Family homecoming party

We had a homecoming party for Kelly and some of his nieces and his nephew who had also returned home from school, a church mission, and Chicago. It is always so great to see everyone and their families together and to hear how well everyone is doing.

Finally.

I was in la-la land didn't get too many pics but...

KELLY IS HOME!!!!

I will post a pic as proof, and then come back to tell the tale another time. We are all home and getting Kelly unpacked and settled in.

One Year Later....

Sigh. Gotta love a man in uniform. This was taken right before his departure from the desert.

He will be arriving back in the states this afternoon. We will see him some time next week. But, he is no longer overseas, and that is good news!

Kelly's last webcall from the desert!

He's outta there! Our family will be intact again very soon. He will be in the states, but working on some other projects until next week. We should be reunited with him in the next 10-14 days.

I will let Kelly blog if he wants to give out more info than that.

Happy Easter and Unhappy ER visits

We were lucky enough to be able to share Easter festivities with both sides of the family. We had a great time catching up with Kelly's family at the park, it was fantastic for the kids to see their aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had plans to see another set of family members that day, but Julia had a fever and a headache the night before, and went to see the pediatrician after hours. He cleared us to spend a bit of time at the event at the park, as it was outdoors.

Unfortunately, all did not end up great at the park, Julia came to me and just about passed out in my lap and complained of her neck and head hurting. Without really saying goodbye to anyone, I loaded the kids up in the car and rushed to Valley Children's to their ER. Because of her high fever and other symptoms, we were taken back right away. Her temp was 103.5, and she was very out of it. The ER doc performed some tests on her and concluded she most likely didn't have bacterial meningitis, but it was possible she has viral meningitis. We will never really know for sure. The bacterial kind is life threatening and they admit you, the viral kind they send you home. He didn't want to subject her to the horrors of a spinal tap to deterimine she had meningitis as he was quite certain if she did it wasn't the bacterial type. We were sent home with instructions to call an ambulance if she started to have worsening symptoms.

Julia seems to be on the mend today, a bit on the tired side but otherwise pretty normal. We were able to go over to my parents and dye more eggs and give them their Easter Baskets. We had a wonderful time with them and have one more day off of school for Julia for her to fully recover. As long as she has been fever free for 24-48 hrs she can go back.

Yes, the ticker has moved quite a bit...

...in the last couple of days. You aren't just seeing things. I would say more, but our good friend OPSEC won't let me!

Stay tuned...

Getting so grown up

We were playing around with the camera today, and Julia was striking some fierce poses. She is already quite the heartbreaker in Kindergarten, so we are in big trouble.