Family Update

So, I’ve been lagging on blog posts lately. Mainly because I lost the battery charger to the camera either somewhere in Arizona or on the plane ride back to Connecticut when I flew back with Ammon & Maddie Sue in January. What good is a post without pictures, huh?

Here’s an update on our family: Nathan was “TDY” for five weeks, while he attended SOS Training in Alabama for latter part of February and the entire month of March. It seemed like the weather in Connecticut was either snowing or raining the entire time that Nathan was gone, which kind of made the situation a little more depressing. However, the day after I flew to Arizona the sun finally showed itself in Connecticut.

After completing an internal audit with Dean Douglas Homes & Development and Kingston Contracting for the 2009 combined financial statements, a letter was received in the mail regarding a state audit. In less than a week, I booked flights to Arizona and travelled back with Ammon and Maddie Sue. I am so incredibly blessed to have such a supportive family who helped take care of my dear children while I spent numerous hours at the office preparing and completing the state audit.

After the audit, we flew to Birmingham, Alabama to attend Nathan’s graduation and then drove back to Connecticut. To be totally honest, I guess I’ve been a bit of a pessimist the past few weeks, because this was not an event that I was looking forward to. It ended up being an incredible experience though. Ammon and Maddie Sue had their share of meltdowns in the car and we were all pretty cramped in the Corolla, but altogether it was a very positive experience.
We visited cousins in Georgia. It has been years since we last saw Tim & Shayleen Palmer. We were able to meet Katrina and Katie, both of whom we’d never seen in person, but felt like we knew from their blog posts. Ammon really enjoyed interacting with Katrina and “making music with her on the piano.” He also constantly repeats a phrase that she said while eating lunch, that when she was three years old, she didn’t like tomatoes, but now that she is four she does. The entire thing is kind of humorous, because he still will not eat tomatoes!

After staying the night in North Carolina, we visited our sister Emily and her sweet family in Virginia (well, everyone but David who was away doing volunteer work for the less fortunate). We met cousin Rhett for the first time (of whom we also felt like we already knew from blog postings) and played with Preston and Claire. Emily also made a wonderful lunch for us. We stopped by the Temple in Washington DC, walked through the visitor’s center and grounds. We then made the long trip home arriving very early Sunday morning. It was wonderful to have time to interact with Nathan. We're happy to be home & settled and back into our regular routines again.