Sunday that Sydney is having two surgery's over the next couple of months, on Monday I find out that I got into Trinity and will get to go to school with Esther in August--but the cable goes out so I can't even tell Edward, the one night he get on after a couple days of not getting online. Makes me wonder what kind of news Tuesday will bring..if any. Hopefully it'll all just be good news from here on out--that'd be nice! I hope I get to talk to Ed soon, cause I've got a lot of things I want to say, to get off my mind and off of my chest..so yeah. That's all I've got say for today..Love, Laura Almenas.

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So, I've talked to Esther, and I'm definitely going over to Trinity next week[end]. She was even able to get me free food vouchers! . I love Esther; she's one of the few people that can cheer me up just by saying "Hello" whenever I call her. I needed that last night. I can't wait to see her again and just hang out; I miss her!!!

About yesterday's blog...um..I got an email that Ed's unit is most definitely getting an extention. . . We were expecting, sure, but it still sucks. I just want him to hold me real close and real tight right now; I just wanna cry in his arms. And I can't!! I hate this right now. I can't wait for this whole thing to be over.

Esther has been saying she's going to help keep me busy over the summer when she's here, and that school will definitely help the time move along much quicker. I hope she's right. I really hope she is. I've got some stuff planned for June, like Vacation Bible School at FUMC, and -maybe- SuperWow again this year. I don't know, SuperWow is fun and all, but I feel a little too old for it. It's more aimed at high schoolers, not college students.

July may be a long month though. I know some people I definitely wanna hang out with this summer, maybe have a few beach days in July, assuming they stay here for the summer. At Cornerstone last summer, they had a few activities throughout the summer, like bowling and ice skating..maybe they'll have that again this year? That'd definitely be a time killer.

Also, job hunting is horrible. Nobody's called me back and I NEED a summer job. I need money for school next year, dangit. And I don't qualify for too many scholarships..though I'm going to apply for all of the ones that I can. Pray for that, k?

So yeah...that's my blog for the day. Sorry I haven't written in a while; I'm sort of going back and forth between blogging and writing in my notebook (which got totally trashed yesterday when it fell in the tub!!).

Love, Laura Elizabeth

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