Dear Prudence Turns 1

This past Sunday, we celebrated Prudence's 1st birthday. It was an absolutely wonderful day! Last year, about this time, Prudence was clinging to life in an incubator at Forsyth Hospital and this past week, we got to enjoy seeing her crawl, stand, play with Peaches, get in a pool, scream at the ocean waves, eat her birthday cupcake, sweetly fall asleep on her daddy in the pool and play with Curtis. We went down Sunday to spend the day with the Perez/Lamb family in Rodanthe on the Outer Banks. We were so excited to be invited to celebrate Prudence. And it was such a fun afternoon. Curtis got to be in a pool for the first time, which he was not too sure about, but eventually warmed up to. Lucy loved swimming around with her Papa Ash on her "boat" and going fishing. At one point, all 3 children napped and we got to have a quiet afternoon in the house resting :) We walked down to the beach where Lucy loved the waves splashing around her, although Curtis and Prudence both did not care for them at all. And then came the birthday party. I love one year old's parties. I love watching them with their cake. It's the funniest thing to see their excited faces as they taste the icing and get it all over their faces. Pru was no exception! It was a wonderful, perfect birthday party!

On Tuesday this week, I went back down for the night since Isaac was duty. This was a fun adventure. My birthday was Wed and the plan was to leave after breakfast Wed morning so I could get back and celebrate my birthday with Isaac. Well, Wed morning, we woke up to flooding and major storming. So I waited a little, and had a birthday breakfast of pork chops and gravy, eggs, toast, and sweet potato butter made by David and Tara, such an amazing breakfast! The rain was not letting up at all, so I thought I'd try and leave before it got any worse. I packed and began to load the car but got soaked so I gave up on that. At that point it was looking like I was going to be flooded in for the day. We ended up driving in to Manteo and it took forever, the flooding was so bad, but luckily by the afternoon it dried well enough that I was able to get my car out and beat the next storm system coming through. I finally made it back home, although I'd missed our date for the night, thankfully we were able to reschedule with our babysitters. It was a huge adventure and a fun one. If I couldn't spend the day with Isaac, spending it with Brenna and her family was an awesome substitute!