18 weeks

There is a countdown going on at our house. We have done this so many times!!

My main memories of "counting down" have been when William was on deployment. The children and I would spend the first several days of him being gone cutting and connecting strips of paper and making a chain. I would try to keep it fun with the children but wow was that hard standing there looking at all...those...rings. One link represented each day and I remember silently wondering if I'd make through the whole deployment when I was barely making it through making the paper chain. The rings covered the entire floor! We hung the chain around the room in swags and then each child would take a turn each morning removing a piece of the chain. How fun when we got down to halfway. We'd celebrate!

I have also done a countdown until vacation, a countdown until my parents arrived to visit us at yet another duty station, a countdown until a special family event and many pregnancies we counted as God would choose to bless us with another child!

Well, this is a new countdown for me, one I have never had the privilege to experience before!! This is the countdown to the "due date" of my very first grandchild! My oldest son's wife, my beautiful daughter-in-love, is pregnant and today she is 18 weeks from her due date! She is past halfway!!

Two weeks ago when they were here visiting, we had a surprise Halfway Party and it was so much fun to celebrate LIFE!