A Visit From Iraq

Micheal, my dear sweet brother, Amy's husband, was able to come home for his 2 week R&R from Iraq at the beginning of January. Oh, how much we have missed him. It was so great to be able to spend time with the whole Alleman family.

Micheal brought back something REALLY neat for Josh. That is a whole other post that I am going to put up though, so you'll have to wait to find out.

The kiddos mainly all huddled around this little DVD player and fought over who got to see most of the screen. When they weren't running around like CRAZY monkeys, they were usually all 3 fighting over the same thing. Whether it was the DVD player or Micheal's ipod.

Obviously, Kennet won this one.

Chloee loved watching Sesame Street on Micheal's ipod. I thought these pictures of her with the headphones in her ears were so cute. She looks so old. Thanks Micheal for sharing EVERYTHING with her, including your dark chocolate M&Ms. If only she knew the true sacrifice that was made.

Poor Micheal! It took him an entire week to get here and I know that the last 3 days he didn't sleep AT ALL. I think the time difference is about 10+ hours, I can't remember, but his poor body was all sorts of screwed up. When they slept over I think he was always up by like 3 am. He hardly slept at all. The first night, we all didn't go to bed until about 2 or 2:30 am and he was probably up at 4 am. This was a much needed nap for him.

Truer words were never spoken!

It would just be weird if Josh wasn't teasing Kennet about this WALL-E sweater. I think he kept taking it from him the entire time they were here... and here he is after he told Kennet that he was going to wear it and it would surely fit him. Only my Josh!

I have never seen a kid want to be wrapped up in a blanket so much. Kennet would come up to Amy or Micheal and tell them to wrap him up in it. He looked like a little hot dog in a bun.

Chloee and Kai, obviously in DEEP conversation. Looks like they are in a dark room, getting ready to develop film. I thought it looked cool like this, so I thought I'd put it on here.

We had a blast going to the Philadelphia Sub Shop, which ran out of bread right after us and closed, sweet. We also went to the best place on Earth, Nielsen's Frozen Custard! YUM! We did family pictures, played The Office DVD trivia game, watched LOTS of Bones, ate lots of pizza and laughed our pants off, just like we always used to when us 4 adults get together. A lot of late nights but oh so much fun!

Then there was of course the regular "Sunday Dinner" night at my Mom & Dad's. Dinner was wonderful, thank you Mom. That game "Curses" was the funnest thing ever. I thought I was going to go into labor right there between Dad and his French accent with the swarm of mosquitoes above his head, talking on a CB radio, Josh's Elmer Fudd, Micheal screaming everything and interrupting Jordan every 5 seconds, Mom playing the air guitar while announcing the most obscene things about herself, Amy with the clenched fists, clapping and bunny ears, Jordan's vampire and slapping himself across the face, Matt's golf ball in his mouth and barking like a dog, down to my Irish accent, which was more like a pirate, I was told.
GOOD TIMES!!!

Micheal showed us a bunch of pictures from Iraq that were on his camera. It was really neat to be able to see over there, Josh said the houses and trash everywhere looks a lot like Brazil. The kids are so cute. It's adorable how much they love the soldiers.

Micheal, we love you! We are so glad that we were able to spend time with you while you were here. We are so proud of you and all that you are doing. You are truly amazing and missed every day that you are gone! Love you, always! God bless and come home safe!