Olivia in her princes dress, in front of the sign the boys made for her birthday
Olivia's Gift from Russell
Olivia's Birthday Cake
Before I get too far behind, again, I figured I better sit down and get caught up with all that has gone on since Chris got home. Of course, as always, when Chris travels things never go as planned. So, we had the master plan all laid out with exactly how everything was supposed to go the first week after his return from Afghanistan. Of course things did not go as planned. Chris called from Dubai on Sunday (he was supposed to be home early Monday 11 Apr -- Olivia's 3rd Birthday) to tell me that his flight was on a delay and he probably wouldn't make his connecting flight. At this point it was only supposed to delay him an hour. We adjusted our plans a bit for the next day and pressed on. To make a long story short, after a weather delay, a sick passenger delay due to reroute to another airport, missing a flight due to other delays, maintenance delay, and switching to an entirely different ticket to arrive at a different airport, he finally arrived 5 hours after his scheduled arrival time.
Once we finally had Chris home there was no rest for the weary as we dove straight into celebrating Olivia's birthday. First, Olivia opened her present from mommy in the morning. It was a princess dress so that she could dress up like a princess to pick Chris up. Then, we left the boys with paints, poster paper, streamers etc . . . to decorate the house (a surprise to Olivia)while we went to pick up Chris. Olivia wanted Noodles Macaroni and Cheese for her birthday lunch so that is where Chris and I took her, as soon as he got off the plane. After eating we went home to open her presents from Daddy and each of her brothers and then have cake and ice cream. Along the way, we stopped to pick up Nutter's Ice Cream (Cotton Candy -- Olivia's favorite which probably has nothing to do with the fact that it is PINK) When we got home, the boys had done an AWESOME job painting a Happy Birthday sign for Olivia and decorating the "party room". She opened the little necklace that daddy got for her and the little dolls the boys got her (American Girl 6 inch dolls -- perfect size for her doll house that she got for Christmas). After we opened gifts, she blew out her candles and we ate cotton candy ice cream and strawberry cake.
It is funny how such a small deviation from "the plan" can ripple through the rest of the week. because of the changes in Monday things got pushed to Tuesday, and ultimately instead of leaving Wednesday and taking two days to drive to FL we ended up leaving Thursday and driving straight through. The kids and the dogs were champs about being stuck in the car for so long, but then again we travel so much it just seemed normal to them. Once we got to Florida, we didn't get much rest, because we had to unload the trailer and turn around to head back up to Talladega, AL (5 hour drive) on Saturday morning.
Headed to Florida
Way past bedtime in the trip to FL -- Can you tell who likes to sleep and who will stay up till the PASS OUT?
She finally PASSED OUT. LOL
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