Well, we made it to 16 months....

My poor little guy. Last week he had a cold and just when I thought he was getting over it, he got a fever. He had a fever on Saturday and Sunday. Then it went away but then he started not wanting to sleep or eat much. He would cry for about an hour before he would go to sleep; usually he goes right to sleep. Steven has always been a very good sleeper and napper, as well as a good eater. For the last few days he has asked to eat (he knows sign language), but then he would refuse to eat anything I'd give him. This is all very unusual behavior for my little angel. LOL I thought maybe it was just that he was missing his daddy or he was in a new stage? I didn't know. So I decided to take him in just to rule out any medical reason for his new behavior before I chalked it up to a behavioral problem. And it turns out that the poor guy has a double ear infection! The doctor said that it was not a very bad one but that he definitely did have an infection. If any of you family remember Richard difficulties when he was a child, we have always been concerned that Steven might inherit his daddy's ear troubles. Richard had very bad recurrent ear infections and even had to have tube s when he was a little boy. The doctor said that since Steven has made it this far and this was his first ear infection, he did not think that it was going to be a major problem like it was with Richard. Let's pray that he was right! Anyways, Steven is on antibiotics and Tylenol and he should be on the mend soon. :( My poor little bug!

Richard called today, yay!

Richard called this afternoon. It was sooooo nice to hear from him. He is doing VERY well. When he called he was actually going to have Burger King for dinner! They all got what is called a "base lift" which means that they can go eat and, I guess shop, at the shops on base for 2 hours. He was excited to do whatever HE wanted to do for a change. They all leave tomorrow for "Warrior Week" It is pretty much the culmination of their combat training. They go on a week long combat exercise where they go through obstacle courses and stuff like that. He is excited but nervous. He said that "it should be interesting." LOL I mentioned about the cards and he said that his T.I. might make him open them when he receives them. Apparently he has been making people open their cards. I told him that his flight will get a kick out of them too! hehe. He said "Oh great! Thanks hun!" LOL I can't wait to hear what his reaction (and theirs) is. He only has 18 days left. This next week is Warrior Week and then next week is 5th week where they do all of their testing and evaluations. Then it's Graduation week and we get to see him!!! Yay, yay, yay! The next few weeks should go very fast for both of us because they are going to be very busy. Steven and I are leaving the day after Christmas to go to Oregon with Richard's parents. We are visiting Richard's Grandparents there. We'll be back the 29th and then we have to pack for Texas. We leave on the 2nd of January. We are almost through this! Praise the Lord!!!!!

Payback! hehe

Last night we received some Christmas cards from Richard but they came with a catch. We can't open them until Christmas!!! What a stinker! Pam, Steve, Steven, and I each got one and Richard wrote "Open on Christmas" on them all. I was a little upset when I got them; here I wait and wait to get something and then when I do, I can't open it for 12 more days! Urgh. LOL So I decided to get him back. I went to Hallmark today and bought 5 cards, 4 from me and one from Steven. I wrote on them do not open until Christmas 12/25/07, do not open until Christmas Eve 12/24/07, do not open until Christmas Eve Eve 12/23/07, and do not open until the day before the day before Christmas Eve 12/22/07. hehehehehe I'm so excited to send them out. I can't wait to hear what he'll have to say about them. LOL. Three of them are singing cards too so I bet they'll get him a lot of attention (whether he'll like that or not? I don't know LOL!) He is going to get a huge stack of mail on the day they all come. Although I was upset at first, it was incredibly sweet of him to send them at all. And how great will it be to be able to open something from HIM on Christmas!?! Maybe he was thinking after all. :)

I also got a REAL letter from him today! He said that he is doing really well and that his unit is doing much better. He continues to feel blessed by the T.I. that he has. He has gotten a taste of some others and they are all WAY WORSE than his! He said that they did really well one day at their drill and impressed their T.I. so he gave them extra time to shower, shave, and write letters and stuff. Then they had a really fun briefing afterwards. Richard said that his T.I. made him laugh so hard that he was actually crying. I'm glad that he is at least having some fun! He got a good detail too. He and one other guy got to work in the payroll office. He said it was really easy and was nice because they got to sit around a lot and actually take their time eating their lunch that day. Other trainees had to work in the kitchen and warehouses. I guess he lucked out that day.LOL. Anyways, it is great to hear that he is doing so well. Thank you all for all of your prayers! Keep 'em comin'!

A day at the beach

Steven, Richard's Grandma Mary Jo, Wally (the dog), and I went to the beach on Tuesday. We spent the night at Doran Beach in her new motor home. The weather was perfect! It was 55 degres outside, the sun was shining, and there was no wind. Steven was so amzaed by the waves. He has been to the beach before but he was not old enough to really care about it. He was so excited to be able to walk around and pick up shells and other "things" on the beach. He picked up a dead crab and then when he saw the legs wiggle (they were kind of limp) he got scared and threw it down. It was so funny. He also enjoyed playing in the motor home. We joked that it was a big play house with a play car in it. LOL. We all had a great time just being at the beach together. The only thing that would have been better is to have had Richard there to share it with us.

Richard called on Sunday night. He said that things are starting to get better with his unit. He didn't really say much more than that. They all get Christmas off and they are supposed to be playing movies all day. He said that he was looking forward to just hanging out for a day. He is feeling better and seems to be doing very well. We are looking into having Steven and I stay where ever he goes to tech. school. He won't find out what job he actually has until the last week of tech. school. We probably won't actually move there, but we'll rent a furnished apartment or hotel or something while we visit him for a few months.

I got my military ID

So I went down to Travis AFB today to get my military ID card and setup our TRICARE stuff. TRICARE is the medical insurance. We are all set up now, yay! The trip was very interesting. It started with Richard's recruiter calling me around 12:30 this afternoon and asking if I could go to Travis today! I said sure but let me call you back when I have confirmed that I have childcare, LOL. So we worked it out that Richard's grandma, Mary Jo, would watch him while Pam and I went down to Travis. Then his recruiter called back to make sure that I had our SS cards. I had them, they were just in storage and I had no idea which storage shed they had ended up in. So I hurried and went to the church to drop off Steven with Mary Jo, switched the car seat for her, and picked up Pam. (all of this was in the pouring down rain, mind you) So Pam and I headed over to H&M to our first shed hoping it would be there. PTL, it was! The problem was that the filing cabinet was behind our washer and it was facing towards the back of the shed and surrounded by other stuff. So I climbed up on top of the washer and over the boxes. I was on top of the cabinet now so I just had to scoot it back a little- just enough to get my hands in an grab the right file. So finally I got the right one and decided just to take the whole thing, lest this sort of thing happened again!

So after that we were finally on our way to meet the recruiter. The recruiter had a guy helping him out and he would be taking us down there, not the recruiter. At first I thought it was going to be weird because I had only met the recruiter twice, so that was bad enough, but then there is this guy that I have never met taking me on a 1 1/2 hour car ride, two ways! It is amazing how great God is though. It turns out that I actually knew the guy before he had gone into the Air Force. I worked with him at Sears. Imagine that! It still blows my mind. So the car ride was much more fun because we got to catch up and we actually talked instead of having awkward silence the whole way. He was very nice and helpful and he answer all of my silly little curious questions. He even let us go to the BX (base exchange) so that we could shop for something special for Steven. We got him three Air Force shirts and a little bear all dressed in BDU's. We call it "daddy bear" (see the picture) and Steven just loves it. I have to admit, it is pretty darn adorable!

Anyways, that was my busy day. And you know what? To top it off, when I got home to drop off Pam there was another letter from Richard waiting for me. It was a great day! (The letter did not give much more current info than I already had because it was written before I talked to him on the phone, LOL. It didn't matter though, it was a letter from my hubby!)

Our First Letter

We received our first letter from Richard today. He said that he is doing well in his physical training evaluations and that he is confident that he will pass fairly easily. (PTL!) They shaved his head and he says that it feels really weird. LOL. Mostly they have been doing a lot of paperwork and a lot of PT (physical training). He really enjoyed being able to go to church on Sunday. He said that he also went to Sunday School and that the service was nice. He felt comforted by the familiar environment.

Back home Steven continues to ask for daddy occasionally. We pretend to talk to him on the phone often. When he asks for daddy we look at his picture together and talk about him. Here is a picture of Steven play "talking to daddy."Lately I have been making my Christmas Cookies. Steven has enjoyed helping me. LOL (see the pictures above)

Richard called me tonight!

Richard finally got so time to call tonight. He said that he is doing well there. It is stressful and hectic but he is getting through it. He said that he has a pretty cool T.I. (training instructor) so that is a definite blessing. A bad T.I. could really make things more difficult. He is doing well at his physical goals. He is fighting a bit of a cold though so please pray for the Lord to give him strength and to heal him quickly. We don't want him to be stuck there longer because he is sick! That would stink. Anyways, it was wonderful to hear from him and we can't wait to see him. I let Steven talk to him for a second and his little eyes lit up at the sound of his daddy's voice. It was so precious. :) I'll right more soon, when there is more to tell.