A Very Golden Birthday

Kris recently taught me the concept of a "Golden Birthday.  It's when you celebrate the number age that is the number day of your birth...We turned 28 on May 28th! This birthday was destined to be extraordinary, and not only because it's the first one I haven't spent working in the past three years!  It has much more to do with the fact that Kris and I were able to celebrate it together...:-)

For some selfless reason, Kris decided that it was her mission to make my birthday extra special (despite the fact that it is also her big day :-P).  So very "Kris" of her.  Her order for gorgeous weather was fulfilled with a cloudless sky, bright sunshine and a comfortable 80 degrees.  We started off our day by loading up all of our babies into my Highlander (woohoo third row!) and we went to pick strawberries at the nearby Spencer Farm! Emmy helped me from the Kelty pack, Clairey played with dandelions and Andy picked as many berries as he could.  Very few of them made it to our box and instead went straight into his mouth, but who could blame him? They were delicious!  Those that did make it home were later used for our homemade birthday strawberry rhubarb pie!

That evening, after a home-cooked Ruth's Chris-style dinner, we got dolled up in the outfits from our post-bedtime shopping spree the night before.  We then made our way to this Indie movie theatre that is complete with an "Indie bar".  So, we feasted our eyes on the very glammed-up chick-flick, Sex and the City 2, while we put away a yummy bottle of Chardonnay.  The epitome of a GNO (that would be Girls Night Out)! I haven't had one of those in months, and definitely haven't had one with just Kris in years.  It was the perfect way to celebrate our big day. :-)

Saturday brought more birthday fun!  We started the day with a walk on the Monon Trail to downtown Carmel, where we joined the early birds for opening day of the local Farmer's Market.  It was one of those moments that you want to commit to memory...It was such a picturesque setting, the weather could not have been more perfect and the smell of breakfast cooking on the grill was intoxicating.  Later that day, 2:30 pm to be precise, Kris and I took our girls to afternoon tea in downtown Zionsville...The first of many tea parties to come!  Emmy and Clairey were perfect angels, basking in the sunlight of the open tea garden.  While Kris and I sipped tea and noshed on the variety of tea sandwiches, the girls threw back water from their sippy cups and Clairey munched on Kix cereal from her gold charger.  It is certainly another memory that I will forever cherish.

Aside from our many special birthday celebrations, we squeezed in Andy's "graduation" from "school", Emmy and Clairey's first pool excursion, shopping trips and a Memorial Day BBQ!  Kris and I collapsed, side-by-side, during the kiddos' naptime today.  There is no where else I'd rather be...Thank goodness we have lots of pictures to savor the trip...

 Andy and Miss Kate at his last day of "school" (aka Mom's Day Out) bike rally! I'm not sure who will miss "school" more, Andy or Mommy... ;-)

Got it made in the shade.

Emmy's first picnic!

The very beginning of our birthday celebration...

Mmmm green strawberries...

My little helper.

Kris and her little helper.

All helped out.

 

Emmy's first non-bathwater dip.

Not thrilled with Andy's watery attempt to lure her into his pool.

The happiest kid on the block.

Birthday GNO (as in Girl's Night Out!)

Enjoying breakfast at the quaint Carmel Farmer's Market.

We love wet kisses!

It goes both ways. :-)

Tea Time!

Afternoon tea in the garden at Serenity in downtown Zionsville.

Like mother like daughter!

This is one tradition we are very excited about!

Party of four.

Matching swim diapers

I call this one: "In her shoes"

First real pool experience...Emmy especially loved "bouncing" in the water.  Gone are the days of laying out by the pool, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Just Three Words...

A SOPHISTICATED PALATE

Holy Clairey

Last Wednesday, I loaded up all of my girls and made the trek back to my second home in Indy!  Clairey's baptism wasn't until Saturday, but I eat really, really well at Kris and JP's house, so I had to come earlier to squeeze in a few more delicious meals ;-).  Emmy was a perfect angel during our 5 hour drive there, but I paid for it later that night when she decided that the last thing she felt like doing was sleep, despite her typical need of 12 hours of beauty rest.  


We shared the guest bedroom and I was so desperate for some sleep that I pulled her out of the pack 'n play and into bed with me. Bad idea. She was positively giddy over her new sleeping arrangement.  She proceeded to swing her little body around, pull my hair and kick my head while squealing with excitement in my ear.  We managed a few hours of sleep (well, I did, I can't be sure about her :-P).  She was clearly very happy to be under the same roof as her cousins!  I couldn't have agreed with her more.


A few days (and a few slightly more restful nights) later, was Clairey's big day!  Her Grandma and Grandpa Sack, Aunties Katie and Maggie and Cousin Iggy joined us for the celebration! Emmy was so very excited (despite her frequent, sleepy "mood swings" :-P) to meet her Sacksteder family members! She was welcomed and loved on as if she was one of their own grandbabies!  What a lucky girl she is!  Clairey was a little angelic vision in white and charmed everyone at her baptism, including the priest, when she attempted to chew on his finger as he blessed her with holy oil.  I was asked to be Clairey's Godfather by proxy in Uncle Jamie's absence.  I couldn't be prouder to stand next to sweet Clairey as she begins her walk with Christ!


I feel as refreshed as can be having finished a chick-lit book, devoured a Costco frozen yogurt (and DQ Blizzard all in the same day), Sacksteder hugs, laughed at hilarious Andy-isms, and watched Clairey and Emmy play with eachother.  Above all else, I owe Kris and JP a ginormous thank you for all of the TLC and support that you have offered to me and my girls.  Emmy obviously inherited her luck from me.

The lady of the hour, her Daddy, Godmother Maggie, Godfather proxy & cousin Emmy

Nothin' like a Holy Water shower!

Mags and I :-)

JP, yours truly, Kris, Clairey and Mags

Mommy and Emmy

Play date! Emmy, Clairey, Ann and Iggy

Hangin with my girls

Our Horn girl dogpile

Ready to head out

Carseat Parking

Auntie Kristi appropriately named them the "Breakfast Club"

"If only I could eat breakfast, too."

Soon, Emmy girl, very soon!!

My Buddy and Me

Thank you so much to Kris for so enthusiastically sharing her mad photography skill to capture an Emmy-Mommy post-bath, pre-bedtime moment.  Here you go, honey...:-P

Our Chatterbox

Mom Salute!

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!
I certainly hope this note finds you enjoying a relaxing day doing whatever it is you want to do. I love you very much, and I wanted to take this chance to thank you for all that you’ve done for me over the years, and all you continue to do for me and my family. I know that, whether it’s planning a nice trip for Ali and I (and now Ms. Emmy) when we come home to visit, or flying out to watch my change of command and Emmy on short notice, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me. But it’s always been that way, since I was a little kid. In all of my memories from my childhood you were always going out of your way to take care of Ben, Grant, and I. You always made sure we had everything we needed and were loved unconditionally.

I know I’ve been away from home for some time now. And I know that with work and deployments I don’t always do as good of a job as I should calling home and writing you. I promise to do a better job of it for the rest of this deployment. And if I have trouble getting a hold of you on the phone, then I’ll be sure to write and give updates, even if they’re brief.

I look forward to the day when we can spend more time near you, Dad, Ben, and Grant. Who knows, if things keep going the way they have been, I might be out working as a garbage man in California sooner than I thought. And I know that, when that day comes, if it’s sooner or later, we’ll always have you nearby to watch Emmy, take care of us if we need it, and spend time with us.

I love you, mom. Thank you for being so good to me, my brothers, dad, and my family all these years.

Have a wonderful, well deserved, relaxing, Mother’s day.

Love,
Nick

My Mom,


I was just thinking about you and thought that I would let you know.  Emmy and I just re-read the book that you gave us, "Someday," and, yeah, I cried ugly tears. Again.  I think I scared her.  There is something about that story, despite the fact that it's a children's book, that so eloquently puts into words  the beauty and complexity of the relationship between a mother and her daughter.  We have this finite period of time to teach and then to influence our children to become the strongest, happiest, most inquisitive, compassionate, and well adjusted individuals in this life that we have given them.  And how beautiful it is to watch them find their way.  The story reminds us of the circle of life, and how our role and responsibilities change as we progress through it.  Now, as I have become a mommy, I look to you as my role model, as I always have, but in a new way.  I hope to get your recipe for motherhood that yields the same special bond with my Emmy that you and I share.  Our relationship may have evolved over the years, but no matter what the variables might have been, your unconditional love and support has remained constant and unwavering....


I recall the countless late nights you were up tediously piping whipped cream into homemade cream puffs.  Those dessert platters were for the parties you catered as a means of earning extra money to pay the tuition for my private school elementary education.  You did all that you could to ensure that Kris and I went to the best school in town.


I fondly remember the delicious smell of bacon and scrambled egg breakfasts cooking over the campfire.  I loved everything (but the outhouses) about our many family vacations spent camping--I wouldn't trade those memories for any stay at a 5 star resort.


I close my eyes and see the big bunch of mylar balloons waiting for me in the school office that you had secretly snuck in for my 12th birthday.  You made it special when no one else remembered.


I giggle at the thought of how you kindly helped me to remedy my first Home Economics dinner flop..."Fosty Chicken." When everyone else in the family dubbed it "Frosty Chicken" because of how undercooked the meat was, you complimented me on my effort and helped me to make it edible.


You held me tight and let me cry to you about the demise of my middle school "relationship," instead of reminding me that it lasted two months and we only really hung out at lunch time.  You took my pain very seriously...


I smile at the thought of us dancing together at my Senior Ball...I couldn't think of any other parent that I wanted to chaperone more than you.  I was beyond excited to share with you the event that I had spent all year coordinating.


I still can't believe that you and I drove 12 hours from Danville to Tucson without so much as turning on the radio.  We clearly had a lot to talk about that day, but then, we always do.


I picture the smile on your face when you welcomed me home from work at the hospital, well past midnight, on so many nights that you couldn't sleep.  You stayed up and eagerly helped me to research wedding vendors until the wee hours of the morning, despite your looming wake up call for work.


I love the sound of your voice on my wedding video, when you whooped for joy immediately after the minister pronounced Nick and I to be husband and wife.  You knew, so well, how much I wanted to hear those words.


I missed the sound of your voice and felt a desperation unlike any other, when I sat at your bedside in ICU as you recovered from surgery gone very wrong.  Despite your respiratory support and high level of sedation, you still squeezed my hand when I cried.


How I love the memory of you and Kris carrying the old beat up couches downstairs from the man room to the curb for garbage pick-up...You were so committed to helping me de-bachelor my married home.


I think of how you were the last one in the whole family to hold my brand new baby girl because you were so busy cleaning my house, preparing food, and anticipating and fulfilling my every need as an overwhelmed new mommy.  But when you did wrap your arms around her, I melted inside.


To borrow the words of Big Nutbrown Hare in "Guess How Much I Love You"...I love you right up to the moon and back, Mom.  Thank you for the life that you have given me, the example that you have set for me, and for the love with which you have filled me...I can only hope that I am to Emmy as you are to me.


Your Ali

One with Nature

Emmy and I took special care in getting ready this morning for our FRG Steering Committee meeting.  We were so lucky to have a Video Tele Conference (VTC) with the chain of command in Afghanistan.  The subject matter of the meeting was of no interest to us, we were most focused on the fact that we were going to see Nick for the first time in almost two months!!! We ran a little long fixing our hair, so we had to hot tail it onto post.  Apparently they decided to move the meeting to a different building and forgot to send me the memo...So I showed up, right on time, to an empty parking lot.  Lovely.  Fortunately there was a kind lady who pointed me in the right direction...Nothing like being fashionably late to a meeting with a bunch of people you don't know.  I was "that girl" who flew in after everyone else and then proceeded to trip all over myself as I attempted to fit my beast of a stroller into a very narrow space.  At least we looked cute, that's all I have to say.


The connection was pretty grainy and delayed, but man was it good to see my Nick. :-) Emmy was on her very best behavior, and only made a handful of quiet attempts to interject her thoughts into the last few minutes of the meeting.  She was so intrigued by everything going on around her.  As a side note, I am very proud to report that our company logged 756.19 miles in our quest to "Walk to Afghanistan" (the goal is 10,644 miles)!  We absolutely CARRIED the whole battalion!  I couldn't help but gloat a little bit.  Unfortunately, Nick got a phone call about an urgent issue not too long after the meeting began and needed to leave for the remainder of the VTC. We were so grateful for the time that we had!


Upon arriving home, I took my canine girls outside to relieve themselves.  I noticed that they were hanging around one of the bushes in my flower bed.  It finally occurred to me that there must be something there...I thought correctly.  There was a big dead rabbit that chose my flower bed as it's final resting place!  (I am very uncomfortable with death.)  After I momentarily freaked out, I did the only logical thing I could think of: I called my sister.  She was there for me when the praying mantis blocked me from gaining entrance into my home, surely she could help me through this crisis as well.  We decide that the best plan of action would be to bury him.  So I grab a shovel and dug a shallow grave (I was wearing flip flops and I don't like to dig).  I raced to the backyard, shimmied the shovel underneath the stiff bunny and then ran as fast as I could back to the hole.  Kris, all the while, was singing "Amazing Grace".  It was a nice touch.  As I was furiously shoveling dirt overtop of the corpse (I didn't want to look at it anymore), my neighbor came over to see what I was doing with the shovel in my gussied-up state.  Apparently I looked a little suspicious. 


As I walked back to my garage to ditch the shovel, I noticed two birds were staking out my front door...They've built a nest on my porch light fixture.  I learned very quickly that I am not welcome on my doorstep anymore.  UGG!!  It seems that the word is out among the animal kingdom that I need some company...  

I see London, I see France...

Blowing bubbles

RIP Dead Rabbit

The nest.

It's owners.

Getting ready to divebomb the door...

Downtown Clarksville is an Island

As I have been diligently heeding the warnings to stay at home, chaos is ensuing around me.  The flooding that has taken place in middle Tennessee is both unprecedented and catastrophic.  It is unimaginable just how many people are suffering right now...Many thousands of homes and businesses have been completely destroyed.  My stomach sinks each time I see a place on the news, that we have frequented over the years, saturated by the dirty floodwater.  One in particular is the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, where Nick and I celebrated our engagement.  It is now filled with 10 feet of floodwater and it's still rising.

Locally, the Cumberland and Red Rivers are also still on the rise...The last that I've heard on the news, downtown Clarksville is surrounded by water and there is only one very congested road out of the area.  The water waste management plant is at capacity, and raw sewage will soon be diverted into the Cumberland River.  We are therefore being called on to conserve water.  Our drinking water is still safe, but because rumors have been running rampant, there was a run on bottled water earlier today.  The news stations' 24 hour coverage are so overwhelmed by the devastation in just the Nashville area, many of the surrounding counties are not being reported on at all.  It is unbelievable to watch people driving boats in place of cars.

All of us Horn girls and our home are safe and dry and are not threatened by the floodwater at all.  The grade of our land has proven beneficial.  I took my girls for a walk a little earlier and was so dismayed to see the extent of the floodwater in the field behind the street behind and parallel to ours.  Instead of a grassy expanse, it is now a very very large pond.  There is water as far as I can see.  The water has filled the backyards of the homes lining the street.  After a conversation with some of my neighbors, I learned that all of the houses are still dry.  They are just hoping that the water level doesn't rise, as is the case with the Cumberland River that has engulfed downtown Clarksville.  Surreal is the only word that I can think of to describe this devastation.  Please help me pray for all of the middle Tennesseans suffering right now...

Here are some pictures that I took on my walk around the block...