Happy Birthday My Princess!

Today was Emilie's 6th Birthday Party. Mike and I will be out of town at a Commander's Class for her brithday on the 28th April so we celebrated it on Saturday with some of her class and neighborhood friends. Nana was also there to take care of the girls while we were gone.

6 years ago, we had the best surprise ever. I was at the Andrews AFB hospital to give birth to our first child. A beautiful baby girl that we decided to name Emilie, Marie.

1 year old

2 y.o. ------------------ 3 y.o.

4 y.o. ------------------------------5 y.o.

Today she is turning 6! What a big girl! We never wanted to find out the sex of either one of our children and were blessed with 2 amazing princesses!

Emilie is very caring and attentive to others. She loves smaller kids (like her cousinsin Belgium), she loves her sister even though she likes to tease her. Her favorite thing to do is crafts ('bricolage'). Cutting, painting, building... She loves to put on shows for us with her sister and believe it or not :-) she is very good at acting (She is our drama queen after all...). She has done very well in Kindergarten this year. She learned a lot of sight words, can write her name is capital as well as cursive. She can count by 1, 5, 10. She really enjoys school as well. She is eager to learn and is so proud to show us she can read and write 'by herself'. I was making my grocery list the other day and she insisted she could write and wanted to write down eveything we needed. She did a great job.

She is a very bright child.

Her French is also very good.

At 6, she is now looking forward to loosing her first tooth (wants to go to the nurses office at school to get a 'reward' and a mark on the calendar). She did not want to move to Mississippi but when she found out we would live in a 2 stories house, the staircase is what sold it for her!

Happy Easter

This week was very busy for the Callender Family.

On Tuesday, I attended Claire's Easter Party at Happyland Preschool. They had stations for the kids (egg dying, cookie decorating, bunny project and the visit of the Easter Bunny). After that, the kids got to go hunt the eggs. It was a wonderful time.

On Thursday, I went to help Emilie's Kindergarten class decorate their Easter Hat/Bonnets. Friday was the Easter Egg Hunt. Claire and I helped hide the eggs for the class. The kindergarteners then all performed in a parade. They walked down the halls and outside the building to show off their hats. Mike got to come and watch them as well. It was very cute.

On Saturday morning, we went on base for an Easter egg hunt. We did not stay very long at the Fair because we were expecting someone to come look at the house. In the afternoon, we had a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt with the Mignaccas, the Cantilinas and the Smiley, who just moved in our street, which turned out great. We had fun hiding and finding the eggs.

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On Sunday, we went to church. Relaxed on the deck on this beautiful day and invited our friend Katie for an early dinner. It was a wonderful day!

We're back...

Well, it's been a few busy couple of weeks.

After Mike came home, we got used to our life as a family of 4 again. We are now well adjusted and were lucky to have Mike spent most of that time at home with us.

St Patrick's Day

We went back geocaching which led to Claire's biggest fear so far. We were looking for a cache and she and I walked on a red ant colony. She was covered with it, we had to strip her down to her underwear. Very traumatic experience for her. She woke up a few times that night checking her body and since then she has been very careful where she steps and does not want to see any ants. She is ok with other bugs but no ants!

Geocaching n Okaloosa Island

Claire got her evaluation at school and she maxed everything. She is a very bright, smart little girl and we are certain she will do great in life.

Last week was Spring Break. The weather was just horrible, thunderstorms, rain, rain and more rain!

We started the weekend with a trip to MS to try to find a school for the girls next year. We visited 3 catholic schools and chose one of them. Both girls will be ttending the same school and have the same schedule. (Yeah for Mom!) They will also wear a uniform. The school is 5 minutes away from the base and therefore from our house. We will be staying on base since Mike's job requires him to live on station. The house is a pretty nice 2 stories, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths house with TONS of storage!!! We will live in a neighborhood with all the other commanders and essential personnel.

We have mixed feeling about the move, we love it so much here. It is a great place to live and raise kids. The school system is the best. The beaches, our neighborhood... We will really miss it and I know it will be tough for the girls as well.

On the way back from MS, we stopped to visit the USS Alabama.

Since the weather was so bad, we stayed home and did some crafts, played on the Wii (Mike and I LOVE the Wii Fit), went bowling. We did manage to squeeze in a trip to the beach and to rent a boat with some friends on some of the nicest days.

Bowling on base

Dolphins, they came by next to our boat, I was so shocked that I froze and did not take the picture...

The girls with our friends, Katie and Chris

Craft time - making a pony piggy bank

Today, Emilie went back to school, she was really excited to see everybody and especially her teacher, Mrs R. With Easter around the corner, Claire will have an Easter party at school tomorrow with stations and egg hunt and Emilie will have Easter crafts, egg hunt and parade at the end of the week. Looking forward to all that fun!

I can't believe school will be over in 2 months and then we move... !!!

Homecoming

Yes, Mike finally made it home safely after being deployed for 6 loooong months!!!

We are all very excited. He arrived in the USA on Thursday, February 26th and was greeted by his brother John and his two good friends Mike Veltri and Dino Efantis at his arrival at BWI. They then all went out to eat a good meal in Baltimore.

Mike arrives at BWI aiport and is greeted by USO members


John, Dino and Mike V. ------Mike V., Dino E., John and Mike

The next morning, Mike got up early and got on his last flights to Florida. The girls and I had prepared signs to welcome him home. We got to the airport early enough to get security passes to welcome him at the gate. But somehow as we got through security, Mike's plane landed (very!) early and we missed each other. So we were at the gate and he was waiting for us in the terminal. After realizing that everybody was out of the plane, we made our way back to the terminal where we saw Mike. (the airport is very small so all that took place in a few minutes) Emilie came down the escalator as quickly as possible and run to him, I followed and did not even think Claire could not. She got scared and stuck upstairs. A gentleman helped her but she managed to scrape her leg and was crying as we got to Mike. Of course, he did not excpect such an welcome home but it all worked out fine. I was prepared with my camera in my right hand and a balloon in the other but I did not get to film or take pictures because of all the unexpected commotion... We hugged for a while and then about twenty people from his office started showing up one by one. We all started talking when suddenly I realized no luggage was coming and Mike was the only one waiting for his luggage. We found out it had arrived on an earlier plane.

Mike's boss, Don "Krash' Kaderbek and Ruth, his wife

The sign Emilie made for the airport ------- Claire' sign, she added some more stickers later

His co-workers helped him carry his luggage to the car and we went back home.

co-workers carrying the bags to the car

Sign on the garage door, Emilie wanted a sun and painted one and Claire a heart and painted it as well

Welcome Home ice cream cake

It is awesome to have hime home with us again and we think of all the other families that have a loved one deployed somewhere in the world and pray for a safe return...