Welcome Home!

I thought that there were very few pictures on the camera, so I put off my post... I was wrong :)

2 weeks ago, Daddy came home (after a 2 week work trip to Maine), we were sooo excited to see him!

We were early to the airport, so we had time to go potty, look at an art display and check out the gift shop :)

Morgan had his 6 year check up (he's great), and needed some medicines refilled, while we waited, the boys played under the chairs... fortunately one lady in our seating area was a mom of triplets (!), and the lady whose feet you see loved the kids!

We had to take Daddy to the zoo so we could ride the train!  We finally found the flamingoes!

And the splash park!

J took this picture with his phone, pretty cool, eh?

  This was in the butterfly house!

Hi :)

Poor guy, water, sun, animals, tuckered him out, we did.

TW made this one afternoon (with dominoes), I was super impressed!

The car seats needed a good cleaning!  And we had to take them out of the van anyway, so that J could pick up his brand new, bigger TV!  Now, we are hoping that when all the little kids crowd around the screen, we'll still be able to see the top of Clifford's head :)

Nana:  I was talking to you on the phone waiting for J, who was in Best Buy :)

We discovered these geese at the Wal-Mart!

And these are the wild turkeys that live in our field!

So, Daddy started to get sick almost immediately upon returning home.  We guessed it was some water borne critter, who some how snuck into him in Maine.  The first doctors visit, 5 days after his return, he was sent home with some Imodium.  The second doctors visit, another 5 days later, and worse, he was sent home with antibiotics... and that was after two bags of fluids.  J tried so hard to stay hydrated, but everything he took in came back out one way or another... after not being able to eat for almost 2 weeks, his body needed a kick start to begin recovering!  It turns out (well, we haven't heard back on the giardia results), that he had campylobacteriosis... which is basically (as far as I understand it) a form of food poisoning.  He most likely got it right before he left Maine, or the day he got home -it wasn't me, we ate out :)  So, after being re-hydrated in a way that couldn't immediately be spit out by his body, he felt much better... and is steadily improving, and gaining back some of the 20+ pounds he lost!  On the day he got the IV fluids, we drove him to base and played while he was in with the doc... TW slipped on some rocks and got this gnarly scratch!

J spent a lot of time on the couch... but he was still productive :)

Yesterday, we took a road trip to St. Augustine... this is near the oldest house in the US!  We had no idea what a cool town this is, we have dubbed in our new Colonial Williamsburg, and are already planning our next trip!

When we got home, J began to clean up some of the garage... then, this rolled in!  We have had quite a few awesome thunder storms lately.. which made it easy for us to lay low for Daddy (though you wouldn't know that by the way he kept going with the kids)!

The kids have head colds right now, so I've been letting them sleep in.  I was vacuuming the tops of the cabinets this morning, Smaug was up with me... he found the baggies and was quite content to pull them out of the box one at a time ;)

Later, he pulled himself up to standing, all by himself (huh)!!!

The kids found some standing water...

And... I had planned on giving you a tour of our new abode when things were cleaned up... they haven't been clean since the day J got home, so here you are, crud and all...

I am standing at the garage door in the laundry room/school room... btw SAB, we have the same laundry room doors you had in your house in VA Beach and thanks to you, I knew exactly where to put the pots, pans, and crock pot :)

Here is the living room/dining room... J decided to try out the cross bow this afternoon...

... the toy room...

... the kids half of the house...

... the view of the kitchen from the pass through window... everything is smaller than Pensacola, but bigger than Ames... I'm already ready for more kitchen space... my pantry is pitiful, and most of our canned goods are in the garage... I actually think I might have had more cupboard space in Ames, oh well, it's temporary :)

Here is the view from our driveway... the thing that made this house doable :)

And there is my (J's) arrow, in the "watch out for alligators" water, according to Google Earth, a whopping 200 yards away... sigh...

In Other News:  TW has officially passed and finished 1st grade :)