Holden's birthday party

Today Holden had a party to celebrate his 3rd birthday. A lot of his school and family friends came (more than 20 people). They played outside in the bouncy house, in the playhouse, on the seesaw, and on the playscape. The kids also played inside in the playroom, Sophie's room, and the family room. After playing, lunch was served. Of course, birthday cake was a part of the lunch. Opening presents came last, but Holden would've rather done that first.

Click here to see pictures from Holden's party. I didn't post all of the pictures, just some of them.

BIG NEWS!

Christina called this week to tell me that Joseph has received his orders to report to Camp Pendleton (near San Diego, CA) in mid-October. They will be leaving Hawaii in mid-September. First they will check in at Camp Pendleton, then begin their drive to visit family in Missouri and Texas. I am thrilled that they will be on the mainland again! Now I'll be able to see them more often!  Joseph will be a Marine Corps instructor at Pendleton. That means he will not be deployed again!! He will spend his last four years at Pendleton before he retires from the military.

What happened to February?

I'm sorry to say that I've been neglecting my blogsite which you probably figured out since I haven't posted anything new. I had a lot going on in late January and all of February.

Most of you know that I flew to Hawaii to be with Chris and her family. She posted pictures on her blogsite while I was there. I sent all of you the link to her site. Needless to say, I has an absolutely WONDERFUL time in Hawaii. I'm not sure who was happiest to see me - Chris or Ryan. Hailey and David didn't really know me since they are so young (H. is almost 3 and D will be 2 in June.) It didn't take long for them to warm up to me. We were good buddies all week. By the end of the week, David was trying to say "Grammy", but it sounded like Baba.

We did some sightseeing the first 3 days I was in Hawaii. After that, Chris was recovering from her oral surgery. In a couple of days she felt well enough to walk to the playground with me and the little ones. Click here to see some pictures of our fun time together.On my last day, Chris drove me to Kailua Beach and the Pali Highway lookout. You can see some of those pictures by clicking here.

When it was time for me to head home, Chris, Ryan, and I were all crying. It was really, really hard to leave! Thank goodness that Joseph drove me to the airport. It also helped that I had a late night flight out of Honolulu (midnight). After about an hour or so in the air, a flight attendant asked over the speaker if there was a doctor on board. (It was just like in the movies!) A few minutes later, the pilot announced that we were returning to Honolulu because of a medical emergency. The reason was because a teen girl was having difficulty breathing (very little respiration and heartbeat). She was on a "Make a Wish" trip to Hawaii with her family. After we landed, the EMT's took the girl off the plane and her family went with her. The flight attendant told me that she didn't think the girl would even live long enough to make it to the hospital. It was a very sad occurrence.

There was some question about whether our flight would be allowed to leave Honolulu. We weren't sure if the pilot had put in too many hours, plus we had to get a new flight plan. It took quite a while before we took off again. The whole ordeal made us about 4 hours late getting into Phoenix. When we landed, we were given boarding passes to our connecting flights. It sure felt good to be on land again! I was SO happy to walk the distance to my departure gate.

The second weekend in February, I attended a regional Creative Memories conference in Tulsa. George wasn't planning on going with me, but since I had been gone to Hawaii for a week, he decided to go with me. We drove up on Friday and came home on Sunday. The best part of the trip was seeing my friends Diane and Linda. We had coordinated our schedules so that we could attend the conference together. It was great to see them again! They asked some people to take pictures of the 3 of us. As soon as I get a copy of one, I'll post it. (hint, hint to Diane and Linda to email the pictures.)

A couple of days after I got back from Tulsa, I had surgery for trigger finger in my right thumb. I was really dreading having to do things left handed for a while. My left thumb still hurts me at times even though I had surgery on it in October. The good news is that my right thumb recovered a lot faster than my left one did. I can do just about everything now with my right thumb. Occasionally it hurts if I overdo things.

That leads me up to the end of February. My younger sister Cindy (along with her husband Patrick and grandson Bradlee) and my brother Denis (with his wife Karen) made arrangements to visit my brother Tony (and his wife Phoebe) in Brownsville, TX. They were all planning on attending the Sombrero Festival there. When I heard that they were coming to TX, I said that I would come too. Jackie and her family and Tony's son (and family) decided to also come. This had turned into a family reunion! The only one of the 5 siblings that wasn't going to be there was my sister Sharon. We worked it out so that she could be there, too!! What a blessing that was to have all of us together. We had a fantastic time being together for a day at the beach on South Padre Island and at the Sombrero Festival. We had some problems with our lodging, but I won't go into that. To see some pictures of our family gathering, click here.