I'm Baaaaaack! Whew!

It's been a long 2 weeks and so much has happened. I'm just going to recap, rather than make this go on forever.

• July 26 was Marks' 45th Birthday!! Alysa and I were gone that day, so we celebrated a few days early by inviting a few friends over for grilled brats and ice cream cake from the DQ (which was very tasty, I might say).
• Drove to Texas (13 hour trip) and spent the first few days with my mother, who left the following Monday for the MTC in Utah. She has since made it to Sacrament, CA and seems to be loving it. She has a brand new apartment with her own room and bathroom, says the people are very friendly and is really enjoying her companion. I think this mission is a huge blessing to her.

• Barely got my mother off and my grandmother (91 years young) had a severe drop in her heart rate and ended up in the hospital. They wound up putting in a pacemaker, which put a little color back in her cheeks! She hasn't forgotten the doc telling her she should be able to go dancing!! This is a pic of 5 generations, including my grandmother, my dad, me, my son, Wes and his daughter, Skylar. I think this is awesome!

• Of course my main reason for making the trip to Texas was to welcome my new grandson into the world. However, that was not meant to be right away and we were beginning to fret and ring our hands because he just wasn't cooperating with our time frame. So we filled our time with activities like going to the park to play, visiting all the animals at the zoo, hanging at the mall and playing guitar hero in the AC. The temperatures there were 100+ degrees with a heat index of 106/107. I'm talking hotter than haites, downright miserable, shirt drenching HOT!!
  

• So we started getting so worried that we wouldn't get to meet Briley before we had to come back home that I decided to fast about it. Tuesday morning, Aug. 5 we went to Wendy's Dr. appt. and found out nothing had changed....she was still dilated to a 3 (they wouldn't induce unless she was a week overdue and they wouldn't keep her unless she was at least a 5). Bummer!! Even though we were all a little down about the lack of progress, we went through with our plans for the day. We went to Gilmer and visited my grandmother (out of the hospital and staying with my aunt). By now Wendy is having contractions, although we were all a bit guarded with our excitement because she'd already had 2 dry runs and the doc had just told us nothing had changed. So we continued our journey over to Longview for my FAVORITE pizza on the entire planet. This was actually my second trip! This is where things started getting serious. We had eaten our salads and the pizza had pretty much just arrived at the table. Wendy took one bite when I noticed a tear trickle down and she said "As soon as we finish eating, we probably need to go to the hospital." I knew she was in some pain, so we didn't wait. We threw the pizza in boxes, paid the bill and blazed a trail to Tyler (about 40 miles). By the time we arrived at the hospital, Wendy was sick from the meal she'd just eaten and graciously returned it (that was a joke). Wes got a wheel chair and took her upstairs while I took Alysa and Skylar back to their apartment to get needed clothing and cameras!! They checked her right away and we found out she was dilated to a 7!! I barely made it back when she decided she needed to make a trip to the ladies room. But, alas, the nurse would not let her go before being checked again. Upon doing so, we found out she was at a 10 and had a bulging bag, which they promptly erupted. Within 3 minutes of that event, Briley was born!! It was, without doubt, one of the most spectacular things I've ever witnessed in life!!! From the time we got to the hospital to delivery was only 1 hr. 45 min.!! He weighed in at 8 lbs. 14 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long. He is absolutely scrumptious!! He had a little fluid in his lungs, so he stayed in the Special Care Unit until Thursday (allowing Mark to get a special "compassion" airplane fare) and came home on Friday, where he quickly bumped up his feedings from 2 0z. every 3 hrs. to 3 1/2-4 oz. every 4-5 hrs. What a miracle! We're so glad he made it here safe and sound...and in time for us to fall in love with him before we had to come back to Kentucky. They're a beautiful family and we're so glad they're ours!!

• We get back home on Sunday evening (Mark was home earlier because he flew!). Monday was "Meet the Teacher" open house for Alysa at school. She'd been invited to go putt-putt and to the batting cages with a friend. Then we head to the school to meet her new teacher and found her best bud is NOT in her class - BOOOOOOO! But she sits right beside one of her other gal pals, so she'll be fine. Then we went to eat at Frisch's Big Boy - something Mark and Alysa had really been wanting to do. The food was OK, but we probably won't be making many more trips there. At least we got the picture with Big Boy, which was what was really important!
  

• After dinner, we made a trip out to our new home site, where they'd begun the excavation. They will be laying the footers for the crawl space on Wednesday (same day Alysa starts school), so we are really excited!! If everything continues to go well, we could be in our new home by Christmas! Yeah!!!