Memorial Day

  Yesterday I was taught not to say "Happy Memorial Day" because it is a sad day of remembering all of those who died in order to help keep our country safe. However, I am happy and proud to have such generous and selfless and brave men and women risking and sacrificing their lives to help make America the way it is today for us and Emma.
  I feel like Emma looks younger in these first pictures because I squeezed her into this 3-month size floral overall that was still hanging in her closet for some reason. It's definitely the last time she will ever wear it. Right now/ in this picture, Emma is just two weeks and four days shy of turning 3 years old!!

   Today was really great because both of us had off, and we stuck to the plans that I made. I was surprised that Michael's boss at VAMP still let everyone off for Memorial Day after they had been off for six weeks from the end of March to the beginning of May due to the Corona Virus. A few days prior I told Michael that I wanted us to use one of our Darden gift cards and order food from Bahama Breeze, since that is his favorite place and we probably hadn't been there since his birthday.
   The morning was really great and then in the afternoon we hung out in the house as Michael sewed some Boba Fett gloves that he is working on to sell. He also made the first blaster that he is selling on The Dented Helmet. He first 3D printed the pieces, then made molds of those, so now he just fills up the molds each time a new buyer contacts him. Here is the blaster almost finished, and then completely finished with dirt and rust painted on. Skillz! He has even had two buyers from France and Norway!

   While he was working on the gloves I was looking through Blood Widow pictures for my previous post I just added, and then I watched (and he listened to) the video we made of baby pictures and growing up, until we met each other in 2009, and then videos from Full Sail. He put that 18 minute video together and it was played at our wedding reception on Friday, May 6, 2011. Shortly after watching that yesterday, I did my hair and makeup and then drove to pick up our dinner from Bahama Breeze. The employee who helped me was wearing a mask over his mouth and nose. I forgot to put mine on while I was in the restaurant for that one minute. I changed into a black dress when I got back.
   The day I got this black dress at the end of November 2017 was also a really nice "shopping date" at Kohl's in Clermont. We wanted new outfits because one of the doctors at Winnie Palmer was going to be taking Christmas card photos for the families with babies in the NICU. Michael picked out my dress and shoes (black velvet ankle boots with a thick heel that I rarely wear) and I picked out my matching necklace and earrings, which I also wore yesterday for our home date.

   Another really nice date that I remember, but was sad to find out that I never posted about was went we went to Corelli's Italian Restaurant for pizza, which is also in Clermont. I believe I wore the dark green sundress with a small floral pattern on it. I don't remember what Michael ordered, but I ordered the small stromboli (or maybe it was the calzone?) filled with meat and cheese. It was not small at all! It was huge!! I remember laughing in disbelief and could not imagine the size of the large. I definitely have a picture of it somewhere. I assume the picture was from 2014 or 2015, and if I come across it one day, I will add it into this post.
   Here are some pictures of us/ our meal at "The Dining Room". My only complaint was that the manager in the living room had some "Happy Bear" song on repeat! Haha.

Spinach and artichoke dip, house salads with island vinagirette, I ordered the Mahi Tacos 

and he always gets the jerk chicken pasta. I have a bad habit of ordering foods that 

get soggy easily or don't taste as good when you heat them up the next day. 

   After dinner we joined the manager in her quarters to all watch The Rise of Skywalker. Michael has had this movie since it was released in stores, maybe in March? Michael said he and Emma had watched it a few times, but until last night, there was not a two hour and 20 minute block of time that we had available for me to also watch it. It was a good movie and I did not think any of the parts got boring. Michael asked what my favorite scene was, but I just told him I liked all the parts that made me laugh. I remember the first one with these main actors (The Force Awakens) had a lot of funny lines in the first half. I almost want to watch that one again right now, but Michael might be sad if I watch it while he is at work. It would be more fun to see it with him. I'm pretty sure we saw that one in theaters because it came out in 2015 when it was just the two of us and we weren't parents yet. We did not see The Last Jedi in theaters, because that came out while we were in Michigan for Emma's big surgery. We had time to go on the days Emma was resting (aka sedated and on paralytics), but Michael worried that a nurse or doctor would need to suddenly reach us and we'd have to leave the movie and run back in the snow. The theater was about a 20 minute walk from the hospital.

   The movie ended right around 9pm and then we moved Emma into her bedroom, like we do every night, for her treatments and trach care. She was swinging her legs back and forth in a direction that they don't normally go -behind her-, although she has had hip dysplasia since birth. She didn't just sit like that. She swung her legs back to the front each time. Apparently (according to my mom and another mom whose children had types of primordial dwarfism) this is just Emma's version of the W sit. Where kids sit with their knees bent so the bottom half of the legs are right next to the top half on the floor. I remember I used to do that and my mom would tell me to stop because it's bad for my knees. I remember it being specifically on a Christmas morning too.

  Click HERE to see photos from last year's Memorial Day when we were able to go out to eat. That was a long, full month update, so the part about that specific day is pretty far into the post.