Daddy and Uncle Jim Got Muddy

Josh completed the Spartan Beast race a couple of weeks ago with Jim.  It happened to coincide with the one-year anniversary of his back surgery.  I was so proud of him. The Spartan Beast race is about 12 miles and 25 obstacles up in beautiful Midway, Utah, ending in a big old puddle of mud.  It looked hot and hard, but they say it was a good time.  And I can't get him to write this blog post, so we'll have to leave it at that.

The girls and I had fun spectating and they have been talking about "daddy and Uncle Jim getting muddy" every day since the race.  Here's the group of them that did the race - a bunch of friends of Jim's. 

The girls played at the park area while we waited for them to finish.

One more picture of him right after finishing.  It really has been a long year for Josh with this back surgery recovery.  I think there were quite a few moments when we weren't sure he would be able to do this kind of thing again. 

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

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.