Ryan left for his first deployment on February 22. The girls and I flew to Utah on May 1st to spend time with family while Ryan was away and for my brothers wedding. I was thrilled to be able to be a part of Adam and Whitney's special day. It was absolutely beautiful! Going to the temple with my brother and seeing him be sealed to the love of his life was an amazing blessing. It reminded me of the special day that Ryan and I were sealed together for all Eternity! It was kind of weird though. All day I kept thinking to myself, "is my little brother really old enough to be doing this? Is this even legal?" (Ha Ha) But I guess so, since he is 23! When did he grow up?
While Ryan was deployed he got an email from his squadron that said they were looking for a volunteer to switch over and fly the CV-22 Osprey. Ryan gave me a call and we decided that it would be okay for him to put his name in the hat. Ryan didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks and I was fine with that since one had just crashed. Then he got a call from his commander saying that they picked him and he would be starting training in December. Cool, he was excited and that gave me plenty of time to prepare to move again. A few weeks pass and he found out that he would be starting training in July. Were we surprised? No, this is the military, we have come to expect surprises like this.
Ryan came home on May 28th. It was one of the greatest days of my life. I wish I had pictures to share, however in the excitement of getting home after traveling for 24 hours and going to pick up Ryan, I forgot the camera. Yes, it took us about 24 hours to fly from Utah to New Mexico thanks to mother nature and the fact that there are only two flights a day that come and go from our extremely small local airport. But we had our daddy home and we couldn't have been happier.
We then went on a family vacation to San Antonio, TX. We enjoyed our free day at Sea World and then checked out the river walk and downtown the next day. We found a children's museum that Kiera absolutely loved. Of course all my pictures of this trip are at home on our desktop.
The day we drove home from San Antonia happened to be Kiera's Birthday. Which brings us to our next big event. Our little Kiera is now 4 years old! We had an impromptu Birthday party with the four of us once we got home, which was around eight o'clock at night. Daddy mysteriously disappeared for about 25 minutes and picked up a Birthday cake. Kiera dressed up as a princess and after I finished fixing her hair we came out of the bathroom to a party of presents and cake. It was great! Once again, these pictures are home on the desktop.
Now I have pictures I can share. Our next big event, our baby girl turned 1!
(This is the sign Kiera made for Averi)
(the cake Kiera and I made)
Averi has gone from this....JPG)
to this. In one incredibly short year.
Then on July 15th we left a place that has really become home to us and drove for 4 days to get to where we are now, Jacksonville, North Carolina. Or better know to Kiera as "the beach". We are here until November so Ryan can learn to fly this beast, which can fly like this...
or like this.
(Ryan's new office)
