It's time for favorite photo Friday. And the winner this week is ...Beaver Lake Front Cabins!


This is where James and I will be spending our 15th wedding anniversary. The kids are staying with some Friends and James is only working a half day today. He will be home around noon and then we can head out. Our big prayer is that we will all remain well until we get home. My stomach has been upset and there are so many with the flu. In fact Tia AJ (who was going to hang out with the kids while we were away is in the Hospital with the flu.

Gotta go! I have alot to do before James gets home.

Some days you just can't help being pround!

Monday morning I decided to put Noah on the big potty to see if he would go poop. It was a long shot but you have to start sometime. Kayla and I sat in the hall way doing school while he sat on the potty. After about five minutes he did go and he just kept saying "that's gross!" We reassured him that he was doing a great job.

I put him in his big boy underwear and figured that he would have an accident with the hour. He surprised us and continues to surprise us. He was dry all day (except nap when he was in a diaper) and did all his business in the big potty.

Tuesday morning I debated on what to put him in because he goes to nursery while I am at bible study. I decided on a pull up out of fairness to his teachers. He was dry the whole time and was dry the rest of the day. He just holds it till you take him. By Tuesday evening he was starting to tell me that he has to go.

I am kind of in awe that this is happening so fast. I was expecting it to take awhile and to go through several steps. Kayla was potty trained by 18 months so we are behind with him. He just didn't seem ready based on vocabulary. Over the last month his communication with us has really taken off so I guess it is time. He is loving all the praise and keeps saying "mommy watch this" as he goes pee-pee. At first he asked for his treat every time. Now I have to offer them because he just goes back to playing. I try to offer them a few times a day just because I am so proud of him.

Before I go I have to share that the other night Kayla kind of tattled on me. She told her dad that mom kept her too busy with other subjects for her to get to start her new book. This sounds really silly if you do not know our history with her. We took her out of school because at the end of her second grade year she could not read at all. We had been very concerned but they just kept ignoring our pleas for help. She is in 6 grade now and reads grade level. The other day she told us that she did not care for her last book because the author did not know how to keep the reader wanting to read more. "She said a good author would leave you hanging at the end of a chapter so that you would have to keep going. Instead I could just put the book down and not care." The whole thing brought tears to my eyes. It feels so rewarding when you see your children capture the love of reading. Her dad read to her every day from the time she was an infant until just a few years ago. If she was sound asleep when we got home at night she would still wake up and cry until dad would read to her. It did not matter how late we got home there would be a story. You can see how disappointed that we were when she struggled to read. She went from loving books to crying every time she saw one. It crushed us, especially her dad because he is such a reader. Thank you God for giving us the insight and ability to school her at home and to see such progress. This is such an answered prayer.

Today...I am just in love with being a mom!

With an ink ink here and an ink ink there...

Little man is finally feeling better and back to being a ham. Tonight we were watching Survivor Man while we were waiting for a phone call to meet some friends. A commercial came on about Dirty Jobs which is Dad and Kayla's favorite show. It became apparent tonight that Noah knows enough about the show that he recognized the host Mike Rough. The host was standing next to a pillar with a very large pig on top. Noah quickly said "Dirty Jobs" and "mom, cow-cow, ink ink." We had a really good laugh and then reminded him that it was a pig and they say oink oink. I guess mom needs to step up the animal lessons. He may be a little behind on his animals but I'm not too worried...he knows thank you in three languages as well as American sign language.

"FPF" Favorite Photo Friday"

This seems to be the thing to do in blog land so here goes...by the way how do you pick just one?



Noah and Abbie-Going for a rid on Noah's bike.

No More Thailland Mommy!

Aunt April and Naoh~ Noah talks about her every day!
Uncle Bill & Noah~ Buddies
Noah wearing his new Elephant shirt and sitting on mom's suitcase~he took everything out and then sat on it. He is such a smart little guy!



We made it through a really difficult weekend and are slowly recovering from little sleep and a sick child. Friday night I only managed to sleep about 1 hour & 45 minuets. James got about four hours. We left around 8 am to get the kids and returned home about 4 pm. We met my sister at a McDonalds half way between here and Shreveport. I was so excited to see the kids. Kayla was happy to see us but Noah just freaked out. He took one look at me and clung to my sister and started crying. He would go to James but he just gave me the evil eye. Thankfully I had brought him a toy elephant that won him over after a few minutes. I don't think that I will be able to forget that look for some time. I imagine the thought that went through his head was "have you been at McDonalds this whole time?"

It was very obvious that he was sick. You could see it on his face and in his eyes. He was also very fussy. This was the norm for the next few days. The rest of the day Saturday he wanted Dad but he did not want me to leave his sight. It was if he was letting me know that I was not out of the dog house yet but don't go any where. Sunday was full of absolute defiance. Monday was about the same but at least we were able to see the pediatrician and find out why he was sick. ~More ear infections and he was wheezing~ Another round of antibiotics and back on inhalers. He went to bed Tuesday night around 9 and slept till 1 pm the next day. He woke up and has been much easier to get along with. He is still not minding us very well but it is better than it has been.

Tuesday was my worst day so far. I could not stay awake and felt terrible all day. I fell asleep on the couch around 2 pm and woke up when the phone rang about 4:30. I still went to bed at 9 and woke up at 5 am. I stayed up for a couple of hours and then went back to bed till noon. It is Wednesday evening and I have felt much better. I even accomplished a lot this afternoon. I am hoping that Thursday will be a productive day. I know that we can not blame jet lag forever but they say that it usually take one day for every hour of time difference. I sure hope not. We are on day 7 tomorrow and I just can't imagine feeling this way for another 6 days.

Kayla is doing great. She has been awesome through this whole thing. She did great at my sisters and has been a big help since she got home. She is staying on track with school and has had a great attitude. I need to find some way to show her how much I appreciate her.

Even though it has been a long few weeks it has been one of the greatest experiences that we have ever had. I would go through the long flights and no sleep again in a heart beat. I would even go through the hard part of being away from the kids again. That part was hard but what God allowed us to experience and see was worth it. I am not sure that Noah would agree- he just keeps saying no more Thailand mommy, no more Thailand.

JET LAG STINKS!

Well I slept good the night we returned home and had a great morning nap that lasted into the middle of the day. I don't think that was a good idea. My days and nights are mixed up- we were 13 hours ahead over there. Now it is 1:45 am and I can not sleep.

I also miss my kids. We leave at 8 am to get them. Noah has the flu so it will be a hard ride home but I can't wait to hold him. I feel like I can't even remember what he looks like:( I'm kinda sad and and very anxious to see them both. On the other hand I know that there will be a lot to talk about and my brain cells still do not function well. It is very difficult to keep my thoughts together long enough to finish a conversation.

I have to go get dressed-James and I have to work the route tonight from 2 -4am. Then get a couple hours sleep and drive 8 hours.

Angie

Home Sweet Home

Theses guys are plain crazy when they have not eaten and have been stuck in an airport all day. Our pizza arrived at 10 pm. -no wonder they look half crazed.
Susan trying to eat her pizza while "trying to reschedule our flights that they re booked to the wrong destination.
James, Darrin & Susan hanging out on our flight to Tokyo.


I am not even sure where to begin. There is so much that has happened since our last posting. I will try to give a little update but we are still fighting jet lag so it may be a little patchy.

First- Our flight to our destination was longer than expected. A lot longer. We did not make our flight out of XNA on time which meant that we missed our connecting flight in Chicago. This began a very long adventure and resulted in us spending the night in Chicago. It also meant that we were 24 hours behind schedule if we were able to catch a flight out the next day. The next challenge was getting to the hotel in the blizzard (not a blizzard to Chicago but for us it was a blizzard). It took us three hours to get a shuttle to our hotel. We finally realized that the only way to catch a shuttle was to stand out side in the freezing cold, snowing of course, with 30 plus mile hour winds. Now we now why it is called the windy city. Any way we did this in groups and each time it would take us about 40 minutes to get on the next shuttle. Let me remind you that we were dressed for the tropics-not a blizzard. No coat or cloves, most of us in short sleeves. We finally get to the hotel and eat our first meal that day. Of course since we were in Chicago we had deep dish pizza delivered.

We were able to call the next morning and reschedule flights for that day. Now the hard part of this is that we hard a large team traveling together and we were booked as one so we had spent 4 hours the day in customer service re booking flights. Everyone was great and very patient but we soon discovered that they had booked us on a flight to Germany that would result in us being sent back to the US at our cost and then staring over. Very complex, to difficult to explain but God worked it all out and we got new flights.

We all left Chicago by 2 pm Friday. That was the great news. The bad news is that we still have 22 hours of flight time left and we are officially late. There is nothing that we can do but keep moving.

The flights were very long and many including me were unable to sleep a wink:(

We arrived 26 hours behind schedule with no luggage. It is now time to get to work. The team that was there to meet us had mercy on us and gave us 4 1/2 hours to sleep before we had to report. That would mean that we would be functioning for 60 hours on 5 hours of sleep.

The next hurdle would be jet lag and culture shock followed by 24 hour youth camp for the next 7 days.

There is so much that we would love to share but are unable to do so at this point. We are home and safe and never getting on a plane again (okay maybe one day but not any time soon).

We are still missing the kids. They come home Saturday. We will meet half way again. Noah had been sick most of the time we were gone and is now running 103.5 temp. We are ready to have our baby home again and I'm sure that my sister is ready for him to be home. Kayla had done fabulous and we are anxious to see her. God really sustained us through the trip. I only cried a little the first time I talked to Noah. I talked about the kids a lot and showed everyone there pictures. God just gave me a supernatural peace about not being with them. I needed that so that I could focus on the task at hand. I think that I will really miss them today now that we are home and they are not. I refuse to even go into there rooms because I am afraid that the flood gate of tears will burst and I really need to focus on getting things accomplished here before they get home. I am looking forward to eating at Olive Garden tonight with James. It is our little treat before the kids come back and we have a gift certificate.

The Milners