Home FINALLY

He is FINALLY home!!!!! Here are pictures from the day.

Jack and his sign.

Patiently waiting for the buses to arrive.

Jack getting interviewed by one of the local  TV stations.

Jon's bus

A hug to remember for a lifetime.

Our first meal together.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support. Jack is so happy that is daddy is home. One of the best parts of the day was when we were waiting for the commander to release the unit, the governor was talking to them and right in the middle of his speech Jack said "hurry up." I almost peed in my pants, i was laughing so hard at him. He was ready to find his daddy and this man he didn't know just kept talking and talking.

Home....well sort of

Today is one of the days that we have been waiting for almost a year. Jon returned home to the United States.

I decided Monday night-Tuesday morning that I was going to drive up to Ft. Stewart (which is just outside of Savannah) and surprise him. We had planned for me not to go to Ft. Stewart but I felt bad that he wouldn't have anyone there for him. So I got up at 3:15 this morning and got ready and headed out the door at 4 am. I arrived in Ft. Stewart around 6:25 am. Shortly after I arrived, those families that had gathered received word that the buses were on their way to Ft. Stewart from Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah. All the families got into the cars and drove to the parade field and patiently waited the arrival of the buses carrying our soldiers.

Here is the parade field and a beautiful sunrise.

Here are the families waiting.

The buses arriving!

Once the buses arrived, they dropped the soldiers off and then they marched in from the back of the parade field. As soon as I saw them I started crying. I wasn't the only one - I could here small sniffles all around me. Once the soldiers got up to where we were, the national anthem was played and then the Adjutant General spoke. Let me just say that when they told us that the General was speaking the only thing I could think of was that we were going to be sitting there for hours. BOY was I wrong. He maybe spoke 5 minutes. Once he was done the unit sang the Army song. **Sidenote** Before they arrived, the announcer gave us a rundown of the schedule. He told us that when he said "this now concludes our ceremony" for everyone to rush and find their soldier before they could be dismissed. Once they are dismissed than you are in trouble because it is like playing Marco Polo in the dark. They all look exactly the same in their uniforms. Once the song was done the magic words were said. During the short speech, I found Jon in his company and realized that I was on the wrong side. I quickly got to the right side and waited for the magic words. Once they were said and I saw the kids running to their dads I took off. I ran right to Jon and hit him with every fiber in my body. I hit him so hard that I almost knocked him over and the soldiers around him flinched when I did it.

He was so shocked to see me there that his first words to me were "what are you doing here?" It was amazing to have him in my arms - I didn't want to let him go. I was able to spend about 3 hours with him before I had to head back to Jacksonville. I did take him to get something to eat and he ate it like someone was going to steal it - I guess that is what happens when you only have 20 minutes to eat.

Jon had me bring one of his bags home and it happened to have his helmet in it. When I picked Jack up from my mom's tonight I gave him the helmet and he thought that he was so cool. Here are some pictures of him wearing it. He wore it all the way from my mom's to our house.

A Birthday & An Anniversary

Last Saturday was my 27th birthday. It was a quiet day - Jon sent me flowers, Jack "took" me out to lunch and two of my good friends came up with their children (and 1 husband). I was surprised at the flowers from Jon. He said that they were for my birthday, our anniversary, and Mother's Day. They are beautiful and they are still living.

Today is Jon and I's 5th wedding anniversary. I can't believe that we have been married for 5 years. I am more in love with him today than I was 5 years ago. I am sad that he is not here for our anniversary buthe will be home in 14 days!!!!!!!!

The Final Countdown

I can't believe that we are 28 days away from Jon being back home with us. I am beside myself with excitment. Jack is also getting very excited as well. Every night before bed I have him take one of the links off of his countdown chain and every night he wants to take the one off that marks the day that we will go to Tallahassee and pick Jon up.

Jon is also getting very excited. They have been undergoing inspections and Customs has been there getting all of their stuff ready to head back home. They will be leaving Iraq in just a few weeks and the guys couldn't be more happier especially because it is beginning to get very hot.

Plans are coming together for a party for Jon and a surprise birthday party for my grandmother who will be 80. My entire family will be in town for all of the festivities - that means that my mom and her 6 brothers and sisters and all of my cousins, their spouses and their children will be here for both events. The week later we are taking our first family vacation in a year. We are going to Disney for a week and everyone is looking forward to time together and time away.

For now.

39 days and counting.....

We have officially hit the 30 days mark. I know that the next 6 weeks will go bye so quickly. Yesterday, Jack and I made a paper chain to count down the days until we go get daddy. We hung it on our fireplace and I told him that once we got to the white chain we would be able to go pick up daddy and he got so excited. I told him almost 2 months ago that when daddy comes home we are going to see Mickey Mouse. So now he equates Jon coming home with being able to go see Mickey Mouse. We went right before Jon left but Jack wasn't quite 2 yet. He enjoyed it but I know that he will enjoy it so much more when we go in June.

Here is our countdown chain:

Jack was sick the week leading up to Easter and Easter weekend. He is back to normal which means eating me out of house and home.

That's all for right now.

March Photos

This month has been a very busy one with Passion Play and the final countdown to Jon coming home (53 days BTW). Here are some pictures I got during this month.

sleeping in his tent

on the train at the zoo

two best buds looking out the window

When Jack woke up from his nap today at daycare, he woke up with a fever of 102. I took him to the doctor and he has tonsilitis. Good times at the Kees house.

2010 Passion Play

One week from today will be the first performance of the 2010 Jacksonville Passion Play. We have had rehearsals all this week. We will have rehearsal everyday except for Wednesday starting tomorrow. This year's script is great and I am looking forward to dress rehearsals next week.


If you can't be there but would like to watch it, it will be streamed live on http://www.fbcjax.com/.

That's My Neighborhood

That is what popped into my head when I heard the news like the rest of Jacksonville that a 3 week old baby boy was abducted from his parents on Tuesday evening. The family lives about a mile from my house. After that thought came into my head the next thing that I thought about was how did a family with 2 children let a stranger that claimed to be an employee take their 2nd born child. My reaction to hearing about the abduction was fear because this happened so close to my house. I began to pray for the sweet little boy and for his family and that the Lord would bring him home safely and quickly.

I began to think how deseperate a person would have to be to go up to someone's house and take a baby out of his own parents' arms. We found out on Wednesday morning that the baby was found safe and sound at the girl's house with the girl who abducted him. The police informed the city later in the day that it was a 19 year old girl that stalked the family at the hospital earlier that afternoon and then followed them as they ran a few errands and then went to their home and convinced the family that they MUST give her their baby.

The sweet family of this little boy is from Haiti and they don't speak much English. They have been in the country for 5 years. In Haiti the people are afraid of the police and the girl threatened to have the police come and take this baby from them. This family also does not know how DCF works so they fully believed everything that the girl was saying. I hope and pray that the family will get some help in learning how some of the many agencies in the state and the nation work.

Continue to pray for this family as they will have to relive the incident for the trial that is coming.

Wishing & Hoping

So now that the Olympics are winding down I am going to write about them. We have done a lot of watching of all of the sports over the past 2 weeks. Jack has been absolutely entrhralled with every sport that we have watched - which worries me. For those of you who don't know, I HATE THE COLD WEATHER and I don't do the snow. Jon is from the north so it probably wouldn't bother him. I keep telling Jack that the only "winter" sport that he can like is hockey. Yes, we have hockey in Jacksonville. Which is a nice break from the 95 degree heat. But all of the other sports, like the snowboarding, skiing, figure skating, curling (whatever that sport is), speed skating, all of them, that involve actually living where it is cold on a regular basis with a good amount of snow on the ground, I don't think so. Hopefully, we can really get him into sports that are good Florida sports, you know the ones that are played pretty much year round here - soccer, golf, baseball, all of those.

Just thought that I would share.

Look who's gone all crafty

Ok, I admit I am not crafty. Not remotely. Not like Angela and especially not like Rachel but I am trying. When I started planning Jon's welcome home party, I started looking for invitations. Ok, here's the deal he will be home the weekend before Memorial Day and the party is Memorial Day weekend. I thought oh no problem on finding patriotic things online right. WRONG! So I decided to make my own - with a little help of course. There is a lady that I work with at the church that should really open up her own business making cards, no not greeting cards, but personalized note cards, thank you cards and invitations. She is great and so creative. Anyway back to my story. So I enlisted Debbie's help and decided to make my own invitations. I went to Hobby Lobby, Michael's and AC Moore yesterday and practically bought them out of their patriotic scrapbook paper (all sizes).

What I did was took what Debbie made and printed it out on white cardstock and then cut it a little smaller than the scrapbook paper and attached it to the paper with the ever fantastic glue dots and ta-da homemade invitations. I only have a picture of one right now because that is all I have done is one because trying to do them with a two year old in the house is a lot easier said than done. "Jack help, Mommy." I have about 8 or 9 different kinds of scrapbook paper so many of them will be different. I promise to put up more pictures as I get them but I really wanted ya'll to see what Debbie did cuz it is so cute (please forgive my horrible English right there).