Bye Bye Grandma Bubba

My mom left yesterday after her ten-day visit.  We had so much fun!  The girls miss her already.  She left straight from here to L.A. for my cousin Katie's wedding today.  We are on our own now for the rest of Josh's recovery. 

The rest of the week was busy and fun.  We had some more fun playing outside in the pool.  North Carolina is in the midst of little stretch of relief from the heat.  Temps in the high 80s - I'll take it!  

She bought the girls some little strollers to push their babies around, which they LOVE!  They also like to hang their play purses off the back.  And, for some reason, their babies MUST have hats on their heads.  We wouldn't want them to get cold in mid-July.

We also redid the picture wall she helped me with last time she was here with the new family pictures we had taken. 

Thanks for coming grandma!  We love you and can't wait for your next visit.

p.s. How cute are those pigtails!  

Time with Grandpa (and Bubba)

My dad just left this morning after a great week with us.  My mom is here for another five days.  They have both been a great help, and the girls have loved the extra attention.  Grandma and Grandpa both came to gymnastics on Wednesday and we got some good video of the girls practicing their new skills.

The girls had fun playing with grandpa's hat, shoes, and were very curious about his mustache. 
Grandpa can't wait to have two little golfing granddaughters.  He played golf at Taberna and Carolina Pines while he was visiting. 

We also had some fun playing outside in the pool, and took a trip down to Swansboro to eat at Duck's and walk around by the water.

Josie was a fan of her grilled cheese...

Meanwhile, Josh continues to recover and is missing out on time with the girlies.  Poor dude. 

Thank goodness for more time with Bubba

Family pictures: 18 months

We once again got some pictures done a couple months ago by Jenn Reno.  She took their six-month shots, so we decided to wait exactly a year, which made them 18 months (yay for math skills).  Taking pictures with 18 month old twins is tricky.  They obviously wanted nothing to do with sitting still for the camera.  Jenn got some great ones though.

Josh's back surgery

We are now one-week post Josh's double spinal fusion back surgery.  Most of our family and friends know this surgery has been coming for awhile.  Josh had a less invasive back surgery about two years ago, which was successful and worked for him for a little over a year.  However, about six months ago, his back pain became unbearable again.  This has impacted nearly every area of our lives and he finally decided to have this surgery in hopes that it will reduce his pain by at least 50 percent.

After a lot of thought and deliberation, he decided to go through the navy doctor at Portsmouth Naval up in the Virginia Beach area.  This meant we packed the family up and headed there (about a 3 1/2 hour drive) for the surgery and for the three extra days he stayed in the hospital.  Luckily, our very good friends the Rapers, live in the area.  In fact, they had JUST moved back to Virginia Beach from Quantico one week before. They graciously offered to let us stay with them even though they were in the midst of a major transition themselves.  We were lucky.  I'm not sure what we would have done without them.  We stayed at their house, Alison watched the girls a couple times while I was at the hospital (including when I took Josh in for his surgery at 4 am!), and helped feed us.  Josh was in surgery last Wednesday for nine hours!  That's how involved this surgery was.  I was very nervous at 2 pm when I still hadn't heard from the doctor.  Luckily, everything went well, but he is still in a lot of pain.  He is looking at a long recovery, but we hope and pray it will be worth it in the end.

We went to dinner with the Rapers the night before Josh's surgery.  He requested Mexican.  Here is the one picture we took with them:

And this might be a little graphic for some, but here is his incision.  His staples just came out, so it looks slightly better now.

My parents have both flown out to help us over the next couple of weeks.  I am very grateful for their help as well.  Over the past couple of years, they have used all their vacation time to come here to help us through one thing or another (bringing home newborn twins, deployment, etc).  To be honest, it is during times like these that I really struggle with living so far away from family.  Usually I put on my big girl pants and deal with it, but it does get to me at times.  I'll be glad when we get through this summer.