Thankyou loyal followers for still checking in with us, despite my poor showing lately. I have a lot of little lame excuses, but the only important one is that WE HAVE BEEN OUT OF TOWN !! And by 'we', I mean the original 'we', not the 'we of the last 3 years'. That's right folks, Paul and I just got back from the most amazing vacation in the tropical destination of St. John, USVI. I have too much to say about it to say anything at all really. It was dreamy. In fact, I am still dreaming about it. :)

So, that little week trip has pretty much encompassed the entire month of late feb/early march for me to take care of all the preparations. I am fairly certain the local retail market in Knoxville noticed a big boost, as I thought my mother could not function without 3 back-ups of every household product she could possibly need and food to feed an army. Oh, and I hope no one else needs to purchase any post-its or sticky labels anytime soon...you might want to give the suppliers time to catch up after my recent pre-leaving-my-medically-complicated-baby-with-someone-else-for-an-entire-week labeling extravaganza.

I think it went great. Garrett and Lilah seem very happy with their service and when we pulled in, my parents weren't waiting in the driveway with the car running to get home. In fact, Paul and I are just trying to wait a respective amount of time before asking them to do it again.:) These little thing I had heard about....8 hours of sleep, quiet, uninterrupted conversations, freedom....they are addictive for sure!

The thing is that God has blessed us through this trip. A year ago, when we were in the hospital with Lilah, Paul got word that he had won a very prestigious honor for top sales in his company. The prize was a trip to Hawaii. Of course we couldn't go. Couldn't even think about it. The hospital would be the only place that could care for a little girl as sick as Lilah was at that time--and there was no way we would leave her. ever. or at least that's what we tought....that we'd never want to leave her (said the same with G), but even the strongest grown weary and I had to push to the back of my mind the panic that came when I thought I never could leave her. Less than one year later, and she and her caregivers did great! It's a miracle that I felt she was well enough to be left in someone else's care, a miracle that she was in excellent health the entire week, and a miracle that the Lord provided this trip for us a year after the 'lost' Hawaii trip....to show us again and again that He loves us and cares for all our needs.