Happening this week

Well, I think we've got a big week here. Tomorrow morning Mike has to get up at 4:30 because he's got his first flight in "his" new helicopter. He's been in ground school and simulator training since the middle of October, but he's still nervous. Wish him luck! We'll be celebrating with a big pan of stuffed shells for dinner and hopefully leave some for leftovers.

The kids and I are leaving Tuesday morning for Philadelphia to go enjoy our best buddies for a couple of days and help in any way we can with the final preparations for Madison's Bat Mitzvah. We're all very excited for her. Hopefully Andrew is better behaved in a synagogue than he is in our church services otherwise we'll be enjoying Maddie's reading of the Torah from the foyer. I'm a little nervous to take on a 6 hour drive with the kids by myself but I figured I can fly with them alone surely this must be a step or two easier, right? We're loaded up on some good music on the ipod (Raffi, duh!) We've got DVD's to watch (Little Einsteins), and lots of good snacks. Beyond that all I can do is pray they both decide Tuesday is a good day for a four hour nap. (I'm not holding my breath on this one) Mike will join us late Friday night, and we'll get a to have some fun all together including our big Hanukkah celebration and Mike's birthday celebration on Sunday after we attend our old ward in Cherry Hill in the morning. We loved loved loved our ward in New Jersey and we're so excited to see all the faces we miss.

This will also be the beginning of Mike's first offical vacation in a year! We're VERY excited he'll have some time "off." I'm sure he'll still study some but we're going to also do lots of fun things. We're going to try and make it to Washington D.C. and enjoy the Natural History Museum and the temple lights. I think the kids will really love both of those things.

Emma and I are putting together a little something to leave at all the babies bedsides in the NICU in New Jersey where she was born as a little Christmas gift for them. It's so small, but we appreciated so much the cards and little tokens left at Emma's bedside when we arrived to see her Christmas Day I decided if we were ever back around Christmas we would do the same. It's not an easy thing to have a baby in NICU and it was so special to think that other's were thinking of us. Those nurses who worked Christmas Day were also so sweet and not one of them appeared to be bitter or unhappy. If I knew I was going to have another preemie I would give anything to have it at Virtua again. Great nurses, Great NICU.

So, we've got a lot of packing, making, organizing, helping, flying and visiting going on this week.

Don't worry, grandma's I'm taking my camera and computer so you won't go through any sort of withdrawl.