Cat in the Hat

Our very own "cat in the hat"... that hat is actually a baby doll blanket that she often wears on her head!

Hats and Gloves

She will make anything into a hat or glove. Amelia will often take my old chef's hat and run around with it on her head just like this, with her eyes peeking out through the mesh. She also often puts shoes on her hands and wears them as gloves. This particular day she wanted to wear her jammies all day, and since she was sick, I let her. I like wearing my jammies too when I'm feeling down.

If you look closely, you will see that she has a hat, purse, and two gloves - one she made out of a plastic ziplock baggie and the other glove is actually a purple slipper for Granny J's visits. My hat looks better on her than it does on me!

Hi, Rafe

We had a playdate with the neighborhood kids, and at the end there were just this little boy and Amelia. Remember him? The one she chased and kissed? Uh oh, Rafe. You'd better meet his parents!

Amelia still loves to put anything on her head. If you look closely you will see that she has TWO hats on her head and TWO purses. The hats match the appropriate purse.


The order of the next posts will seem sort of odd, but Rafe is back where he has access to this blog for short periods of time and he usually scrolls first to see pictures of Amelia. So I am going to be posting pics I've taken in the past few days, and alternating with updates from the past month about our family.

Loss

There is no other way to say this, other than directly - I am no longer pregnant. This past month has been a roller coaster. I have not wanted to post any information on here until I was able to fully update my husband and for my medical condition to stabilize and my life to return to (mostly) normal. Tomorrow I am officially off the medical roll call, with the exception of followup visits, and can lift my daughter again after a month of not being able to.

If you're squeamish, skip the rest of the post.

Immediately, literally, after I posted on August 1, I stood up to go to bed and was racked with such intense pain that I could barely stand or move. I had to call out to my parents (who had come down for an unexpected visit) to help me. I didnt know it at the time, but I had a heterotopic pregnancy that burst. What that means is that I was actually pregnant with twins, only one of them didn't make it through the fallopian tube to the uterus and instead attached to the fallopian wall, like an ectopic pregnancy. I was told that it was a very rare condition. I had been spotting during the previous two weeks off and on, and my doctor informed me that it was likely I might miscarry. So when I felt that pain, I thought I was miscarrying and that the doctor had lied - it was a LOT more painful than he said it would be.

As a matter of fact, I've never felt such intense pain in all my life. For the next 5 hours I threw up 8 times, couldn't stand on my own, and passed in and out of being alert. I thought it was the pain that was causing all that reaction, but I later found out that I was going into shock. When an ectopic pregnancy bursts, you begin to bleed internally, so at the moment I felt that intense pain I began to bleed and continued to do so until the surgery almost 12 hours later. With nowhere for all that blood to go, it filled up the interior of my body. When it was all over with, I had lost 4 units of blood. It's given me a whole new appreciation for people who have internal injuries and the pain they must be going through. In the hospital after they had figured out what happened to me, I remember thinking of Rafe's Uncle Robbie, who recently had a lot of internal bleeding and pain himself; and how I had no idea the extent of the pain he was in. You think you get it, but you don't until you live it.

At home that night, I still thought I was miscarrying, and just decided to tough it out like a good Marine wife. But the nausea and pain was beyond anything that I could stand (and I have a pretty high threshold) and I couldn't really control the noise I was making anymore. I vaguely remember hearing my daughter wake up 4 times that night, crying out for me... "mommeeeeeee! mommmeeeeeee!!" and even that couldn't get me to stand up and walk to her, nor did I want her to see me the way I was. I couldn't open my eyes or stand without help, and had to be helped to throw up and then cleaned up afterwards. My mother took care of Amelia while my father took care of me.

At the point where I finally decided to call it quits and go to the hospital after almost 5 hours of this mess, I still thought that I was just suffering pain from a miscarriage and that my doctor hadn't given me the full scoop on what might happen. I was tired and just wanted meds to help me get through the 'rough part'. I asked my dad to take me to the hospital after I had thrown up for the 8th time and I was too sick to even make it to the bathroom - he helped throw up as I lay there and then cleaned me up. He tried to help me sit up and the next thing I remember is laying on the floor feeling carpet next to my face and thinking what an odd sensation it was. I had no idea how I got there or where everyone was. Apparently I had passed out from shock/blood loss and emergency medical help was on it's way.

As I lay there, I could hear sirens in the distance, and then I must have passed out again. The next thing I heard was someone asking me to sit up (I couldn't), then felt them buckling me onto some sort of chair contraption. After that, I remember brief snatches of noise. Outside our house were MP's, ambulance, fire trucks... I can only assume that I was going in and out of consciousness, but without a lot of ability to communicate. Each time I heard something it was like a whole new scene - I heard something again when I was going into the ambulance. It was a neighbor who had come to help, who knew me and gave some official information about what Rafe was doing that I was in no shape to give.

Being moved in any way was excruciatingly painful, and I remember the amulance didn't have any shocks (military ambulance). I was taken to the Naval hospital, given IV's and some drugs to help with the pain and to leave me coherent enough to make medical decisions for myself. My dad actually wrote down a timeline somewhere of what happened, as he was with me the whole time. The Naval hospital doesn't have a catscan machine or a vaginal ultrsound, so they transferred me at one point to the Beaufort hospital to get a scan, then sent me back to the Naval hospital. Every movement was like being slashed with knives internally. A blanket laid on my belly felt like someone was punching me. Many times I found myself screaming involuntarily, then apologizing for yelling and disturbing people. Such a woman thing - no man I know would apologize for their own pain, and good for them... I wish I hadn't.

I went into surgery almost 12 hours after I first felt the pain. The delay was partly because the Naval hospital is so small they rely on doctors in town on call for services, especially on weekends. By this time it was Saturday morning. They had to call a transport team to send me to Beaufort. They had to call a cat scan tech to run the scan. They had to call in someone to read the scan. They had to call in a doctor to do the surgery (who was actually working on and left another patient at a different hospital to come do my surgery). Who knows who else they called in; that's all I remember right now. The Naval Hospital has one floor only for patients, and no matter who you are, you are on that floor. The second night I was there, the nurse told me there were only 2 other patients besides me in the hospital.

I wonder how much longer I would have lasted without surgery. My doctor told me I almost died. They did a laproscopy; she told me it took them 10 minutes to cut the fallopian tube and stop the bleeding and sew it up; and almost an hour to suction out the blood in my body. They finally stopped at an hour and she told me later that they only took out 90% of the blood I lost, but felt it too dangerous to continue. She showed me pictures of the interior of my belly from the surgery - it was oddly fascinating to see the lake of blood and how they blew up my belly with air to do the surgery. Modern medicine is amazing.

I stayed in the hospital the day of the surgery and they discharged me the next day. I had a hematocrit (spelling?) of 18 when they released me. They didn't replace all my blood. I was still pregnant with Baby Q in my uterus, even though I had lost the twin on the fallopian tube. I was under the impression that they felt it was better to have my own blood circulating in my system for the baby to survive and they gave me iron pills, vitamin C and simethicone for the bloating.

There is so much more to say, and over the next few days or weeks, I will get it all out. In so many ways, this is for my husband, who can only call once a week for a few minutes on a satellite phone, but can occasionally access the web when he's near a base. But it's also to update my friends and family who are so dear to me and who have probably wondered at my absence.

Sweetness

Mail

I tracked down my mail, finally! Usually when I go out of town, one of my neighbors will water my plants or gather my mail. Since I go out of town so often and since so many people here at the base volunteered to help, I've rotated through about 3 or 4 families.

This last time when I left, I hadn't planned on being gone for more than a week. Since I am on a no-junk mail list and most of my bills are in email, I figured it would be a month before my mailbox was full and didn't ask anyone to help out. But someone kindly gathered it this time and watered my lawn. I asked everyone on this street but no one knew who did it. I was finally able to figure it out and voila! I had mail. It was a very gracious woman a few streets over, the same one who has a son that Amelia plays with sometimes.

Amelia received a gorgeous handmade quilt from her Granny J. It's a flower garden and as soon as I get a picture of it, I will add it to this post. She promptly rolled around on it, laid her baby doll on it and patted the spot next to her for me to lay down and take a nap with her on it. I was pretty impressed that she was pointing out clouds and the sun in the images on the quilt, which are kind of abstract, but you can still tell what they are. Right now she is sleeping with 3 handmade quilts on her bed. She loves it. She's part mouse, I think. She really likes to nest. I was going to pull one of them off, her big baby gift quilt (also from Granny J), and she wanted me to hang it over the side of the railing. It's funny how you can communicate with a child who has limited vocabulary. When you finally figure out what they want, they laugh and sigh in relief and you feel like a million dollars.

Good Attitude

Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you.
I Chronicles 28:20 NIV

Reporting in from Iraq

I heard from Rafe today. He said he shaved his head bald; has been doing Olympic weightlifting to strengthen his neck muscles (apparently for a better advantage in a fistfight), sit ups while being punched in the stomach (same reason). All in all, he sounds pretty upbeat. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who loves to sleep till noon; read about technology, science and engineering; debate spiritual matters and who dances around the kitchen with funny hats on his head and waggles his booty at me when I'm trying to make dinner and be serious. He also sent me an email.

It has been so hot here and there is hardly any privacy. It is amazing how cool 80 degrees indoors feels after being outside in 117 degree weather. 75 degrees is actually rather chilly.

.

Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost By ROBERT BURNS and ROBERT H. REID, APposted: 1 HOUR 24 MINUTES AGOcomments: 12PrintShareText SizeAAABAGHDAD -The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost. Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace _ a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.
Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.
That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.
Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.
This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week there are early indications that senior leaders of al-Qaida may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq's future.
"Very clearly, the insurgency is in no position to overthrow the government or, really, even to challenge it," Crocker said. "It's actually almost in no position to try to confront it. By and large, what's left of the insurgency is just trying to hang on."
Shiite militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shiite extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring _ now a quiet though not fully secure district.
Al-Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shiite population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.
Despite the favorable signs, U.S. commanders are leery of proclaiming victory or promising that the calm will last.
The premature declaration by the Bush administration of "Mission Accomplished" in May 2003 convinced commanders that the best public relations strategy is to promise little, and couple all good news with the warning that "security is fragile" and that the improvements, while encouraging, are "not irreversible."
Iraq still faces a mountain of problems: sectarian rivalries, power struggles within the Sunni and Shiite communities, Kurdish-Arab tensions, corruption. Any one of those could rekindle widespread fighting.
But the underlying dynamics in Iraqi society that blew up the U.S. military's hopes for an early exit, shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, have changed in important ways in recent months.
Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.
That has helped establish a sense of normalcy in the streets of the capital. People are expressing a new confidence in their own security forces, which in turn are exhibiting a newfound assertiveness with the insurgency largely in retreat.
Statistics show violence at a four-year low. The monthly American death toll appears to be at its lowest of the war _ four killed in action so far this month as of Friday, compared with 66 in July a year ago. From a daily average of 160 insurgent attacks in July 2007, the average has plummeted to about two dozen a day this month. On Wednesday the nationwide total was 13.
Beyond that, there is something in the air in Iraq this summer.
In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.
Now a moment has arrived for the Iraqis to try to take those positive threads and weave them into a lasting stability.
The questions facing both Americans and Iraqis are: What kinds of help will the country need from the U.S. military, and for how long? The questions will take on greater importance as the U.S. presidential election nears, with one candidate pledging a troop withdrawal and the other insisting on staying.
Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the U.S. military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.
U.S. commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009. But judging from the security gains that have been sustained over the first half of this year _ as the Pentagon withdrew five Army brigades sent as reinforcements in 2007 _ the remaining troops could be used as peacekeepers more than combatants.
As a measure of the transitioning U.S. role, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond says that when he took command of American forces in the Baghdad area about seven months ago he was spending 80 percent of his time working on combat-related matters and about 20 percent on what the military calls "nonkinetic" issues, such as supporting the development of Iraqi government institutions and humanitarian aid.
Now Hammond estimates those percentage have been almost reversed. For several hours one recent day, for example, Hammond consulted on water projects with a Sunni sheik in the Radwaniyah area of southwest Baghdad, then spent time with an Iraqi physician/entrepreneur in the Dora district of southern Baghdad _ an area, now calm, that in early 2007 was one of the capital's most violent zones.
"We're getting close to something that looks like an end to mass violence in Iraq," says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus on war strategy. Biddle is not ready to say it's over, but he sees the U.S. mission shifting from fighting the insurgents to keeping the peace.
Although Sunni and Shiite extremists are still around, they have surrendered the initiative and have lost the support of many ordinary Iraqis. That can be traced to an altered U.S. approach to countering the insurgency _ a Petraeus-driven move to take more U.S. troops off their big bases and put them in Baghdad neighborhoods where they mixed with ordinary Iraqis and built a new level of trust.
Army Col. Tom James, a brigade commander who is on his third combat tour in Iraq, explains the new calm this way:
"We've put out the forest fire. Now we're dealing with pop-up fires."
It's not the end of fighting. It looks like the beginning of a perilous peace.
Maj. Gen. Ali Hadi Hussein al-Yaseri, the chief of patrol police in the capital, sees the changes.
"Even eight months ago, Baghdad was not today's Baghdad," he says.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE _ Robert Burns is AP's chief military reporter, and Robert Reid is AP's chief of bureau in Baghdad. Reid has covered the war from his post in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Burns, based in Washington, has made 21 reporting trips to Iraq; on his latest during July, Burns spent nearly three weeks in central and northern Iraq, observing military operations and interviewing both U.S. and Iraqi

officers.

Obama cancels trip because he can't make it a media event

by Mark Impomeni
Jul 25th 2008 11:00AM

Filed Under:eBarack Obama, 2008 President, Gaffes, Media

One casualty of Sen. Barack Obama's busy schedule on his foreign trip was a planned visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military hospital located at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany. The cancellation left Obama with a gap in his official schedule this morning in Berlin before he boarded a plane to fly to Paris for a five-hour stop over en route to London. Obama was to visit with troops receiving treatment for wounds inflicted in Iraq and Afghanistan at Landstuhl. Now, the cancellation, and the Obama campaign's shifting explanations for it, are raising questions.

Obama adviser Robert Gibbs initially said that the visit was canceled because the campaign thought, "it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign." That remark drew sharp criticism from Sen. John McCain, who said, "Barack Obama is wrong. It is never inappropriate to visit our men and women in the military." The McCain campaign also pointed out the Sen. McCain paid a visit to wounded troops on his last trip to Iraq. In response to increased questioning on the cancellation from the press, and perhaps to Sen. McCain's criticism, the Obama campaign later said that it was the military that requested that Obama not make the trip to the base. "We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event," a campaign adviser said.

But the military is disputing that explanation. A spokesman for the base told NBC News that the base was prepared to host Sen. Obama, as long as some conditions were met.

"[H]e could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers. Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit.

We didn't know why [the trip was canceled]. He was more than welcome. We were all ready for him."



Obama's campaign has steadfastly refuted the characterization of his trip as political. But the campaign's original explanation for removing the military hospital stop was based on the perception that the visit would be viewed as political. This is a pretty serious mistake by the campaign. The controversy will have no impact on the leaders and crowds Obama will encounter on the remainder of his trip. But it will resonate in the United States, and especially among those whom the trip was intended to convince that Sen. Obama had the experience to be the leader of the free world. Furthermore, the shifting explanations for the cancellation will cause the press to be more skeptical of the campaign's statements. That is something no candidate can afford, much less one who has enjoyed a largely uncritical relationship with the mainstream press.

How can you help?

Soon I will be sending out Rafe's mailing address and his email address to those who want it. Rafe has asked that in general, he receive email because they will be moving so much that they might have to get rid of the mail they receive for practical purposes.

That doesn't mean you can't still send a letter of encouragement or with enclosures if you want to. It just means to be prepared that those items might be considered temporary and left behind or destroyed for security reasons. His email account does not delete his emails no matter how much time has passed, so he can check them as he has time, although he may not always have time to write back. He's said that the connection is like dial up.

I personally am still going to send him occasional mail; I think it's nice to receive something in the mail. I am going to send it with two things in mind - either it's something consumable (cookies, baby wipes, etc) or something I don't mind he throws away. It makes me crazy to think that he actually is so darn practical he won't miss getting real mail. I think he will miss it. But I'm not him, so I could be wrong.

I like sending letters of encouragement and good news. I generally don't complain about anything he can't really fix from Iraq, which would be ALL OF IT. It does no good to give him something to worry about without any way to resolve it. I always thought it was crazy when I heard about spouses who emailed their Marines with tales of woe and grief about how bad it was for them and how stressed out and worried they were.... and expected the Marine to somehow feel good about that and/or fix it in some way. Extreme lack of judgement in my opinion.

Little Q

Rafe has taken to calling our new baby "Little Q" for "little question mark" because we don't yet know the sex of our baby. When we were waiting to figure out who Amelia would be, he called her "Little Ears". Apparently I dropped something very heavy on my foot one day and quickly uttered a pleasantry, to which Rafe replied, "Be careful!! You have little ears listening to you!"

We move out really soon. I have some of the biggest responsibilities on the team. What I do or fail to do could have permanent consequenses. I know we will do well though.

It is sooooo hot and sandy here. I went running in the 110 degree heat yesterday and thought I was going to die after running for over 20 minutes. People may think it is crazy to run in these temperatures, but I would rather get used to it now and have the extra umphhh when my life depends on it. Be uncomfortable now or possibly be dead later.....hmmmmmm....decisions, decisions. In this life, the choices we make now have an effect on how things turn out later; this concept is loud and in your face out here. You cannot avoid it.

Please tell everyone I love them; but I especially love you, Amelia and little question mark. I will try to send some pictures soon.

Love,
Rafe

Taking care of business

Being deployed is an odd mixture of extreme and practical reality. I thought this was a good example in an email from Rafe... talking about his mission in one breath and financial housekeeping details in the next. Normally, Rafe has a seperate account for his own stuff, but he usually doesn't need it when he deploys and we use that money to pay bills. The guys often live in two worlds at once, which is why it's so important that the family they leave behind is trustworthy and proactive in taking care of business.

I should have email access for the next couple of weeks although I will be moving to two new locations in the mean time, but then we are moving somewhere I never thought we would go.

Please do not take all the money out of my account yet. I might need it to get a SPAWAR phone card. I can use that card to use their phones when other phones are broken (like the AT&T phones are right now).

"I love you all the way from Iraq"

What a sight for sore eyes to see that email title greet me!! We had agreed before he left that occasional excerpts from his emails (minus the family stuff) could be posted on the blog because he would have such limited time to email or call anyone; and if I called everyone I'd be on the phone forever, and we all know how much I am not a fan of phones. Even though I actually talk too much when I get on them, go figure.

So, in his own words, straight from Iraq...

"I cannot tell you where I am going, but what I can say is that it seems to be really dangerous. Keep your fingers crossed. It was sooooo hot in Kuwait. It was so hot that I could feel the tips of my fingers burning. I have never been that hot in my life. It was the same feeling as when you open the oven to pull out a baked entree and you feel the heat on yor fingertips. To add to the hot temperature, the wind blew sand like crazy. It was like being baked alive in an oven and sand blasted at the same time. I do not know why anyone would ever want to live here voluntarily.

I started working out with Capt X today. He was teaching me Olympic lifting. Talk about uncomfortable. I could totally see doing Yoga as a way to get into some of those positions more easily.

I am living in a tent. It gets really hot in there during the day even with the A/C on. I try to imagine that it is freezing cold outside and that we turned up the heaters to stay warm.

Basil Pesto that's the Besto!!

Yeah, I know, I should never be a poet. :)

I love this recipe! And my original source is elise.com/recipes, so I am just going to put the link on here. I promise you will love that website if you love food - the recipes are consistently delicious.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001329fresh_basil_pesto.php

The only thing I did differently was just put everything into the food processor at once to puree. I like the earthiness of not having it processed so fine.

The Best EVER Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

1.5 cup fresh basil leaves (2.25oz)
.5 cup sun-dried tomatoes (3 oz)
1 cup pine nuts
2 large or 4 small garlic cloves
1/8 tsp pepper, ground
1 cup olive oil
1 cup parmesan cheese

1) Reconstitute the tomatoes by pouring boiling water barely over the top of them. Leave them there until they are soft and pliable.

2) Toss everything in the food processor and whirl away until you reach the desired consistency.

Truthfully, the original directions were more complicated than that, but this method gives you the same results with less headache. :) This was so good it was making us swoon! You could eat this spread on bread, with goat cheese, as part of a pasta dish... yummy. We (I) ate it in big spoonfuls until Connie took it away from me and froze it. hahaha :)

Afterwards

After Rafe left, we stayed at my friend Barb's for a week. We've known each other since our husbands were both in flight school in Pensacola. That's the neat thing about the military - even though you move a lot, often your friends move with you. She was at the same apartment complex in San Diego that we were and Rafe and I were at her first child's birth. Now she has 3 kids!! It really helped to have a house full of kids and lots of things to do in order to ease the transition between Rafe being with us 24/7 and him being gone.

Barb is an excellent housewife and mother! She is so darn organized. You'd think with 4 kids, aged 3 and under, and 2 adults it would be chaos. But things ran so smoothly. Her kids are really well behaved and very capable of following direction. I really picked up some wonderful tips while staying there. I always love hanging out with my friends, I always learn something new from them.

We spent a lot of time trying new recipes from a book called "Petit Appetit", recipes for babies, toddlers and young kids. They were mostly delicious, but they all needed tweaking of some sort - either an easier method to get the same result or jazzing up some flavors. Still, I really love the book because it was a great stepping stone to trying new things. Her kids loved almost everything but the shrimp dish because it was too bland. And her youngest one, 9 months old, started eating solid food while I was there and ate more than Amelia!! It was awesome.

Here are some of the dishes we tried:
Ricotta Dill Dip (with fresh lemon and mint)
Roasted Pork Loin with Blackberry Glaze
Lemon Dutch Baby Pancakes
White Cheddar Mac n Cheese with Broccoli
Shrimp Fusilli with fresh spinach
Peach Smoothies
Banana Chocolate Cookies

I hope I haven't left anything out. I also went to Connie's and we made Sun-dried Tomato Pesto and Basil Pesto with all her fresh basil growing in her garden. Those recipes turned out so absolutely perfect I am going to post them.

One day we visited a Mennonite grocery store and picked up some fresh cheese and bread and some pickled beets. I also took Amelia to the Farmer's Market where we listened to some live music (this time it was a Frank Sinatra impersonator who sang to her and it was perfect!) and picked up some fresh goat cheese spreads - one with fig and honey; one with cucumber; one with blueberries and one with lots of garlic and herbs. One evening I had a friend over and all together we had 6 kids playing peacefully at once! They were all so obedient and mannerly. We had a picnic at a local park; stopped by and saw an old friend from church and generally had a nice relaxing time at Barb's.

In case you're wondering....

why I am posting so much in the middle of the day - it's because I'm on light bed rest. And it's really boring. B O R I N G. I'm getting pretty tired of laying down. The Dr. has a concern and asked me to take it easy until I can come in tomorrow for an ultrasound.

I had no idea I would get so darn tired of doing nothing so quickly. :)

Please pray for the baby! thanks

"Bye Bye, Daddy"

They finally started loading the big buses with the Marines around noon of the day they left. Amelia and Rafe had been playing together a bit. I think she somehow sensed that this was different. He stepped up onto the bus and after a minute, she ran over to the open door and waited for him to come back out. When he didn't, she held out her hand to a Marine that was getting on the bus, as if to ask him to help her get on the bus also. When that didn't happen, she just stood there and waited until I went to go get her.

We watched the buses drive away, and Rafe could see us out his window. We kept waving and saying, "bye bye, Daddy". I didn't cry until the exact moment that the buses pulled away. I just wanted a moment to have closure and to grieve for literally a minute or two, and then move on. Unfortunately, IMMEDIATELY, a stranger who meant very well came over to me to begin speaking to me about being pregnant while the buses were still in sight. I wasn't able to concentrate on the buses leaving as I had wanted, in order to keep from being rude to this person whose husband had also just left. Perhaps speaking is what she needed to do to move on and pull herself together; but I do regret not having that last private moment. I'm not much of a crier, so that will probably be it for a long while, if not the whole year.

For days later, out of the blue, Amelia would suddenly start saying "Bye bye, Daddy... bye bye, Daddy... bus... bus... bye bye, Daddy". She would say it in a little girl small voice, somewhat sad. I could tell she was processing this event. Each time I would tell her that Daddy did go bye bye on the bus, but that he would be back home soon and he loved her very much. After a few days at Barb's, she bounced right back. She still says it occasionally, but in a different tone. She also calls our house, "Daddy's house" and plays with "Daddy's hats". She definitely misses her daddy, but at this age she's very resilient.