Well tomorrow's Christmas and it's been a LONG time since I've actually taken 2 minutes to sit here and blog. My New Years resolution is to actually take time and blog since we have family all over the US now that mom and dad are in Hawaii. This year has been quite a year and it's changed our lives in many ways. We've made some new fantastic friends and had to say goodbye to some best friends, which when you're 3 is not easy. In December of 2008 my best friend in San Diego (Lindsey) left to head out to Pittsburgh, PA while her husband was deployed. In her being so far away from us her beautiful little girl, who is like my niece, got critically ill and that was just as scary as having my own child in the hospital. With the grace of God Derrick made it home and thank GOD it was taken care of and things seem to be getting better for them. In February Rylan turned 1 and I can't believe my baby will be 2 in a few months. In March I took the kids out to Hawaii and had a BLAST. There were 8 of us at my parents little 2 bedroom condo, but it was so worth it to go spend time with Brett, the boys and my parents. We did get stranded thanks to ATA closing, but we weren't really stranded since we had a place to stay and no hotel fee's. We started our 2nd deployment in May which was a lot different than the first one. The first one was a lot harder to say goodbye than this time (at least for me). It was probably harder on Josh because instead of just saying bye to Mackenzie and I he had to add Rylan into the mix. In July I decided try to be neat like Lindsey and fell down the stairs holding Rylan (he's fine). It's a good thing I had such a great friend who lived around the corner and came picked me up off the floor, dropped the kids off at her house with her husband and took me to the ER. Nothing was broken, but I was on crutches for 3 weeks (mind you Josh was deployed). The ER technician found an abnormality in my foot and told me I should talk to my Dr about doing an MRI and so we did one which did not end how I was hoping it would. July 3rd was our first real ER trip with Rylan who on the way there turned purple on me. He had a massive asthma attack and after a breathing treatment, scope to make sure he hadn't swallowed something, and bloodwork to rule out CHF (congestive heart failure) because my grandfather died from that. That was a fun scare with me since Josh wasn't home. Mackenzie turned 3 in July and she is amazing me everyday with the new things she's learned. My little princess can write her name which just amazes me and she's trying to learn how to spell Rylan. In August I went and saw an orthopedic surgeon who said "I'm not touching it you need a foot and ankle surgeon" so there started the craziness with Tricare trying to get them to approve me seeing a specialist. Finally got into see one and surgery was scheduled for September 8th. August was a really hard month for our family because I had to do the WORST thing a military family has to do which is say goodbye to the person who's been there for everything for the last 2 years and had to watch my daughter say goodbye to her first best friend (I'm crying just thinking about it). Derrick, Lindsey, Jamison and Izabelle have been our best friends here for the last 2 years and it's hard to watch them go across the country knowing we'll never live this close again unless something really strange happens (we lived 10 houses from each other). The end of August abruptly ended our deployment by Josh coming home so that I could have this surgery which would keep me off my feet for 6 weeks (hahaha he got to be Mr. mom). The 8th of September came and I had my surgery which was worse than anyone expected. It took longer than they expected and was more painful than I expected (especially with the stinking nerve block not working). For the rest of September I was up in bed about 90% of the time while Josh was taking care of the kids, house and everything else. I am very blessed to have a husband who can and will take care of that kind of stuff. He did learn really quickly how hard it is to be a stay at home mom and he said he'd rather be on the boat with the amount of work he had to do. September 30th I finally got my cast on instead of having it splinted and wrapped. By October I was at least able to come down the stairs and be part of the family which I was really missing being upstairs. October 14th I got my cast off and got the boot on which was very interesting, but much needed so that I could actually take a shower without worrying about my cast getting wet. October 28th I started learning how to walk again and it's been an amazing recovery. Josh went back to work FULL time on the 29th of October and was on the USS Pinckney while waiting for the USS Thach to get back home. November marked a tragic point in our lives when my "other mom" Altha passed after a 14+ year battle with breast cancer. I miss her more than anything in the world, but we know she's in God's presence and probably goofing off with Grandma Midge and Grand mom Odine and no longer suffering from the cancer that took her from us. Josh and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on the 6th of November. Well we didn't celebrate it that day because I flew to Manteca on our anniversary to be home for Altha's funeral on the 7th, but hey it was my turn to miss one since Josh has missed the other 3. We do have FANTASTIC neighbors who watched the kids that weekend so we could go out to eat with no kids. We have some VERY regularly scheduled days in our week which makes it go by much faster and we have a blast. We have become great friends with our neighbors and we all get a good laugh that their last name is Zigler and we get each other's mail. We spend a lot of time together and are loving having another great friend like we had in the Furr's. Not that the Furr's can ever be replaced, but it's nice to have someone to talk to on a daily basis. Our weeks consist of Craft Group on Mondays and MOPS on Wednesdays. We also have a set play date with the Zigler kids at about 3 (or right after nap time) everyday, but Thursday because of mid week services for the Ziglers. Play dates are great because we pull the van's out of the driveway and let the kids play while Dotty and I sit at the patio table and talk (Josh and Chris join us if they're home). We have another deployment coming very soon and it will be Mackenzie's 3rd deployment in the 3 1/2 short years of her life (she'll turn 4 during it) and Rylan's 2nd by the time he's 2 1/2. We also face a possible move because Josh is up for orders right now which means our time on the boat we're currently assigned to is up the end of August and we have to find somewhere else. Our picks for places right now stand as #1 San Diego (we don't want to move), #2 Hawaii, #3 Washington. All in all our year has been VERY eventful with best friends moving, making new friends, loosing ones we love and surgery. Those of you we don't see on a weekly or daily basis we miss you and those we do it has been amazing to have you in our lives. Have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year! ~ Andrea, Mackenzie, Rylan, and Josh Bigler
