2012 - Homecoming

HOMECOMING!!!! And I don't mean that High School football game and dance ;) In early February Tom finally came home from his deployment and we were so excited to see him!! (Well, I was so excited, Lukas didn't really know what to think). It had snowed quite a bit the day before he was scheduled to arrive so Lukas and I had some snow shoveling to do!

I hate snow shovelling, by the way ;) (Are we really moving to Alaska next year?!?! Really?!)

Luckily there were no flight delays and the unit landed in Germany as planned!! We got dressed up, packed our supplies and set out to wait for Tom!!!! I was so nervous and excited and just overwhelmed with emotions, it was the longest day ever waiting for them to come through the door!

 

And finally it was time!! They were right there, standing behind that wall!!!

 

 

There he is Lukas!!!!

 

 

YAY!!!!!!!

 

Just looking at these pictures still makes me emotional! It was so wonderful to have him back home with us!!

Poor Tom had to deal with some rejection from Lukas at first. He still prefers mommy but that is to be expected ;)

 

And then they bonded over Daddy's sweet dance moves!

 

And glasses are super fun!

Tom had to attend some post-deployment briefings and classes for a few weeks and was not allowed to drive. So we drove him around and spent lots of time together! Then he started what they call 'block leave' which means a big ole chunk of vacation!! We were supposed to leave right away for a trip to CA and Iowa to visit family, but Lukas and I caught the flu :( Thank goodness this was the first time either of us had been sick all year because it was baaaad!! We were lucky Tom was there to take care of us!! We ended up taking Lukas to the doctor 3 times in one week and to the ER too. In caring for a sick baby, I had not been taking very good care of myself and ended up getting really dehydrated. Tom checked us both in to the ER and they checked us both out, did chest x-rays on us and said that Lukas was just fine, but they had to admit me!! What?! I was severly dehydrated, my heart-rate was thru the roof. It took 4 liters of IV fluid before they would let me go home. I got medicine to help with my flu symptoms and was finally able to get some rest. We waited a few more days until we were past the worst of it and on the mend!!

We still weren't feeling 100% but were no longer contagious and felt well enough to travel so we packed our bags and headed for home! :) This trip was special because we were going home to Sacramento and also to Iowa to visit Tom's extended family! We also had another fabulous photoshoot with Erin Noel Photography :) http://erinnoeldesigns.blogspot.com/2012/03/holmes-family.html Yay!! Love her!!

We got to do a lot of visiting and had so much fun!

Lukas playing with his new fire truck from Grandma Sharon :)

 Splish splash I was taking a bath!!

Getting some hugs from Aunty Shelly!

 Eating some food! He still loves these things!

Visiting with Grandpa Ken

Playing with Grandma Rose :)

Weeeeeee!!

 Chillin' out with his Great Grandma Carol

 Getting ready to leave for the airport and head to Iowa

 

Aunt Karen took us all to the Henry Doorly Zoo while we were in Iowa!! This is how Lukas enjoyed most of the zoo ;)

 Look at the monkeys Lukas!!

 Lukas is as tall as a monkey!!! Yay!!

Daddy and Lukas checkin out the monkeys

 Lukas and his Great Aunt Karen!

Lukas and Great Aunt Linda :) Lukas likes wearing matching shirts!

 

 Lukas giving Great Grandma Bigley a great big hug!!

 

 Lukas and Great Grandpa Bigley, "Stop taking our picture!!"

 Great Grandpa, Tom and Lukas! Love it!!

 

 Then it was time to fly back home to Germany just to pack up and move again!! Oh the life of a military wife!! We landed back in Germany at the end of March, by May 1st we had to report to Fort Lee, Virginia!! We had just over 1 month to get everything scheduled, packed up, shipped off and ready to go! We are actually getting pretty good at this whole military moving business, so it wasn't too too painful :) We even managed to squeeze in an impromtu trip to Prague over Easter! Macy even got to come!! Macy turned 5 this year and thanks to so many wonderful family members and friends we have never had to board her at a kennel! She has always either joined us on our vacations (thanks Europe for being so dog friendly!) or we have been able to leave her at someone's home :)

 

And so we bid a fond farewell to our time in Germany. It was an amazing experience. We made some lifelong friends, traveled to many beautiful locations, learned a lot about Germany and it's people and culture, survived our first deployment and gave birth to our first child. It has been a wonderful 4 years. While I was anxious to get on my towards the end, with everything going on in our lives, we truly enjoyed living overseas and will have so many great memories from our time there!

 



In closing this chapter of our lives I will do as the Germans do and say auf wiedersehen!!! Which does not mean goodbye but rather, to see you again :)

 

2011 - Baby Lukas

June 2011 (continued) - So, not only did Tom get to see the birth of his first born son, but since he arrived just in the nick of time, he got to spend 2 full weeks with us! We were so thankful everything worked out perfectly!

So after Lukas was born we stayed a few days in the hospital just getting the hang of everything. Tom got to stay with us in our room and slept on his pull-out bed/chair :) Thanks to our 3rd generation of Sutter Memorial born babies, we had a nice private room!

 

In the next few weeks we spent as much time with daddy as possible and just navigated the joys and challenges of having a newborn. I don't remember a ton, but I can tell you one thing without doubt: That baby got lots of love!

 



 

We got to do a newborn photo shoot with the fabulous Erin Noel Photography (seriously Sacramento peeps, you should check her out!) http://erinnoeldesigns.blogspot.com/2011/06/lukas-newborn-photographer.html There are too many good ones to post and it's hard to just pick a few favorites so just check out the link! :)

Tom also wanted to have a little bit of fun during his only 2 weeks off in a whole year. We got to go and spend the evening with our good friends the Stepps!

 

And then daddy had to go back to Afghanistan. Sad day. :(

And then mommy and Lukas got to spend lots of time with our family and friends and get ready to go back to Germany! I finalized all of the paperwork for Lukas' social security card, birth certificate, passport, health insurance, military dependent enrollment, ect, ect. :) By the time he was 3 weeks old everything was done! Woop! Organizational skills.

I was so excited and very thankful that grandma Sharon and grandpa Duane were able to come back with us to Germany and stay for a month! They were such a huge help and absolutely awesome support through the whole pregnancy and newborn stage! I don't think I could have done it without them, or Aunty Shelly <3 love="love" much="much" p="p" so="so" you="you">When Lukas was 7 weeks old, we mailed big boxes of baby gear back to Germany, packed our bags, packed our dog and headed for the airport! The flight was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and before I knew it we were home!

 

And then my mom and dad had to go back to Sacramento. Sad day. :(

 

But my friend Faith would not let me have any kind of pity party! She swooped right in and helped us stay busy! Thank goodness for our Army family! We had a fun dinner party every Monday night so that we could watch The Amazing Race and Army Wives (my fav shows!) and we planned a fun day trip with our friend Lauren to Idar-Oberstein :)

 

 

Lukas attended his very first concert - it was Trace Adkins performing at Ramstein Airbase - Lukas is a big fan :) As is our friend Brianna from the good ole' days in Wiesbaden!

 

 

We went out to dinner with our friends to celebrate a birthday!

And Lukas participated in his second Race for the Cure in Frankfurt (the first being in utero) :) I couldn't miss my last year participating in Germany! I went all four years!

 

Lukas got a job.

 

And we talked to daddy on the computer whenever we could and sent him lots of pictures!





That takes us through Fall of 2011. It is really kind of fun going back and looking through all of the pictures and remembering how many good times we had!

We also started attending a weekly group for nursing mothers and babies that was run by the hospital. We met some great mommy friends there (whom we still keep in touch with)! And it was such a relief to me to have a safe place to go every week where Lukas was weighed and I could ask questions and I knew that someone other than me was seeing him and watching his growth and development. As a first time mom by myself, that little piece of mind was priceless!

 

 

 

Through one of our new mommy friends we met another wonderful photographer who captured some adorable photos of Lukas at 5 months and later, luckily for us, we both moved to Virginia and became friends! I love it when stuff like that happens in the Army! You can check her out here on her website, she is a great person and photographer (and mother to Lukas' girlfriend Stella)! http://sarahperryphotography.com/

And before we knew it, it was time for our trip back to Sacramento to visit for Thanksgiving!

We did not have to subject poor Macy to the long airplane trip this time because Faith, the angel that she is, offered to watch Macy for us! Did I mention that she also took care of my house for the entire summer while I was off in California having a baby?! Yeah, she is pretty amazing :)

We had a very fun visit! Lukas tried his first solid food and got to visit with his family! It was nice to break up the time before Tom got back in February.

Hanging out with Great Grandma Carol

 

We almost ran in the Run to Feed the Hungry but it was raining, so we went to Starbucks instead :)

 

Camping with Grandpa at Stoney Ford!

 

Driving the Rhino . . . with his mouth

 

 

 Playing with Lucy

 

 Chillaxin with his Uncles

 

 Having some food!! Yum yum!

 

 Spending some quality time with his girlfriend Gwyneth

 

 Being adorable, it's a full time job!

 

 This is what Macy was doing back in Germany during all these shenanigans!

 

Our trip back to Germany spanned several days due to a military flight delay and Lukas and I spent my birthday and his 1/2 birthday alone in Baltimore, MD.

Once we were settled back home in Germany it was a full schedule of play dates and activities to keep us busy for the next few months! We continued going to the nursing group, we had play dates with our mommy and baby friends, we took swim lessons, we visited the bank, and as always, talked to Daddy on the computer :)

Swim lessons!

 

 New diaper! YAY!

 

Lots of diapers!! Yay!!! :)

 

Play date with his girlfriend Emaline (in case you haven't caught on yet, Lukas has a lot of girlfriends)!

Mmmm, food is delicious!

 Lukas' first Santa pic (taken in Sacramento during our last visit)

And time marches on, finally, it is HOMECOMING!!!!! We will break here and start a new post for Homecoming :)