Merry Christmas

Just wanted to take a quick moment to wish everyone in the blog world a very Merry Christmas. I'll try to post another update over the next few days but wanted to make sure everyone remembered how blessed we are. It was a special Christmas this year for us to be able to have my dad home after having a double lung transplant just 12 short weeks ago (today). The girls had a blast baking cookies with family, icing Baby Jesus' cake with G-Man while having him totally sugar them up and having a sleepover at G-Man's house. Enjoying today with my dad and the rest of our family though I couldn't help but think about all those we know who have lost loved ones this past year. Sitting with my uncle (my cousin Danielle who passed away this past May, her dad) in Christmas Eve service last night, I couldn't help but hurt for him. I realize I haven't seen her the past few years at Christmas, but it's a time for family. We had just been watching old home movies a few nights before and Dani was on there from our wedding. It was those great memories I will never forget, not the missed holidays or the things in life that kept us apart. I do know that one day I'll get to see her again though.

Then I found myself thinking of the fellow F-16 family, the Sullivan family (http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/) who lost a wife and new mother back when I was home during the week with my dad after just finding out he had 6 months to live without a lung transplant. I stayed up late one night reading all of Brady's blogs and was captivated by their strong faith through all their trials. I can imagine what a tough time today must have been with it being Chloe's first Christmas, but I know that Brady also knows that one day he, Sara and Chloe will all be reunited again.

Which brings me to the Giglio family. Just last Friday on Capt. Giglio's birthday, he had his memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery. We were unable to travel up there for the service, but many of our fellow squadron members made the trip. Storms hit that area like crazy and everyone still made it safely and home safely. Please continue to pray for Leigh, her daughter Grace and unborn son Caleb as they all get through the next few months and Caleb joins this world in February.

Last but not least, I couldn't help but have an aching heart for the Friedman family, but am so glad to find out through Facebook status updates that Jon was able to make it back home in time to be with his two boys for Christmas. Katie is missed greatly, as are all the people mentioned above, but Jon has done so well to make sure everything is in order for him and his boys to include having to travel back to Italy to outprocess and close out the last chapter of his life with Katie. Katie too, will one day meet up with all her boys.

Merry Christmas everyone. And please take a moment to be thankful for the ability to simply breathe and enjoy each others company. Stupid issues and mind games are never fun, but just think, you may never know when one day may be your last, so make every day worth living. This year I am blessed to have a loving husband, two beautiful daughters who test us daily but make us laugh daily, a father who has had a life changing miracle over the past 12 weeks and so many other family members and friends to love and cherish.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Holiday pics and parties

We began the season of Christmas parties and such. We finally got our holiday jet pictures in too. Usually we do them around Thanksgiving and it's not so chilly, but somehow the squadron put it off until later and boy, was it cold. Well, not too cold, but the brisk breeze didn't help... the hair or the temperature. Anyway, a few of these look a bit awkward since I was trying to keep a child warm and on the ladder, but oh well. They did well for the few minutes they had to take their coats off.

I'm going to miss not having this as their growth chart :( Nothing will compare.

We cheaped out on the squadron Christmas party since we're not technically in the squadron anymore anyway. Things get a little different once you are "attached". Information doesn't flow as well. Oh well. This was the Wing party which was a little cheaper but not nearly as fun as the AF Ball where I had more partners in crime or last year's Wing Christmas party where Double Down played. It was still fun to get dressed up... and I might add, in my little sister's dress. Thanks Kylie for sending it! It worked out perfect. And I didn't even have to ask Eric to wear a suit, he did that all on his own :)

Figured I'd just try to stay caught up on pictures and such since I know come this time next week I'll have a ton more pictures of the girls with friends and family. They are looking forward to going home and visiting everyone. Emily even asks in her prayers to help Gigi and G-Man to not get sick so we can go visit them and something about Giga's pool. Who knows, she's 4. They are excited for Santa to come visit and are looking forward to baking cookies with friends, making reindeer food and flat out just having other people around besides Mommy and Daddy :) Until next time.

Thanksgiving and 30th birthdays.

As stated in a previous post, Thanksgiving meant getting to visit with G-Man, Gigi, Aunt Kylie, Uncle Ricky, Mimi, Pop-Pop, Uncle Bill, Uncle Steve and Michael. Whew. That's a lot of family, but we have strength in numbers :) It was nice to be able to see my dad again and the girls had fun seeing their great-grandparents. For some reason, Emily had been on a kick mentioning them, yet she hadn't seen them since this summer in New Hampshire. So it took a decent amount of driving over the 3 days we were in town, but it was great to have quality family time. We ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner at the dining hall down the street due to my dad needing strict cooking and such. He stayed behind but we all ate quickly so we could go back and visit with him. Oh, and watch more football too. Before going to eat, we put everyone in their coordinating colors and took some pictures. Picture taking is always an adventure with our family and something we can never take enough of.



This past summer we somehow got a humorous family photo that no one realized was being taken but we were all doing something different and totally not paying attention. Trying to re-enact that was what led to the picture above.
Since we knew G-Man still had to wear his mask around us a good bit of the time, we decided we'd bring Eric's mask for flying. It got a good laugh and had some funny pictures taken with it.

Most of the gang. Too bad Ricky and Eric thought they'd be funny by hiding behind people. Next time that happens, I'll make sure the girls camp out in his hotel room since we had joining rooms:)

G-Man with all his girls!

I love my baby sister! She's growing up too fast. I remember when she was my girls age!
I love my little sister, Aunt Kylie. I am always amused with the pictures I will find on my camera when it's up to her and the girls :) The girls always have a great time with Aunt Kylie as well.
With Thanksgiving day being on the 26th this year, it also was time to celebrate my 30th birthday. I am still trying to cope with being 30 now and was constantly reminded by my children, husband, dad, brother, you name it on how old I was. Thanks guy! They made sure they decorated the house and such while I had to sit outside. Emily at one point came outside and said "Mom, we can't tell you about your cake, it's a surprise". So we pushed the issue and said "What"?. She caught on and replied with "Wait, nevermind." and then wouldn't let us go any further. We all got a good laugh. (On a side note while mentioning funny things Emily says. We had a quick scare thinking we may not be able to make the trip to Jacksonville with Emily getting a cough so I got her an appt at the doc just to be sure. While in with the doctor, Emily wrote her name on the paper that was on the seat she was sitting on. The doctor was asking Emily how old she was and Emily said "I'm 4". The doctor said "Wow, you are smart Emily". Emily simply replied with "I was smart when I was 3 too"! What a character. This is the same kid that is determined to get Aspen (our dog) a bone for Christmas but "we can't tell him b/c it's a surprise".
Per doctor's orders my dad kept up his rehab and exercise schedule even on Thanksgiving day. We all took a family walk and saw some deer tracks, which we showed the girls and said they were probably the reindeer getting ready for Christmas.
Another highlight of the Thanksgiving trip for the girls was to ride the golfcart at the Sonneborn's house where G-Man and Gigi are staying in Jacksonville. We were running short on time, but they were thankful for the quick ride around!

Overall another weekend full of blessings. This Thanksgiving was obviously much more special than others. We have enjoyed the past few years having everyone at our house, but this year it just wasn't possible for my dad to travel that far so we worked with what we had. We always have a good time together and have lots of laughs and this trip was no exception. We are looking forward to Christmas together! Consider yourself caught up!

The new song on the site is one of my favorite Christmas songs and I realize it's about Mary and all her emotions she went through, but it reminds me of my dad. He was given the "Breath of Heaven" and we are so thankful we will get to spend Christmas with him back in South Florida!

Disney Weekend November 2009

Back in July I found a great deal on a military website for a condo in the Disney area and it came with Sea World passes for 4! Score! We still had a day left on our military passes from earlier in the year so I made the reservations for November figuring we'd have another grand time. That we did and it couldn't have come at a better time. Before hitting up Disney though, we decided to make a stop in Jacksonville and see G-Man with the girls. The girls were so excited to see him and Gigi. They brought stickers and crayons with them so the girls could decorate their masks. It was so much better to see my dad this way versus in the hospital bed where he was when I had seen him last. Our visit with them was short, but we knew we'd be back down for Thanksgiving to visit as well.



When you're in the AF, you learn to meet up with people where and when you can. One of my friends Kim and her kiddos don't live far from Orlando while her hubby is in Korea, so they drove over to meet us for a few of the nights.


The girls were super excited to hang out and Ryan tagged along and did his best to keep up. We stopped at my old stomping grounds (well for a year anyway), UCF and picked up Miss Marcy to join us as well. She had never been to Sea World so we were excited to experience that with her for the first time. We decided to try out Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party since none of us had ever done that and I have found a new time that I love Disney... when it's all decorated for Christmas! The girls thought it was awesome to see the castle all lit up and I'd have to agree.

We showed up late afternoon on Thursday and let the kids hang out before heading over to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas. All the kids loved having Miss Marcy around :)

Mickey's Christmas party was from 7 until midnight! Talk about getting to stay up past your bedtime. I think the funniest part of this picture is the guy cheesing in the background. On another version of this picture he had been paying attention to his phone.

I think Emily had looked at Mickey and was trying to pose by him.

Right when we got in the park, we took this picture. Getting 4 kids under the age of 6 to all line up for one picture was quite a challenge. Well, the girls posed well, but Ryan, well he's another story ;)
After having a late night, we took it easy the next morning and finally made it to Sea World around 11am! Emily was super excited about Sea World, almost as much as Miss Marcy :)

The kids even got to see Santa!

Feeding the dolphins didn't quite go as we had planned. I think Emily was a lot more talk before getting there, but once it came to the actual moment, well she was more comfortable just hanging by Mommy. We also went over the whale and dolphin show, but had to leave the first one b/c one of the whales wasn't cooperating and listening to it's trainers. Good teaching tool for the kiddos since we talked about what happens when you don't listen and how disappointed people get when you don't listen just as we were to have to come back later due to the whale not listening. Luckily by the time we got back for the show, the whale had come out of "time out" . :)

This is most certainly correct placement for this group! :) Move ahead to our daytime trip to the Magic Kingdom. The kids were troopers the entire time!

Our very first stop was to see Tinkerbell and her other fairy friends. The girls were excited and it was cute to see them step into the "fairy world" and flap their wings so they could shrink down to fairy size. Then they flapped their wings again to get back to human size.

Ryan may look like he's running away but this was the first person he'd actually go stand by, so it was a success in our book :)

So I send the big kids and the "adults" off to ride roller coasters while I take the two little ones to the Country Bear Jamboree show. *yawn* :) So once we meet back up, it's starting to get later in the evening and the big girls are begging to go on Splash Mountain again convincing me that "we won't get wet". See picture above for end result. I don't mind getting wet, just not when the sun is on it's way down and there is no hope for drying in the near future!

I couldn't get enough of the castle being all lit up with Christmas lights.

It was another late night for the kiddos but the girls pushed through and were in good spirits for the most part. They were in especially good spirits when we let them pick these dolls from the Disney store. We made sure to call Giga the next day to thank him for the early Christmas present :) Really we just knew it would be our last time at Disney for a while so we gave in and got them these dolls. Apparently even princesses have split personalities since the doll changes from Belle to Cinderella.

Overall it was a great trip and I'm so glad our friends were able to join us. Unfortunately we won't get to see them again for a while since they will be continuing their AF journey to another part of Korea. Hopefully with the AF being as small as it is though, our paths will cross again soon!

Birthdays, Halloween and the Wizard of Oz

Fast forward a few weeks and you have our squadron Halloween party where the squadron band Eric is part of entertained the crowd until we were told to go home. It was said to be the last show for "Double Down" since one guy was retiring and another was moving, but I hear it's in the works for another show. Hopefully, we'll see.

We had the party on Nichole's 6th birthday, so we tried to make sure we celebrated with her on Halloween and somehow in there we didn't get the full bit and didn't take pictures or anything. I don't think Nichole minded since she got to go trick or treating and totally ignore bedtime that night! Of course the girls were princesses b/c what else are they ever?





In the midst of all we had going on in October, we found out that we will be crossing over to another branch of the military for a few years starting in March/April of 2010. We are heading to Fort Riley, Kansas which is near Manhattan, Kansas, not New York :( When Eric is home, it is certainly the better hours and family time we are looking for having been on such a quick tempo for the past few years, but unfortunately, we have the potential to at least hit a deployment or two while we're there. It will not be a flying job, so he's bummed about that, but having been on two flying assignments back to back, he knew to expect not to stay in the jet. I will certainly miss hearing the jet noise. Maybe I'll just have to watch 'Top Gun' an extra time or two (wrong branch for us by the way) :)

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.

The Words I Would Say

I was searching around for songs tonight and I heard this one. Take a listen and play it on the music player off to the right if you want :) Just reminds me of things my dad would say. Check out his blog for more info on his status. http://rickhornsby.blogspot.com/


Three in the morning,
And I'm still awake,
So I picked up a pen and a page,
And I started writing,
Just what I'd say,
If we were face to face,
I'd tell you just what you mean to me,
I'd tell you these simple truths,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,

Last time we spoke,
You said you were hurting,
And I felt your pain in my heart,
I want to tell you,
That I keep on praying,
Love will find you where you are,
I know cause I've already been there,
So please hear these simple truths,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,

From one simple life to another,
I will say,
Come find peace in the Father,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
Thank God for each day,
His love will find a way,
These are the words I would say

Operation Breath of Life began Oct 2, 2009

Forgive me for not updating here. There hasn't been a ton to update especially with G-Man having gotten a call from the Mayo Clinic. Be sure to check out and follow the journey... it's been an amazing ride the past few days. Please continue to pray for my dad, family and all the medical staff involved.

Operation Breath of Life

The Tooth Fairy visits!

Well we were given the heads up by the dentist last month when the girls had their check ups that Nichole had two loose teeth, but she told us it would probably be 3-6 months before Nichole actually lost them. Ended up being more like a month! Of course, I missed out on it. Daddy would check the teeth each night before she went to bed and she began wiggling them with her tongue. Low and behold while watching Monday Night Football, Colts versus Dolphins this past week, I was sent a picture saying "Told you so" meaning I was warned that she would lose them while I was out of town. Oh well, I guess it was time for Daddy to be around for a first that I wasn't around for. Not sure there are any of those until now. Anyway, she was excited and her new teeth have already begun growing in there and she's already told me that her top left front tooth is a little loose! Man, when did my baby grow up??? I can't believe in just a few weeks she'll be celebrating her 6th birthday! Where does the time go? The tooth fairy had a $5 and a $20, needless to say, she only lucked out with the $5 but we'll be sure to tell the tooth fairy to keep smaller bills on hand :)

The picture I was sent right after they came out. A few days later, the new teeth are already coming in!

Hope Now by Addison Road

I was driving today to have lunch with my little sister and her basketball team at her school and heard this song that I can't seem to get out of my head now. Still struggling daily, make that hourly while being here in South FL with the reality of this settling in, but God is in control. Be sure to check out "Operation Breath of Life" from my blog post below. Oh and of course, this song is now the first song you hear on the blog, so stay for a few and listen in.



If everything comes down to love
Then just what am I afraid of
When I call out Your name
Something inside awakes in my soul
How quickly I forget I'm Yours

(PRE-CHORUS)
I'm not my own
I've been carried by You
All my life

(CHORUS)
Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow
When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free

When my life is like a storm
Rising waters all I want is the shore
You say I'll be ok and
Make it through the rain
You are my shelter from the storm

(CHORUS)
Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow
When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free

I am not my own
I've been carried by you all my life

(CHORUS)
Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow
When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free
(Repeat 2x)

(CHORUS 2)
You've become my hearts desire
I will sing Your praises higher
Cause Your love sets me free
Your love sets me free
Your love sets me free