Whew. Catch up.

Whew. I don't even know where to start so I will do my best to keep everything short. This has been a LONG few months with both great blessings and great losses. Allow me to do my best to backtrack and cover the past few months. The biggest event that happened can be found on my dad's blog at http://rickhornsby.blogspot.com/ Before starting this post, I glanced back through some of my posts previous to this and it brought to tears to my eyes thinking of all that has taken place in just the past 4 months. So, long story short, my dad was given 6 months to live without a transplant, received not just a single but a double lung transplant 2 weeks later and will even be home for Christmas! Praise the Lord! His transplant occurred on Oct 2nd, but was completed on Oct 3rd so we said he has a new birthday.

The night of my dad's transplant there was a crud tournament and the Gambler gals won. I don't remember a thing about it since I was a little preoccupied.

Then on October 15th our squadron lost a pilot. Eric was in the tower when it all happened and texted me to let me know he wouldn't be home for a while. It was a very emotional evening and following few days as he left behind a pregnant wife and young daughter. Our squadron stepped up and supported the best we could though and are continuing to do what we can for the family. It was difficult not to put myself in his wife's shoes and feel such a loss even though they were new to the squadron. With everything that had gone on with my dad, I had not gotten the chance to meet the wife yet but had emailed the gals in our squadron asking for prayers for my dad upon news of his transplant. I was brought to an emotion I had never felt before when I first met the wife who had just lost her husband a few days earlier and the first thing she said when I introduced myself was "How is your dad doing"? I was floored. As I said, a very emotional event to go through and there was a great memorial service on base which I will never forget. Unfortunately, no more than 36 hours after going through this, we found out some friends of ours at Hill had delivered their second baby boy (their oldest being just under 2) and a short time later, the wife passed away. (http://www.babyhomepages.net/friedmanfamily/ )Another great loss to the F-16 community.
Katie just after giving birth to Quinn Kat (named after his Mommy)

This just weeks after another F-16 wife who suffered from cancer passed away not long after giving birth to her first baby girl. (http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/) Needless to say, I had never met the first wife or the pilot and his family, but as a mother and wife, all those events hit way too close to home. I found out about the news of our friend Katie on Emily's birthday so it was a tough day to try and keep it together for her sake, but we pushed through. (Even as I type all this now, it's still so heartbreaking to me). All of the spouses have young children and are dealing with life the best way they know how. I know that God has obtained a few extra angels lately and they will all watch over their families.