Day 7 - May 24, 2013

Benjamin got up and went to school in Des Moines.  I asked if it was weird to be back there after a year of being gone.  He said it was only weird how completely normal it felt to drive up Grand Ave all the way to the school.  When he got there, they gave him breakfast, he checked out his cap and gown and went to meetings all morning.  They were about his computer, financial "what now's?", and other fun end-of-school stuff.

Then he went back to the hotel and picked up Terry for the first big event I was looking forward to:  the picnic.  DMU did many picnics over the time we were there.  You get free food and drinks, music, and you get to see others from the school.  It is pretty casual.  It wasn't always that exciting (except for the free food!) but it would be the first time we had seen anyone in a year.  So I was excited.  Benjamin was a peach and sent me lots of pictures of this trip so that I would not be so sad missing out on everything.

Then they went over to the storage unit to check out how all of our stuff fared.  After calling to let me know the great condition of his guns, his second thought was about the rest of his stuff.  *sigh*  I am glad I married a man with a sense of humor.  Haha!  The stuff all looked good.  Just like we left it.  So that is great!

The other big event was his banquet.  Now THIS I was excited for.  When you imagine a "doctor's wife", she always looks good, with nice clothes.  In reality, they are just like everyone else.  Individuals.  But I was excited for the chance to not only not have some nasty "child something" all over my shirt, but to dress up and go to a fancy banquet where the food cost way more than it was worth!  I was a bit concerned how I would pull this off as I had nothing to wear to it and would look like a hippo, but I would have figured SOMETHING out.  :)  But I guess I didn't need to.  Benjamin and Terry "tolerated" it and talked to a few friends.  Don't they look so handsome?!  Terry looks good, but I wish I had been his date instead.

 This is my plate.  They wouldn't reimburse us when Adam was born, and apparently they have laws about taking home doggie bags at things like this.  We don't get it.  So we paid way too much for food we weren't allowed to take out of the building.  Let's just say that Benjamin had a BIG meal that night.  :)  We don't waste food in our family!

I took this day to try and spend some time with the girls.  I went in to see Adam early, then came home to spend a good part of the day with the girls.  Then I went back to see him later that night after the girls were in bed.  

For our big festivities, I ate lunch with them and put Alaina down for a nap.  While I was gone, Cathy and the girls made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the afternoon.  They were super yummy while we had a girls' afternoon in watching The Music Man.  I am embarrassed to say (especially with my minor being Theater and Speech Education) that I had never seen it!  Cathy made sure to rectify the situation.  :)  We watched the original movie, which I found to be very cute!  It is pretty long, so there was plenty of show for Alaina to watch when she woke up.  At the end, they were even inspired to get up and dance.

This year has been a hard one for all of us, including these sweet little girls.  They love to be social, and they have not been able to hold onto the friends that they make along the way because we move!  I am so glad that they are each other's best friend.  I hope that that won't stop as they get older.

And here is out littlest cutie-patootie.  And look at him wearing clothes!  They started leaving the isolet at one temperature instead of having it adjust to make sure his temperature was where it should be.  This is the first step to weaning him off of the isolet.  It is still slightly toasty in there, but it is similar to how we control our body temp with "room temperature" air around us.  It was so funny to see him in clothes.  I hadn't really thought about it until I saw him in them.  :)

I love skin to skin.  He is so snugly and seems to just relax into me.