We went home today! The news of Ellie's lung misbehaving was hard to take because that meant one more day of not getting home. She was sleeping well in the morning and we wondered if we could pull off a day trip. It was a very hard decision because there was really no "right" choice, just whatever was "best" for all of us. So, we decided it was best for us to go. We spoke at length with the nurse a couple times while we were gone and Ellie was doing great. We ended up surprising the kids when we pulled in - that was so fun! We got to celebrate "Oma's" birthday with her - that was such a great, "normal" experience. We saw all the puzzles and school they'd been doing. We got to do some special parent-type things that we'd really missed doing.
They were slightly confused and asking, "are Oma and Papa leaving?" and "where is Ellie?". But it was business as usual playing football and golf in the backyard while Jeff held Julia the whole time. Jacob showed us the medals he and Xavier won at the last golf tournament. And Xavier found a sticker and came over to me and put it on my shirt and said, "this is Ellie in your tummy but she's not in your tummy anymore". I said "yes, she's in my heart". That's our tornado-marshmallow.
