Welcome Home Chris (and the adventures that followed) (May 2019)

So, after a year (can you believe it, a year?!?) in Afghanistan, the time had finally come for Chris to come home!!!  He arrived on Friday, May 17th, a week before school got out and the day before Chris and Stacy's 19th Anniversary.  Good timing! 😁

Chris isn't one for a lot of hoopla and grand gestures, but we did have a sign waiting to welcome him home and a few gifts (a dehumidifier to help him sleep better in humid Florida and a jar of reasons why we love him.  Stacy also hid a bunch of notes and Riesens candies around the house for him to find. 😉) 

The next day, Saturday, we held to tradition and we were all able to go run/walk the Mudrun 5K together.  Fun times, always.   After some much needed showers, Chris and Stacy were also able to go out on a date for their anniversary.  Yay!!

Unfortunately, the fun was not to last.  On Sunday morning we woke up to 2" of water on our main level.  The fitting that connected the water hose to the toilet tank had broke and been pouring water into our home who knows how many hours throughout the night.  We immediately started working as fast as we could with a wet vac and steam cleaner and called our insurance company.  We lost a lot of baseboards and had to endure the sounds of these industrial fans for 10 days.  All the carpet on the main floor needs to be replaced as well.  Welcome home Chris!  😒  Even though I know this is not what he wanted to come home to at all, I was so grateful to have him there to help me with the mess and deciding what to do.  (As a side note, the AC also went out and we've had to replace tires on both the van and the truck since he's been home.  When it rains, it pours, right???)

Despite all the craziness and things breaking down, we still decided to take a break and hit the beach for Memorial Day.  Yay the beach!  And don't forget the pool!  We've got to take advantage of every chance we get to enjoy being back together as a family!

Oh, and of course having Dad home means a bunch of crazy antics in the living room.  This time it was a handstand challenge to see if you could do a balance on top of all of Lise's school papers before she recycled them.  

SUCCESS!

And of course, Kylie needed to balance on Dad's back while he did pushups - just for good measure.  😊  So, so good to have Chris back home; our family is complete once again.  Here's to looking forward to time together and what the future holds!