Surprise!

With the help of James' sister Wendy Sue, Emma and I were able to drive down to Camarillo and surprise James for his birthday. We had just surprised him the week before for Thanksgiving, so this really took him by surprise! Wendy stayed with the older three, and Em and I arrived at James' hotel right around when he got out of class. To be honest, it was an uneventful night. I made us a quick dinner, we put the baby to bed, and James was asleep by 9:15pm. This is not an unusual occurrence when we get together. We are both so overwhelmed and tired with all that we are doing separately. I think also that we both feel so much more at peace when we are together and that helps us relax and sleep better. At any rate, it was wonderful to see him on his actual birthday, even for a little bit.

James is doing so awesome at the academy. He aces every test, he is keeping up with the rigorous physical training, and even ran 5 miles this past week (his longest run ever). He is learning some great tools about controlling and disciplining himself (among many others). I am also learning a great deal about having confidence in my abilities to run the house and take care of the children on my own. We have both found that we are much stronger and braver than we thought possible at the beginning of this adventure. The Lord is blessing us a ton as well, and answering our prayers left and right. We will still be so relieved when it is all over and we can get on with our normal lives, but I hope that we take all this learning and growth with us into the next phase of our lives. I'm sure we will. Only thirteen more weeks!

The baby and I ended up staying Friday as well so we could have another night with James. It was a really fun day. I realized that I have never been alone with Emma for an entire day since she has been born! I've always had James or one of the other kids (or all of them) with me or other family members. It was so nice. We went for a long run, had a picnic in the park, watched HGTV (that is a dangerous station to watch when you own a home!), and napped. Then when James came home, we took him out for a belated birthday dinner. He got to choose ANYWHERE he wanted to go...it was his birthday after all. Did he choose burgers or pizza? Nope. He chose, of all places, a GREEK restaurant! Who is this impostor?? He ordered a chicken wrap with hummus and pita bread, and I ordered a falafel and chicken plate. The food was awesome! We are definitely going to return to this place!

Those were the highlights of our trip. The baby did not sleep well the first night, and was up almost all night the second night with a slight fever. Her fever continued and rose for four days and nights. I thought maybe she was teething because there were no other symptoms at all except that she was tired and refused to eat anything. On day five she broke out from the crown of her head to her toes in spots. The Dr. confirmed that our poor little Emma had contracted the German measles, aka Rubella.

You can't really see the spots too well in the pictures, but there were literally hundreds and hundreds. Fortunately, Rubella is much milder than the regular measles and requires no medical treatment at all. It's called the 3 day measles and true to it's name was gone in exactly 3 days after the rash broke out. She is back to running around, eating, and being as cute as ever (And, she did break a tooth during this week also- poor gal!). So far everyone else is fine. Tired and little stressed out, but fine. :)

At Daddy's Hotel

Still At Daddy's Hotel :)

Last One...For this post :)

December 1 - November 9, 2011