One of the worst things any Mother ever has to endure...seriously, grab the tissues

Yesterday, afternoon I sat down to type an e-mail to my husband and Dar said he wanted to go outside to throw the ball for Cinder, my parent's 6 yr old black lab. Typical request, he does this about 10 times a day out here and usually on his own. Both Louis and I as well as my parents have emphasized to Dar not to go into the woods by himself and he never has. However, yesterday Dar and Cinder apparently went into the woods to look for the ball that Dar threw and Cinder couldn't find. About 10 minutes after Dar and Cinder went out, my mom went outside to weed, they usually come running anytime they hear the tractor turn on, so I assumed they were with her. It wasn't for another 15-20 minutes until I went outside to talk to mom when, not seeing them with her, I asked and she said she hadn't seen them. It only took me about 2 minutes of frantic searching in the immediate areas around the house to know they were gone. I was quickly becoming hysterical, the most obvious answer was they had gone into the woods and my instincts told me in which direction, I immediately dropped to my knees in my parents burn field and prayed with every fiber of my being that we would find our son. I didn't fully understand that saying until yesterday. Unfortunately I don't know the property or the lay of the land, I felt utterly helpless because I knew if I went into the woods I quickly would have become lost myself. Mom had the sense to call 911 while I jumped in the truck and made a quick sweep of the very dangerous highway to eliminate that as a possible outcome of destination. Once the Loudoun County Sherriff arrived he made a thorough sweep of the house just to make sure and calmed me down through my first ever hypervetilation episode. I couldn't breath as I tried to tell him what had happened, timing, and likely direction. He only made matters worse for me by commanding me to stay at the house in case Dar found his way back. They asked us to stay out of the woods as it would confuse the scent for the bloodhound that was in route to track him down. Mom had already run down to the creek that runs through the back of the property thinking that they had found it and that Dar was enjoying himself with his favorite thing, throwing rocks in water. Alas, he wasn't there, but she heard some branches cracking under foot to her north, she called out and neither Dar or dog answered and she headed towards it and no deer ran away, she felt compeled to follow but knew I was loosing it back at the house waiting for help. We had three deputies, 2 runnig the highway in opposite directions, and 1 walking the creek, and one LT. running point from our driveway. Mom had just taken Dar's photo to both the Lt and the dep. that was walking the creek when she realized, he's in the woods, and you are going to have to kill me to stop me from looking for my grandson. She went back to the spot she had been before because she felt she needed to follow the sounds she had previously heard. She did, and they led her to our son. She crossed a road, a creek and climbed a 30 foot embankment to find Dar sitting in the middle of an old logging road crying for mommy. The dog was no longer with him. We made the mistake of calling for the dog to come, before I realized that she would immediately head back and Dar probably wouldn't have been able to keep up with her. My mother called me to tell me she had him but wasn't sure where she was, and that she was utterly exhausted. She had pratically ran that half mile to get him, and of course would not put Dar down. As we hung up I turned around to cinder's barking and saw her running up from the creek bed. Mom made it back to the highway and then the sherriff picked them up and brought them home. Dar made this journey through what normally is his nap time and only managed to suffer minor scrapes on his legs. Fortunately he doesn't seem to be traumatized by the endeavor, not sure I can say the same for me, he was right back to jumping, running, and playing around as soon as we got him in dry cloths. Last night I was expecting him to have nightmares but he curled into my side, told me his legs weren't hurting him anymore, he was worried about me, he was scared, but he was safe, and he loved me. Then he promptly fell asleep, and remained fairly nightmare free. He whimpered at one point in the night but I put my hand to his face and he settled back down. I was not nearly as able to sleep. I am not one to excercise a great deal, I tone, but I don't build endurance. When I initially realized he was gone, I was running as fast as I could go for about a solid 15 minutes, and half of that was up steep inclines. My body was aching all over enough to not let me get comfortable and between that and the tears I didn't sleep as well as Dar. Neither Dar or I want to be very far from each other today, as I'm sure you all can understand. As helpless as I felt, it was much worse for Louis who, being 8 hours away, couldn't do anything to help find his son except wait for news. Luckily the ordeal only lasted for two hours. My mother found him before the bloodhound even made it to the house, it would have been another 15 mintues before the K-9 unit would have arrived. Considering the extreme possible outcomes we were tremendously blessed. We also had an amazing response from my parent's neighbors. One gentlemen came out and started looking through the woods in his crocs and boxers. Another was massing a search party on 4 wheelers and was heading our way. The police had the dog on the way and choppers on standby. Everyone was determined to find him before nightfall. Thanks be that none of that was necessary. I can't tell you how grateful I am that my mother was close enough to the spirit to listen and to follow the promptings she was given even though she was upset. I am afraid to say that I was too overwhelmed to do more than pray, my emotions were too loud to hear anything still and small.

Funs over :(

Hmmm...where to begin....I guess at the beginning. Why do I feel a song coming on?? Well, I can report that we have survived eating our way through Newport. The food was fabulous. Thur and Fri Louis still had to be in school so we went and saw a few of the Newport mansions. Three total, and they were eye opening. The extravagance was getting a little ridiculous. Although to be fair we did go see the most popular, gilded, and the largest that was offered. The views were the best part of the sight seeing. We had 4 perfect days of sunny, breezy 70's weather we could have asked for. Saturday was a little cloudy and patchy rain, but other than that not bad. Dar absolutely loved being with his Daddy and I think the only time he cried was when we tried to get him to go to sleep. Typical 3 year old. Thursday night we celebrated my father's birthday having a wonderful dinner on the waterfront. Saturday we celebrated Dar's and mine by taking the tourist train in the morning, going to the children's museum in Portsmouth, RI in the afternoon and then hibachi Sushi which was incredible, that evening in Newport. Dar loved his new light sabers and his Kung Fu Panda stuffed toys. I received a bruised, swollen thumb joint yesterday from his exuberence with those sabers...I guess I have to be more careful. Sunday we went to church before skipping out early in order to go to the Red Sox game in fenway. They lost...I think we are jinxed, every time we go to a game they lose. It's very frustrating. Meanwhile Mom and Dad rented scooters, tooled around Newport and had a picnic on the point. We were joined for dinner by two women, one having graduated with Louis from the Naval Academy was picked up for the JAG program the same time he was is also in the same NJS class he is currently in. And the other a good friend who went to UW with him and then took a job with the Navy JAG is up there for Officer training followed by NJS. It was a lot of fun...a lot of Navy talk, but enjoyable nonetheless. Monday came all too soon in my opinion but it dawned beautifully. We went to the beach in Newport and flew a kite and Dar walked/ran through the red surf and chased the seagulls until they were really annoyed. It was a wonderfully relaxed day. Of course Dar fell asleep for the 10 minute ride back to base which meant that he didn't go back to sleep when we got back to the hotel. So he went to the beach on base with Gram and Gramdad to throw rocks into the water for a few more hours. He's going to become an excavator or something, rocks, dirt, and water are his three main staples. Anyway, dinner followed in a downtown pub and we walked around a little afterwards. All in all a very peaceful day if it weren't for the torment plagueing me because it was our last with Louis. I was not ready to leave. So after crying myself to sleep and a very teary morning we headed back to VA. Dar didn't want to go either but at least he didn't have a tantrum about it. That would have been too hard for me to keep my composure I think. Anyway, we are getting back into our respective routines and facing a bleak 6 weeks before we are forever done with school and can be reunited.

In RI

Well, hello all. My parents, Dar and I drove the 8 hours up to Newport, RI yesterday and discovered that YES, I have a husband! Wow, it was a remarkable find. Our little family has missed each other terribly. In the little bit of driving around we have done I have surprised myself at remembering the roads and recognizing where we should go. I didn't expect that. I mean we were here only 6 months and most of my driving was to and from work at the time. Anyway, my point today was to let you all know that now having been reunited with my laptop, I have added backlogged pictures to all our posts. Sorry, I know it's a pain but what can you do!? I'll post back later with all the fun stuff we'll be doing up here....well, ok, maybe not ALL of it. But you get the idea. :)

Great stadium, not so great game!

Last night My parents took Dar and I up to Frederick, MD to see the Keys play. The Keys are the minor league to the Baltimore, Orioles. The stadium is so geared towards kids I was amazed, not a single minute went by when Dar was bored. Which is a remarkable feet when there are 9 innings to sit through. The have a kids play center with moon bounce jumps, one just to jump and one to jump and climb/slide. There was also an inflatable that you could pitch into and one which had a very clever outlet of air to suspend a wuffel ball in the air so you could hit it (Dar's favorite game.) *bragging moment* Dar was as good, if not better, at hitting that ball then some of the kids aging 6-10! :D They also had a playground and a merry-go-round. They also had fun little competitions with gifts from their sponsors for the contestants on the sidelines between each inning. Afterwards, they had all the kids line up on 3rd base and let them run the bases going from 3rd to 2nd to 1st then home. After all was said and done I think that this was the highlight for the Dar, he wanted to run it again. He passed the 4/5 yr old in front of him and beat him home which I thought was pretty impressive for an almost 3 yr old. (Sorry, bragging... again!) Once this was completed and a little too much talk for my tastes they had a fireworks display which was Dar's first! He did remarkably better than I expected. See, after last 4th of July when he turned and ran crying from a little ladybug fireworks that I did at our house we thought he was kinda a pansy when it came to loud noises and bright colors. Totally not a Butler trait! However, he kept my hands firmly over his ears and actually really enjoyed it. So even though the game was painful to the degree of suicide for the Keys. (14-0) It was a wonderful relaxing, fun filled Friday evening. So for hopeful future successes...GO KEYS!!!

Beach Giggles

After dropping Grandma at Great Aunt Gracie's house, Mom Aunt Helen, Dar and I headed to Ocean City on Thursday to enjoy our "girl's day out". ( No I didn't mean to leave Dar out, we just figured he doesn't have enough testosterone to exclude him in our label. :) Dar has never been to the beach where the temperature of both water and air led to any inclination to submerge even your toes into the waves. So I was surprised and, a little frantic to stay close to him, when he courageously plowed into the crashing surf. He absolutely loved it. It was non stop giggles for hours on end. His favorite part at first was going right up to where the waves crashed and then running away just in front of the wave as it spread out on the sand. Then his euphoria was taken to new heights when I took his hand and led him right to where the waves have the potential to knock the waves out from under you. Of course every time, without fail they knocked his little legs out from under him as I held him up. His giggles turned to dropped jaw, bright eyed, top volume laughter. It was so catching he had everyone around him laughing too. I can't believe we didn't catch it on film! It was so adorable. I was even more surprised that nap time came and went without even the slightest hitch in his ever running stride. We went for what was intended a walk down the beach but really ended up being more, running, jumping and collapsing into waves then I had the strength to keep up with. By the time we got back to our canopy my arms and legs were jelly from holding/catching our 30 pound energizer bunny. I literally stumbled onto the blanket and tried to coax Dar to lay down next to me hoping he would take a very late nap with me. It wasn't until he saw his silky that he no longer struggled with me on the subject. One thing is for sure...we won't be taking his silky away from him anytime soon. All in all, it was a lovely day with perfect weather, great memories, fun shops, great food and miraculously NO SUNBURN!!

Surprising twist

Well, Dar surprised us, we ended up doing almost 11 hours in the car. We made it as far as Cleveland, OH. I was pretty impressed. We made it to my Parents house by 3:30 Friday and we were all ready to get out of the car. Louis stayed with us Saturday and then headed up to RI after Church on Sunday. Can I just say...I HATE EAST COAST HUMIDITY!!!! I never care to move back here permenantly that is for sure. It is enormously overpowering to me. Unfortunately Dar doesn't seem to mind, all he wants is to be outside. :( Mom and I (or their dog for that matter) can't keep up. Anywho, I guess there won't be much exciting from us for a little while. We will be going to "sightsee" in RI in a couple weeks, we'll be back in touch then.

Halfway There!

Well yesterday we past the halfway mark and moved into the central time zone. It was a long day in the car and Dar was a fabulous traveler. We went into Omaha, Nebraska to see winter quarters; they have a pioneer center there. It was pretty cool. I would have loved to spend more time there and read more of the stories, but there is only so much you can expect of a 3 yr old. We walked across the street to see the cemetery grounds and the temple which now stands right next door. Dar was like a pinball just bouncing off of surfaces. It was very peaceful and we got some lovely pictures. We ended up staying in a motel 6 in Council Bluffs. Apparently, the family in the room next to ours was housing a banshee because there was screaming well into the night that definitely cannot be excused on a colicky baby. Louis knocked on their door more than once concerned they were abusing their child, after the second time things quieted down. Between sticky humidity (man I miss the west) and the smoky smell I didn’t sleep well. I have never been more thankful that Louis is driving right now. We hope to get to Indiana sometime before stopping; of course we will hit the last time zone change about the same time. We will stay somewhere on Lake Michigan, that should provide a good opportunity for Dar to run around. I think Dar might be done with his car seat, today he isn’t doing quit so hot as yesterday.