long time, no post

My first excuse for not posting is that I was out of town for a week to welcome home my brother, who was deployed to Iraq for the past year. It was great. The Army has the welcome home thing down to a science. We (my mom, dad, and I) drove on post, parked in a special lot, got on the special bus that took us to this special airplane hangar:

We were there pretty early, so not very many people were there when I captured this picture of the "Patton flag." There were a lot of families there, lots of little children there to welcome home their daddy. That part really struck me. I missed my brother and all, but he had a relatively safe desk job in Baghdad, and him being gone wasn't any different than when he was at the academy or when I was in college. I can't imagine what those kids went through without a father (or mother) at home for a year. Military families are amazing.

Anyway, the plane landed, they got off, and they marched inside the hangar:

I know you can't see him, but he's the fifth person from the left in the second row. YAY!

It was a great spring vacation--welcoming home Wade and moving him into his new apartment. I had some really good times in the car with my mom, and we visited her bff, which was educational, as always.

My second excuse for not posting is laziness... I haven't been knitting much. No excuse, really.