The music of the moment ...

It's a Thursday afternoon. The spring weather has quickly turned to chill, and the wind howls outside.

Kenni Kinsey, 18, is home, on a brief break between school and play rehearsal for "Beauty and the Beast." Her graduation announcements are piled at the edge of the dining room table, but they'll have to wait.

Her dad, Paul Kinsey, has just picked up his guitar. He leans against the door jam and starts to strum the notes. Kenni sits in a chair beside him and drums a beat by slapping her palms against her legs.

"Listen to the music of the moment baby sing with me. We're just one big family," they sing.

It's a common occurrence, Rachelle Kinsey says. Her husband grabs his guitar and Kenni sings along. It happens so often, she's stopped noticing.

But these are the moments, Paul said, he's come to appreciate most.

"Things other people wouldn't even notice, like just hanging out or driving," he said.

He notices them because he knows how many he's missed and how many more he won't have. Kinsey, 44, a master sergeant in the Nevada National Guard, is deploying to Afghanistan with the 1/221st Cavalry on April 18.

It will be his third deployment since the war on terror began. He served at Fort Irwin from August 2004 to July 2006. That same July, he deployed to Iraq where he served until July 2007.

"From that time he was gone, it was like there was a gap in our relationship," Kenni said. "We were just starting to fill in that gap and rebuild, and now there's going to be another gap. It's like Jenga fell over."

Paul " who joined the National Guard 23 years ago as a means to pay for school but stayed for the camaraderie and responsibility it taught him" feels a sense of guilt at leaving.

"I'm packing and organizing my gear, but I try to keep it out of sight so it's not in everyone's faces," he said. "In my opinion, it's harder on the family. The soldier trains for the job and they're with friends doing the job they were trained to do. There is no basic training or boot camp for the family to deal with it."

But Rachelle doesn't want her high school sweetheart worrying about her and their only child while he's at war.

"I'm a pretty independent person, so I do a lot of things on my own anyway," she said. "We try to step it up and do our part to make him feel like we can handle it and that we're OK."

He keeps in contact with his family mostly through e-mail, but also likes to receive the occasional letter.

"It's something they actually had in their hands," he explained. "Something they touched."

Before going to Iraq, Kinsey's squadron will go to training at Camp Atterbury, Ind.

He's hoping to get a four-day leave from there to attend Kenni's graduation from Carson High School.

"That will be a priority for me," he said. "I've already missed so many of her things " her eighth-grade graduation, her sweet 16, multiple plays."

The first thing he did when he came home from Iraq, he said, was watch three years' worth of his daughter's performances on DVD.

Kenni recently completed her role as the Cat in the Hat for a nearly six-month run of "Seussical the Musical" with the Wildhorse Children's Theater. Paul watched nearly every show.

"When you're older, that's when it really means something to you to have people watch you," said Kenni, who's been involved in drama since preschool.

After high school, Kenni plans to attend Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno and ultimately pursue a career in acting.

Paul knows things will be different when he gets home. Kenni's life is on the cusp of change he won't be there to see.

"It's a part of life that kids grow up," he reasons.

But in this moment, they're singing together: "There's no need to complicate. Our time is short. This is our fate, I'm yours."

4,051: Nevada National Guard members " 2,935 Army and 1,116 Air

- Currently deployed National Guard members: 333

- Soldiers deploying with the 1/221st Cavalry Squadron: More than 600. About 430 of them are from Nevada, others will come from Arkansas, Georgia and Guam.

- Soldiers deploying with the 1864th Transportation Company: 160