She's Home!

We finally got up and moving this morning.

We headed towards Denver to get Abs.

We stopped off at the outlet mall to get Junior a new pair of shoes. I of course had to hit Banana and found two shirts and two pairs of pants. I love being able to find my smaller size on the clearance racks now! Makes shopping so much easier and cheaper.

We left Banana and were headed back to the car when we saw this tall teenager trying to lean against the wall, all of the sudden he fell right in front of us. He had his two little sisters there who didn't know what to do. At first I thought he was on something, but Gunner went over and tried to get his attention and was asking him if he was okay.

A lady near us saw the whole thing and said he looked and was responding like her son who had seizures. Gunner got him to open his eyes while the lady went and found his dad. They got him to sit up and he kept falling and couldn't keep his balance. They brought him water and Gunner started running through this list of questions.

Gunner moved him out of the sun and the kid was still out of it, weird eyes and everything. Finally he snapped back and didn't remember a thing. His dad called 911 and we walked off. It was scary though. The lady kept telling his dad about how he was reacting like it was a seizure and the kid just didn't know what was happening, and the Dad looked pretty freaked out. Hopefully he is okay now.

We left there, had lunch, and then headed to my friend Dave's house. We walked all over Center Park (?). Junior was exhausted. It was absolutely beautiful though. We went and got frozen custard where you could choose your own topping that could only be had by putting it in the bottom of your cone. Weird.

We drove around Denver and saw a ton of stuff that we want to come back and checkout the next time we head up there. We dropped off Dave, and headed out to get Abs. The airport was 20 minutes away, but we left over an hour before we needed to be there.

I got my security pass while Gunner and the kids waited at the baggage claim. I saw in the security line forever where I met the lady behind me who noticed my military id card and asked me about Gunner. Her husband visited Iraq once on a congressional visit--he was a congressman. She thanked us for his service and talked about how she couldn't thank me or him enough or the kids. The colleague she was traveling with joined in on the praise, made me feel good.

I ran through security, to find that I needed to catch a tram and go three terminals over. Did that, and then ran through 2o gates to find Ab's gate, and a plane was unloading. I asked a Southwest employee if the plane was from Austin, but she said it was from Orlando. She went to make sure, and I heard Austin and started to panic. It had taken me 45 minutes to get to the gate while running!

I turned around, then back around, and there was my Abs. I was so excited to see her with her new haircut and her bags of dinosaur books. She took everything in stride as I signed her away from the attendant. Then she started talking.

She talked and talked and talked. We made the long trip back to the baggage claim, where Junior freaked out when he saw his sister. He was ecstatic! Gunner grabbed her up in a big bear hug, and even Em let her little sister hug her for a few moments. We grabbed her things (while she continued to talk) and then we walked out with Junior and Abs holding hands and Abs still talking.

We decided to stop for dinner somewhere, and I started reading off signs. I said Landry's, and Gunner thought I said let's go there. I had instead said something to the effect of that's a nice restaurant and expensive. Next thing I knew we were pulling up outside the restaurant.

We went inside and I cringed. It was so nice and quiet in there, and Abs was still talking. Abs doesn't usually do well in any restaurant, but we settled in and although the meals were expensive we went ahead and ordered. We got Junior a $2.99 meal of mac & cheese. Our food arrived and I was stirring Junior's to get some of the heat off and noticed that it was cold. I let the waiter know, he apologized and whisked it away to the kitchen. The manager arrived with a piping hot platter of mac & cheese and apologized and said he would take care of it. I figured we were saving $2.99, but when our bill came, they took off 7 times that amount. I was shocked since I really didn't even mind since they corrected the problem, but they insisted.

So dinner wasn't so bad after all, and everyone left full and happy.

We came home and Abs was excited about seeing her room. She walked in, walked around, then we showed her around. Her response to every room "That's not too remarkable". She went to the restroom where she immediately stopped it up. Abs is home. I couldn't be happier, even after her 20th time of coming out and asking for water, a hug, to tell us one more thing, and one more time to be tucked in.

Tomorrow should be interesting!