Almost Ready

Today is Wednesday.  Tomorrow we will leave for the first leg of our journey to Washington, D.C. for the Army Ten Miler.  I am excited.  But not just about the Ten Miler.  Richard is flying in from Kuwait in the morning.  The older girls and I will meet him at the airport and then we will surprise the younger two at school with Daddy picking them up.  Then we are driving to NC to spend the night.  We are surprising Hanson Ellis with spending the night at the house of her very best friend.

Hanson Ellis and this sweet girl met when they were four and have been friends ever since!  I cannot wait for them to see each other again. It's been since we left NC in Dec 2007!  Then we'll head up to DC on Friday and link up with some retired Marine friends of ours who we met in CA in 2001.  Hanson Ellis spent the night with them when Parker was born.  We haven't seen them since we left there in 2002.  We'll spend some time in the capitol city Saturday.  This is us on our last trip there.

It's been a while, yet we'll still have one in a carrier on this trip:).  I hope to get some better pictures, too, this time around.  Sunday is the race.  Oh, the race!  I was ready last week ... not sure about this week.  Just one more hurdle.  Just one more.

Thank you for everyone who has encouraged me and prayed for me since I started this journey in April.  I would appreciate your continued prayers for our trip this weekend and for continued health and motivation and just a sweet time of reunion with Richard and a little break from the day to day busyness with the girls. We all are in so much need of a break from the norm!!  But I would also ask, and more importantly ask, for you to pray all of our deployed soldiers and their spouses and families.  I have a list of those I know on the left of my blog page.  My heart especially goes out to the Kuhlmann family, as they just recently said goodbye for a year.  They are a super sweet family with four girls and a new baby boy.  They also recently have been through another deployment.  Please pray for them, for strength, perseverance and joy.  Pray that God will keep them close, even though they are separated.  And pray for safety for them all.

And finally, pray for the family of Chief Warrant Officer Brain Hazelgrove.  He died in January 2004 while serving in Iraq.  He had four children, 11, 10, 3 and 7 months at the time.  His sister is a dear friend of mine.  I worked with her in college when we were both employed for ACSI (the Association of Christian Schools International).  We lost touch sometime after I had Hanson Ellis, but her brother, Brian, came to visit her before deploying in 2003 and he found Richard's Army email and therefore got us reconnected again.  I'll never forget the subject line of her email ... "Please Pray."  I knew instantly and I have not stopped praying for them since.  There are so many families of the fallen.  Please don't forget to pray for their families.  But Sunday I will run for this family and I ask that you would specifically lift them up in your prayers.  May they feel God's people praying for them while I run, and may they know they are not forgotten.

Much love to you and your family April!  Praying for you always ...

To God be the Glory.
mk