Christie

June 13, 1974 - January 31, 1996

I just wanted to say a few words about my friend Christie whom I still miss very much - even after 9 years --- really it was a little more since the last time we talked, so closer to 10 years now.

To this day I still listen to boy bands just cause they make me think of her :) I know good and well had she lived she would have tried out for American Idol each and every chance she got - and we would have been there cheering her on. That was her dream - to sing and to write. I wish I had the notebook full of songs she wrote. I can see her being a reality tv junkie too :D She was enthralled with that kind of thing and it fits her personality so perfectly. I can see her hanging out at karaoke bars as often as she could, too. That girl loved to sing!

Hey, Mabel, watch after little Jace ~ as if I need to ask. Tell him all about his momma and his godmother for us. Miss you girl.

More Chicken Pox

Bailey broke out today! He's a doll though, since he can't see the blisters he says he doesn't have them yet. It's one of those things you just gotta see, in order to appreciate how cute it is. Well at least that's two of them having it together! Maybe Morgan Haley will break out soon. I'd rather lose sleep covering three kiddos blisters with homeopathic anti-itch stuff and giving oatmeal baths all at once than spreading it out as long as it can go. Not to mention being confined to the house all day cause people don't wanna be exposed is just boring! ;-) We should be hearing about Marshall and McKayla getting it here soon. They were exposed to Bailey on Friday of last week and will be seeing both Bailey and Madison Tuesday thru Friday of this week.

Speech Evaluator

Of all the days to return phone calls - she calls on a Sunday night. Whatever works, I'm just glad she finally got in touch with me! It was a week and a half from the first time I called - and I called nearly every day since then, too.

What a process just to get speech evaluated!! She's sending a packet and we have to provide all these things (birth certificate, proof of residency - including the deed to the house not just bills, etc). Well we still haven't recieved the birth certificates from our request in August, so we really have to get on top of that one! Then after I get all that stuff and the packet returned then someone will process it and set up an appointment. Whew - it'll probably be next year at the rate things are going now :-p

I'll keep ya posted, as always!

Chicken Pox

Madison broke out in Chicken Pox today! Here's to hoping it's not a bad case but just bad enough for lifetime immunity :) So if anyone is interested in exposing their kids then let me know and we'll arrange something.

Happy Birthday Aunt Sylvia!!

Joe in Iraq

UPDATE --- JOE IS SAFE!!!!
Though four men he knew and was close to died in the crash. Here's what he had to say ....

To everyone who sent me an email concerning the recent crash, thank you.Unfortunately, at approximately 0120(am) Jan 26, 4 Marines from HMH-361 (mysquadron) were killed along with 27 other brave Marines that were being transported to rejoin their parent unit.

Capt Paul Chris "Ahab" Alaniz, Capt Lyle L. "Dirt" Gordon, SSgt Dexter Kimble, and LCpl Tony Hernandez died that morning. All were married, 2 with children.

I worked with Capt Chris Alaniz for 8 months in the squadron's logistics department before we both moved to the maintenance side of the house. He leaves a wife and 2 year old daughter.

SSgt Kimble leaves a wife and 5 children. The youngest is 1 while the oldest is 10 years old.

LCpl Hernandez was married right before we deployed and his wife moved into their new house just last week.

And Capt Lyle Gordon...

Lyle was my best friend in the squadron. I'd known Lyle for the past 5 years. We did everything and went everywhere together when it came to the squadron. We were neighbors in North Carolina, and every time the squadron went ANYWHERE, we were ALWAYS room mates (OCS, Nevada, Okinawa, Korea, the Philippines, the Mojave desert, Arizona, and here in Iraq). We shared a LiteAce van in Okinawa and just recently, we became Helicopter Aircraft Commanders (HAC) together (a tough process of being grilled in questions by a board and flying 3 evaluation flights testing our maturity in the cockpit, flight skills, and decision making ability). Once designated as a HAC, Lyle flew with me on my "Cherry" HAC flight as my co-pilot. On Oct 1, 2004, Lyle pinned my Capt's bars on my collar. Since Heidi couldn't do it, he and Capt Neil Oswald were my next choices. Lyle leaves behind his wife, Kaci, who he'd been married to for the past 3 1/2 years. They were good friends of ours and were a wonderful couple.

Lyle, and everyone aboard that flight were great, brave Americans. Please include them and their families in your thoughts and prayers. They will be greatly missed.The picture attached was taken shortly after my promotion. Capt Neil Oswald is on the left, and Capt Lyle Gordon is on the right.

Sincerely,
Capt Joe Campomanes
HMH-361 Flying Tigers
MCAS Al Asad, Iraq
************************************
Tuesday I received an email from Joe with some more pictures of his temporary residence. Something said "Email him right now" but I put it off til the next morning. I sent him an email detailing our past few days as I always do (it's what he has requested - to hear the mundane every day stuff). Then I found out about the helo crash. I've never known where he was stationed. When I read the first report with the name of the area the helo crashed, I *knew* that's where he was stationed. Then it went on to say that most aboard were 1st MarDiv Marines... not all. I knew the MAW flew Marines from other units all over the place.

I went about my day and thought I was doing well keeping distracted with the things I had to do, but I think my distraction manifested itself in clumsiness. I fell down, tripped over myself, slammed my fingers in doors and drawers, spilt stuff and burned myself. Hopefully today will be better in that regard.

I finally got in touch with Missy, Brian's wife. Brian is safe and sound, thank God! He is stationed with Joe. She's watching the DOD release of the deceased's names for me. We'll know something as soon as we know it.

Do we live at the dr office?

I'm beginning to think so!! Yesterday I had to run Morgan Haley up to the office just so they could take a looksee at this rash she seems to have developed. Over the phone it sounded like it could have been several things and there was no telling for sure without seeing it. We got in there and Dr. S and I stared at several pictures of various ailments trying to figure out which one she had. It came down to two things.... 1) a particular virus (I forgot the name of it) that manifests in these little rashes but no other symptoms and lasts for 20 days; or 2) it is a something something dermatitis related to her allergies.

There is no treatment for the virus and the treatment for the dermatitis would make the virus worse if it happened to be the virus and not the dermatitis.... soooo the course of action is to wait out the remaining 2 weeks to see if it disappears. If not, then treat it as if it were dermatitis. Gee gracious me.

Next is Madison's visit on Wednesday afternoon. She had been feeling funny in her throat.... her exact words were "it feels like someone is pinching my throat on the inside." Her tonsils were swollen and yucky and she is making a funny noise when she breathes, especially at night. As it turns out, her tonsils were back to normal by the time we got to the dr. BUT there is something swollen in her upper nasal passages (I'll get the name of it later and stick in here). That is causing her to breathe funny. So now we got her on a nasal spray that she'll have to stay on for about 4 months in order to shrink it.

But that's not all - she's been having these pains that I assumed were growing pains in her knees. But since she complains during the day about the pain and it alternates legs, the doc wasn't so sure. But for now, unless she developes some other symptoms like limping then he believes that she complains during the day due to her active lifestyle.

Oh but there's more! She failed her hearing test last year (but I wasn't informed) so he decided to retest her now... she failed it again, so we off to the audiologist once more! We're getting to know her quite well.

Alrighty now that's all!

Car Update

The extended warranty people inspected the car and approved work on the engine. They are sending out an engine for the dealership to put in there with all sorts of new things (don't ask me, I'm not a car person!). So now we can get a rental and they will pay for it. Now if only they can get it in there faster than it took to get this far. One can only hope!

Bailey - Ear & Speech

Hey everyone! We had Bailey's second hearing test and ear check-up today. Great news ~ his hearing is greatly improved BUT there is still some hearing loss. With the descrepancies in the test, our audiologist suspected some fluid still in his ears. She was correct. Dr. Goldburg said there was still some fluid in his ears, but it is fluid and not goo glue anymore which is good news in itself. So the plan now is to go ahead and put Bailey on the surgical rotation for tubes in a month. At his pre-op appointment he will have his third hearing test done. IF there is improvement AND no fluid then he will taken off the surgical list; but, if there is still fluid and little to no improvement then we will continue as scheduled.

Also our audiologist has suggested that Bailey have a speech evaluation done since he is 4. It is free through our county's educational system since we are tax payers. The outcome of this evaluation will determine our course of action in the near future. So as soon as I know something on that I will let you know!

Update on Car

Just got an update on the car! They pulled the engine and are checking the headers, found no sludge build-up and are calling the extended warrenty people. So finally, they're actually working on our car! We won't know anything else until late this afternoon or first thing in the morning. So hopefully soon we'll have our little car home and be a two-car family again :)

No School

Well there's no school today due to Martin Luther King's Birthday celebration. Nothing much has happened since my birthday wish to Micheal. I just attended a friend's 39th birthday party at Nicola's on Saturday night. The girls in my dance group have decided to have all of our birthday parties at Nicola's - we're all spread throughout the year so it's perfect. The party was suppose to end at 10 but Nicola sometimes can't help himself with the dancing and kept us all there until well after 11:30pm! For those who don't know, Nicola was a professional dancer in Lebanon before he came to the US. So he adores dancing and music and good food. He puts on quite a show himself, so come out and see sometime!

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Morgan's Allergies

We had our last allergy appointment today. Morgan Haley went through a food challenge and another milk skin test. Everything shows up normal. The food was the french toast stick she ate last year when she broke out in hives.

Being that Dr. Zora is limited by my HMO he cannot do any further testing though he is sure something is going on - but what he just isn't sure on. It was suggested I go to a holistic health practitioner and let them do further testing. But he strongly advised keeping the EpiPen handy as he is certain she will grow up to have allergy problems. When I think about it, both Mom and I developed allergies later in life as well, so she may follow the same pattern. He also said that if her immune system goes wonky she might have another allergic reaction - which very well could have been what happened at the time she broke out in hives, so she is going to always be 'at risk' to certain foods.

There was also the suggestion to put her back on the original diet (fruits, veggies, nuts & seeds) for a while then extremely slowly reintroduce those things and note every physical reaction she has. But that will be extremely difficult now that she has had those foods.

Of course, if anything happens we are to go back immediately. So that's that on that.

Tammy's Hearing

I had my final evaluation performed today and basically there's nothing to tell. They did some major balance tests on me by messing with my inner ear and taking reading with some electrodes on my ears and around my eyes. Apparently I respond in a healthy manner and it doesn't affect my day to day living ~ which of course is wonderful! I definitely qualify for a hearing aid but the insurance doesn't cover it so we're looking at the different places my audiologist gave me and seeing how much the different kinds costs. I can't wait to be able to hear normally! Otherwise there is nothing left to do except annual evaluations to keep an eye on my Meniere's.

Happy Birthday, Justin!

Madison went back to school on Wednesday of last week. She wasn't exactly happy about it either. I'm sure she'll be back in the swing of things here soon enough though.

Both Madison and I started ballet classes this past week - Madison of course is continuing and I am taking for the first time. So far so good!

Testing Tickers

Bailey Isaiah




Morgan Haley Christine








Marshall Gregory


McKayla Rose

25 miles from Booneyville

First of all, we had a great little New Year's Eve. Christian's friend, Micheal came to spend the night, Toree and I rented Mean Girls, Madison was happy with a new video game while Bailey and Morgan Haley were happy as clams playing with their news toys from Christmas. New Year's day found us loading up and saying good-bye as we prepared to take Christian and Toree back to meet their dad.

Sunday, Jan 2, we left out for Louisiana just after 6am EST. We made excellent time on the roads as there was very little traffic, no road construction to speak of and no coppers trying to catch speeders like me! We made it to the meeting place by 1:15pm, where we cleaned out the car, played basketball, played Scrabble, talked and all that good stuff. Nearly 2 1/2 hours later Matt makes it there to pick them up, so off I go to head back to Georgia.

Some 35 miles back into Mississippi, I heard a loud pop and bump and assumed I had blown a tire and was feeling pretty happy I was in jeans and t-shirt so that I could change the tire. As it turns out, I slung a rod and cracked the engine block. That shouldn't have happened in this car. Anyway, after waiting nearly two hours for the tow truck, we got the car towed to the car place and me a motel room for the night.

The next morning it turns out I could have stayed in the room until check out but as it is I got up early and walked to the car place to give them the key. Then I spent the rest of the morning in Books-A-Million listening to John Grisham tout his new book every 15 minutes. I finally went back, lit a fire under their hineys and got lunch while they took a look-see at the car. As I stated, they gave me the worst possible news they could have and that sent me on a search to find a way home. Highlights - don't ever need a one-way rental cause they'll take your first and last born ($338.21 to rent one day, one way, unlimited miles); a rental to the nearest airport 60 miles away was over $75; the airport in town only flies to Memphis; U-Haul wants all your children (over $400) to rent a truck and dolly.

Finally, we got a tow to the dealership where they immediately got me a ride over to the Greyhound bus station where I bought a ticket at 2:54pm for the 2:55pm bus! As it turns out the bus ride was pretty doggone good and I met some good people. I finally got into my own bed around 2am, which of course was the best thing!