As you know, Tony (my son-in-law) has been on deployment since the first of June, and Kristen and Madison have been staying at my house during his deployment. When Tony left Memphis, Madison was only 1 month old. Upon Tony's return to Memphis (12.21.07), Madison was almost 9 months old. When Tony arrived back in Memphis, we were at the airport to meet him, and Kristen handed him Madison, but Madison wasn't too sure about him, so she began to cry and was given back to her mommy. However, after a very short while she was very taken with her daddy, and she watched every move he made. It has been a treat to watch Madison get to know her daddy, and to see the 2 of them interact with one another.
Christmas was at my house this year because we wanted to share the moment with family (16 of us together) for Madison's first visit from Santa!
We began our day with breakfast (Kevin's fabulous omelettes), and then began opening presents. It is our tradition to open presents one at a time so that everyone can see what each one has gotten. Daddy (Uncle Fred) plays Santa each year and calls out each gift and one of the grandkids (Mitchell -this year) will deliver the gift, and we all watch while it is being opened. After the gifts are all opened, we then get our stockings - what fun this is as well. After the stockings are repacked, we then play Dirty Santa! This is so much fun each year, and there is always at least one gift that has a tendency to be "stolen" more than others.
Well, my home is very quiet now. It was really hard the day before they (Tony, Kristen and Madison) left to return to WA, as everything was packed and we were just hanging out at the house. On the way to the airport I sat in the backseat with Madison and held her little hand while she dozed off and on. They flew out on Wed (1.2.08) at 7:10 am, and so we said our goodbyes at the airport at 6:20 am. They had so much to get through security that we didn't delay it any longer. I did really well until I hugged Kristen. However, I regained my composure enough to watch them to the last minute at the end of the ramp. They flew into Dallas and had a layover of 1.5 hours, where they got some breakfast. Then they flew Dallas to Seattle (4 hour trip). Arrived in Seattle at 12:40 and then had to wait about 2 hours on the shuttle. They got to their car at about 6:30 pm (8:30 cst), got all loaded up and it wouldn't start. Madison had been great all day, but now she was tired, and it was cold. They got a friend to come right over and jump them off, so they were actually in their apartment by about 7:15pm (9:15 CST). Made for a really long day, but they are home now and enjoying life as a family.
Madison is very mobile now, and so they are having to keep a very close eye on her. She crawls everywhere. She is trying to pull up some, but mostly crawling. We were beginning to wonder if she was going to crawl at all, and then she just kind of took off. On the day they left, Amber and I went back to the house and went back to bed, then got up and finished packing up some of their stuff so that we could take it to the post office. As of yesterday, everything they wanted sent is now gone. We shipped 11 packages USPS and 4 packages FedEx. One of the USPS boxes had all of her crib bedding in it, and so she was able to sleep in a crib again last night. Needless to say, I am enjoying the webcam. We are not having a lot of luck getting them to view ours, but we are able to view theirs, and that is what counts right now.
Right now we are planning to go to WA this March, as we have 3 very important dates to celebrate, and in this order - Jerry will turn 50 (March 6th), Amber will turn 21 (March 27th), and Madison will turn 1 (March 28th). We are going to try and go the first week of March, as this is when Amber will be out on Spring Break.
Attached is a family photo that Kevin took for us of Tony, Kristen and Madison on 12.30.07. By the way, I have spoken to Kevin and I think he will be sending you some photos from our Christmas together for the blog as well.
Pat
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