New pics of Kellyn

Chillin' with the pacy

All laid back and relaxed

What a cute face!

Our short vacation

Our very short vacation seemed to consist of a LOT of driving with a few short interludes in between and sleeping in a different bed every night.

We actually made it from Atlanta, Georgia to Beaumont, Texas in one trip. I wasn't sure at first that that would actually happen but it went rather smoothly. But it sure takes a LONG time to get through Louisiana.

On Friday, we got up mid-morning and got cleaned up and dressed and met my family for lunch at Alisa's family's home. That was fun with lots of people meeting who had never met before. Especially seeing my mom meet her newest great-granddaughter (thanks to Janet for the picture).

I thought Tara did really well being around so many new people. She seemed to enjoy getting down on the floor and crawling around with Grace and then playing (banging) on the piano.

I didn't take many pictures at the wedding - I guess because I knew Garrick was taking pictures. I'm really looking forward to seeing those pictures (HINT, HINT). I did get a nice one of Stephanie holding Grace and Jennifer with Kellyn. I have other shots where you can actually see Stephanie's face (such a nice face, to quote from one of Tara's Elmo videos!) but in this one Grace was actually looking at Kellyn and seemed to be interested in her.

What a week!

I meant to get back to the blog before now, but it's been such a tiring week for us. As we were traveling back to Georgia on Monday, Michael started feeling bad. I started driving somewhere in Mississippi. At first, we thought he just had an upset stomach but then he started experiencing a lot of abdominal pain. The closer we got to home, the worse it got. He originally wanted to just get home so he could lay down, but then the pain got much worse and he actually asked me to take him to the hospital.

I had my suspicions and they were confirmed after he had a CT scan at the hospital. Kidney stone! They got him on pain meds and laying down so he was soon feeling a lot better. Armed with prescriptions, we got out of the hospital about 10:30 that evening.

He insisted on going to work the next day so I had to drive him there and pick him up, since the doctor told him not to drive while taking the pain meds (Percoset).

The rest of the week passed with him feeling not too bad but not great either. By Thursday afternoon he was feeling feverish and having chills. After talking to our "family doctor" (my SIL's boyfriend/significant other, who is an ER doctor), I called Michael's urologist and finally got a call back about 10:15 that night. When he found out what was going on, he told me to take Michael to the hospital immediately. We got there and they finally got him into a room and did urine/blood tests. The urine test showed a UTI but the blood test came back clean - a very good thing. No kidney infection! If there had been a kidney infection, he would have been admitted and would have been facing some kind of procedure the next day to clear out the kidney.

cute photos

Monday

As I type this, Nathan is on a plane heading first to Germany and then on to Afghanistan. He says it will be about a week before they actually get to their final destination. The FOB (forward operating base) they will be at is named Fortress - supposedly because it has really high walls.

I've tried not to think about it too much today. I had one last phone call with him late last night - I was wide awake after sleeping so much over the weekend with the cold/sinus infection I came down with.

It will be awhile before we hear anything from him. I'm hoping that he will be able to get Internet access after he gets settled at the base. I already know that letters take some time to go back and forth.

This is going to be a tough time to get through.

new baby photos

Jennifer and AJ had photos done while he was home. They had to pack so much into the short time he was here. Jennifer was on the go constantly, which was pretty amazing to me for someone who had just had a baby.

Anyway, I scanned the photos and wanted to post them to share with everyone.

This one is my favorite

Catching up

The trip last weekend wore me out. It's taken me several days to feel like myself again. I guess that's part of getting older. **sigh**

Jennifer and I went to the New Baby Products store to pick up something she had ordered. They had a baby scale in the store so Jennifer got Kellyn weighed. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 7 ozs, so she seems to be doing quite well. She's sleeping for 3 to 4 hours at a time now and staying awake for longer periods of time.

I enjoyed seeing Nathan last weekend but it was also sad to think that I won't see him (except for his leave) until after his 23rd birthday. I thought he would have a 12-month tour but it's going to be a 15-month tour (going back to 12-month tours doesn't happen until August 1).

Nathan at Ft. Hood

Nathan got to meet Kellyn for the first time - he was almost afraid to hold her because she's so small.