Grains of Gratitude

I haven't done a Grains of Gratitude post in a few weeks, so this list will encompass the past few weeks.

1. Remember when Joe almost didn't make it back in time for the Buddy Walk and ended up purchasing his own ticket to fly home? We didn't know if he would be reimbursed for that ticket since he couldn't get in touch with anyone from the finance office, so he just had to file his travel voucher and pray we would. His payment for the travel voucher came in and he was reimbursed for the plane ticket! Prayers were answered - that was a big blessing to have that reimbursed.

2. Kayla went to her first classmate birthday party this year and had a blast. Her and Dillon are so cute together. At the end of the school day as we're walking to the parking lot he always calls out "bye Kayla!" and she'll say "Dillon! A hug!" and they go running up to each other with arms wide open to give each other a hug. She knows his mom too as she was a preschool teacher assistant in the classroom next to Kayla's room last year. This year she's in one of the K classrooms. This was the first time we left her at a birthday party too. Joe, Lucas and I went to town and stopped at a new business - The Chocoholic Shoppe - and shared a cheesecake and milkshake - yum!

3. Kayla had an ENT appt last week and she was just so, so, so well behaved and cooperative! I am so grateful for an easy appointment. She is a lot better than she used to be when going to dr appts, but I never know how she's going to act. I've always had to hold her in my lap when they do the tympanogram and sometimes hold her head still. This time, since I had Lucas in the sling, she sat in the chair by herself and didn't protest once when the tech put the probe things in her ears. Then we went to the booth and she put the headphones on willingly (guess it helps they wear headphones in school during computer lab!), and she even sat in the ENT chair by herself and let Dr. F take wax out of her ear! She did all this alone, without me having to hold her, or bribe or plead with her. Not once did she resist! Definitely a good dr visit!

4. A few years ago we had one of these Family Plaques made when the vendor was on base for a Christmas bazaar. We left a blank space anticipating we would eventually have another child. We went to El Paso yesterday to get another child added to the house. The vendor was at a mall so we brought the house with us, picked out a little boy, she added Lucas's name; now our house is complete :) I'm grateful we were able to get this done before we move.

5. After we left the mall we went to the El Paso Zoo and had a nice time walking around. We have an annual pass with our local zoo and the El Paso Zoo is part of the reciprocal zoo & aquarium list so we were able to get in half-price.

Have a great week!