Home and gone...

Chad and I traveled to New Jersey to watch Ryan graduate from Basic Training for the USCG.  It was a short trip.  We were supposed to land in New York at 10:00 Thursday morning and drive the 3 hours down the ocean to Cape May, New Jersey.  Instead we had numerous layovers and landed in New York at 6:00 that eve.  We got our rental and followed our GPS all over the city....I'm not sure where it was taking us?  We are a little confused as to why anyone would live there???  We ended up getting to our hotel just before 11:00 Thursday night.  We were exhausted since we were up at 3:00 to get to the airport for a 5:45 flight.

Cape May, NJ is beautiful.  We got up the next morning and got ready for Graduation.  It was such a exciting, emotional event!  We were so proud to watch the man the USCG has produced, I'm sure I have never been more proud of my son.  He has grown up so much.   He gained 10 pounds and looked amazing (after he shed the government issued glasses )!  Ryan came to the hotel and changed, then we met his father and his family and had a nice dinner.  Then we had coffee and went back to the hotel, we were beat!  We watched TV and Ryan talked on the phone to catch up with all of his friends :)

Saturday we headed back to New York to catch our flight.  Again, why do people choose to live there?  We arrived home with no problems and he had a crew of girls there waiting for him-there was 1 guy :)

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday since he and my niece were home, there were close to 30 people in my house.  Yikes!  Monday he had dinner with his Father and today (Tuesday) we brought him back to the airport so he could catch a flight to San Diego where he will be stationed for the next 12-18 months.  It is so hard to see him leave but he is happy with his choice and anxious to start his new job.  I am happy for his but I'm feeling selfish and like it when he is home.  I was so happy to wake those mornings and know all of my kids were sleeping in their beds.

Here are some pictures from Arlington Cemetery-they put flags on the graves for Veterans Day.

Our agency

For those of you looking for a great adoption agency I would highly recommend WACAP, they were fast, responded to my questions quickly, and were always a step ahead of the paperwork.  I think they were average with cost but were worth every penny.  They also offer waiting child grants up to 4,000.

I received a email recently saying they had a short list of parents waiting because they were all recently matched with their child.  Check them out!  We truly loved them.  If I could ever convince my husband again...  ;)