Stephen is home!

Yesterday, June 30th, Stephen came home from his mission! He served for the past two years in San Antonio, Texas. We were so excited! Monday for FHE Lance and George and I made a couple posters to hold at the airport when Stephen arrived. 

Lance and his poster--The people in his poster, starting at the Left:

Mom (me), Lance (in blue), Jude (the red at Lance's feet..."Jude's crawling"), "my little sister" (the pink---not an announcement), Uncle Stephen (blue), the green is Vera (my mom's dog, with a couple puppies), and DaddyG (orange)

George trying his hand at poster-making. Haha!

George had to stay in Charlottesville because of his hospital rotations, but the boys and I loaded up Wednesday morning and drove up to Ashburn. Stephen was supposed to land at 4, but for one reason or another his flight was cancelled and he had to fly stand-by on a later flight. How disappointing! 

We filled in the time with baths, tidying up the house a bit, and--cementing the patio in the back yard?

Jude after his bath. 

Lance helping fill in cement between the top rocks that were loose.

Tyler is so handy! He and Jake mixed cement and fixed the loose rocks on my mom's back porch in the couple of extra hours we had. Lance thought it was incredible and even got to fill in a crack or two.

Chad flew in that afternoon from New York and was going to just stay at the airport until Stephen arrived, but thanks to Amy (who forgot her phone at work, didn't get our messages that Stephen's flight was lost and thus showed up the airport) he made it home to spend an hour or two with us. This was Lance's reaction when he saw him:

We finally got the word that Stephen was on a plane, so about 30 minutes before he landed we all got to the airport. 

Getting ready...

We positioned ourselves in front of the door we knew he would be coming through (according to the baggage claim officials) and waited. A couple flights of people came through the door and then we were getting people from Stephen's flight! We were watching and waiting, and even had the security guard watching to alert us when suddenly...Stephen walks up behind us and taps Amy on the shoulder!

Apparently, he wanted to surprise us, too, and planned accordingly. It was so good to hug him and have him home again!

Mom and son

Lance was so excited to see Uncle Stephen!

Chad and Stephen

Good buddies--Jason and Stephen (and Amy)

Amy and Stephen

Yay!

Uncle Rob, Tyler, and Jake--thanks, guys!

Lance trying on Uncle Stephen's hat

Welcome home, Stephen!

All the kids with Mom and Glenn

Walking to the car with Mom and Glenn

We had all ridden in Mom's 12 passenger van and with Stephen, there were just enough seats for everyone. We squeezed in and Jason drove (yes, my youngest sibling is now driving) us all to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It was so good! If you ever go, get the shrimp scampi. The BEST!

Everyone

Chad and Jude. I needed the extra set of hands because...

Lance was out!

Stephen is one-in-a-million and one of the best people I know. Just ask anyone who knows him. It's been a long two years with lots of changes. We are so excited to have Stephen back home!

Weekly Review

It's been a while since I posted, so here is last week in review:

Monday was a Monday. George was back to work before the crack of dawn (and seeing as dawn is around 4:30 a.m., that's early!) and the boys and I tried to stay busy by going grocery shopping and running errands. Fun!

Tuesday was a full, busy day. We got to go with some friends to our favorite Sprinkler Park that happens to be not a mile from our house. It's brand new, so this was only our second time going. Lance loves it and decided to bring some water guns with him (they were a huge hit!). Even though it was his nap time, Jude played in the water and had a great time splashing in the puddles with some buddies of his.

 

Brothers...

  

Jude loves the water.

 

Squirt gun!

Lance and Killian ganging up on Killian's sister.

 

Water buddies!

 

What good brothers!

George ended up getting to come home that afternoon because there weren't any cases, so we actually got to do something as a family that night! We went and saw Toy Story 3 in the theater. Because Jude did so well in the Shrek movie, we decided against finding a babysitter and take the whole family.

Side note... Charlottesville is seriously lacking in nice movie theaters and at any one time the movie you want to see is playing in only one of the three theaters in town. I looked up where to go and thinking I knew which theater the directions were talking about, we headed out. I was proud of myself because we actually ate our dinner, dressed the kids, and were out the door in such a fashion as to not only make it to this particular theater before the show started, we would have a few minutes to spare (a novelty because I'm perpetually late for just about everything). We pulled up and got out. Wrong theater.

Oops. Thanks to George, we still made it to the correct theater before the show started. We even had about 5 minutes to hastily feed Jude some squash and take a picture before the lights dimmed.

It was a good movie. Aside from me and George jumping in and out with Jude, it was fun to watch it as a family. While it was going, Lance wasn't a huge fan, though. I have to say, this movie was much more intense and a little dark compared to 1 and 2. Interesting note about Lance: he is fine and even enjoys movies like Transformers and Star Wars where the people and violence is real, but show him a movie like Stewart Little where the mouse is being chased by a cat or Homeward Bound when Sassy gets washed down the river and he can't even stay in the same room, he's so concerned. Toy Story 3 got so intense, Lance clung to me, begged to leave the theater, and said he didn't want to finish watching the movie. We ended up in the back of the theater, Lance up in my arms cradled like you would a baby, him hiding his face while simultaneously being unable to not watch and me whispering frantically in his ear that everyone would be okay, that I knew the story and it was all going to be fine in the end. Between a creepy monkey and our favorite characters in constant peril, my emotions were a little fried by the end, too!

After it was over and Lance calmed down, he kept talking about how much he liked it and how funny it was. His favorite part? The creepy monkey, of course!

Wednesday was fun. We were invited over to a lunch with some friends and ended up spending most of the afternoon there talking while the kids played. It was a nice treat for us.

Thursday must have been boring because I can't remember what we did until that night when a huge storm knocked out our power. We were all sitting around the computer when the storm hit and we heard our transformer outside blow. And then... nothing. We suffered through a hot night without air conditioning or fans. George came home from his rotation around 9:00 a.m. because they canceled all the plastic surgery operations, so we decided to try and save our food and our sanity by driving up to Northern Virginia.

We spent Friday with George's parents and had a nice time just relaxing. On Saturday, George studied for his upcoming rotation on the Medical floor and the boys and I headed over to Arlington with Jason and Jacob to help Amy move from one apartment across the complex to another.

Before...

Taking a little break from the moving.

DONE!

We had to carry each item across the complex, up and down a couple flights of stairs and into the new apartment... and up some more stairs. It was hot and we were sweaty, but we had a good time. The boys were angels, too, just hanging out and watching a movie while the rest of us worked. It was fun to be with my family. We had dinner at Red Robin and then the boys and I picked up George and headed back to Charlottesville so George could round on his patients Sunday morning. Luckily, our power was back on in our house and we enjoyed sleeping in our own beds with the luxury of central air. It doesn't get much better than that!

Father's Day Weekend!

Father's Day Weekend was a lot of fun!

Thursday morning started like this again:

It seems like we do this a lot now that George leaves for the hospital at 4:00 a.m. every morning. Somehow the boys find their way into our queen-sized bed and we lounge around until 7:30 or 8:00 (or later, depending on how tired we are) until we're all hungry for breakfast. Poor George. He's doing his Plastic Surgery rotation and it's been pretty ridiculous--waking up at 3:30 every morning and being gone until 6 or later every night. We miss him a lot and are glad he only has a few more days until he moves on to his Internal Medicine rotation. While it will be difficult and long, it will be a break from the rigors of the past two weeks.

After walking Rockney (the black lab we walk during the week), the boys and I jumped in the car and drove up to Lance's dad's house so Lance could spend Father's Day weekend with his dad. Jude and I then met my sister Amy at Tyson's Corner where we spent entirely too much money on stuff we didn't need. (That seems to happen a lot when I go to the mall.) It was fun to see her and spend a few hours having fun and walking around.

Friday morning we spent playing with my mom's dog Vera. She's the best dog ever and so gentle with Jude. She'll bring her toy over to Jude and love on him while he plays with her toy. Yeah, it's not terribly sanitary, but it's cute and I caught a few of these exchanges on camera:

Kinda gross, but cute... it's good for his immune system! :) We love Vera.

I got to see Lance again on Friday while his dad was at work, so we spend the afternoon with Callie and Bryce.  Lance absolutely adores his cousins and we find ourselves over there a lot during the day.

George thought he would have to work all day Friday and wouldn't be able to come up until Saturday, but as luck would have it, he got off around noon on Friday because they had a guest doctor come and everyone was entertaining him so the students had the afternoon off. Yay! I had to take Lance back to his dad, but he got to see DaddyG before he left. George and I had a good time going to dinner with George's family and just being together that night.

Saturday was Bryce's 4th Birthday at "Pump it Up"! Lance's dad was able to bring him to the party, so for about an hour Lance, Jude, George, and I got to play on these fun inflatable slides and obstacle courses. It was a blast!

Bryce--the Birthday boy!

Lance having a blast!

Even Jude got into the fun :)

Jude and Dad going down the slide

King of the Hill!

Callie

The Birthday group

Lance and Bryce after cake!

We had a great time! Lance was sad to leave (I hate doing this back and forth thing... it's hard on everyone). 

After the party, we went shopping at Costco and that evening we had dinner at Nagoya's in Ashburn. It's a hibachi restaurant where they make your meal in front of you. It's by far my favorite restaurant! Their sushi is incredible, too. If you ever visit, get their Las Vegas roll and the Tres Amigos. You will not be disappointed!

(From the Left) George, Sue-Lon (George's mom), George (his dad), Callie, Eric (Callie's dad), Allen (George's brother), Der (cousin), and Bryce

George had to leave after dinner and drive back down to Charlottesville so he could wake up at 3:30 a.m. and go round on his patients on Sunday. Jude and I spent the night at my mom's house. We played games and made tasty treats for Father's Day with Jason and Amy.

Sunday was a nice day. George was able to make it back up for the rest of the day, so after Church Jude and I met him at his parent's house for a BBQ.

The only one missing is Lance. :(

Three generations!

So, I didn't have George's gift finished (or even close), but I told him what I was doing. George and I made this fun picture for my brother Chad at Christmas. We took several pictures of things or places in New York and cropped them so that each picture stood for a letter in the words "New York" and then had it matted and framed. It looked neat, so I thought it would be fun to do one for George and spell out "Virginia" for University of Virginia. I've gotten a few pictures so far, but this is the best one... can you tell what letter it's going to be?

Jude is getting so close to crawling. While we were at George's parent's house he was showing off his new ability to get anywhere he wants to go.

After the BBQ, we headed over to my mom's house for dinner with my family. It was Glenn's first Father's Day. Mom made him a special dinner (he asked for meatloaf...) and then we watched him open a few gifts. It was really nice.

Grandma and Jude

I was sad Lance couldn't be with us. George had to leave right after celebrating with my family so he could get some sleep before going in to the hospital on Monday. Jude and I had to stay because Lance was coming home in the morning and we figured he could ride down with us.

It was a great weekend! I know I posted this picture before, but I think it's too cute not to put here, too.

10 things I love about you

Happy Father's Day, George!

I guess I could say this is your first "official" Father's Day, but honestly, that would be a lie. Yes, Jude was born this year and he is the only child that carries your genes so far. However, he is not the only child you father and, in my opinion, this is really your second Father's Day since we were married October of 2008.

You have truly gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to our family. I couldn't have asked for a better man to parent our children or a more amazing husband. In that vein, today on Father's Day, here are 10 things (in no particular order) I absolutely love about you and the father you are:

1.  I love how gentle you are with Lance when he is sad or hurt. I am more inclined to give him a hug and send him on his way, but you will sit with him and cuddle and do everything in your power to take the hurt away or bring a smile to his face. I know Lance can tell how much you care and he trusts you to make things better.

2. I love that you will come home and immediately greet me and the boys with a smile and a hug. Even when you're exhausted from the long day of study or work, you still find the energy to make sure we know how much you love us.

3. I love that you treat Lance like your own son. It can be hard, but I love that you are so kind and accepting. It is more than I could have ever hoped for.

4. I love that you will play video games with Lance, even when there are more exciting things you could be doing. I offer to play with him, but he prefers you.

5. I love that you are patient. Lance climbs all over you, sits in your lap while you're trying to do your work on the computer, asks you a million questions, and frequently makes messes. Jude spits up, cries, and wants to be held. No matter what it is, you greet each challenge with a smile and I've never seen you take out your frustration on me or the kids. You're amazing.

6. I love that Lance loves you and wants to be with you. I love that he misses you when you're not home and is so excited to see you when work is done. He can't get enough of you and that speak volumes about your relationship.

7. I love that you will pick up Jude, look at him, and then turn to me and say, "I love this kid." Me, too.

8.  I love that I get to co-parent with you. I know I am a better mother because of you and your example.

9. I love how wonderful it is to watch you interact with the boys. There is just something about seeing you loving on them and playing that makes me love you more every day.

10. I love that although our time to go on dates or do things alone as adults has decreased to almost nil, you have never been resentful nor regretted our decision to bring children into our family.

Thank you, George, for being such a wonderful father. I love that you are a great example to our children. You are kind and gentle, funny, hard-working, driven, and willing to make sacrifices for what you feel is important. I am so grateful that our children have you to look to as they grow and attempt to navigate the roads of life. I really cannot think of a better thing than for our children to become like you.

I love you.