The 1st Birthday and 1st Vacation

  October 2008 we celebrated Joel's first birthday along with one of his grandma's 76 birthday. It was a blast. Many of our church family and family came. Even our grandparents from Arkansas came up for the special night. Joel has his own little seat where everyone could watch him make a mess. Indeed he did. There was spagetti everywhere. When it came time for the cake he was not too keen on the whole frosting thing. He wouldn't even touch it. He got gobs of toys and clothes for his birthday. Some he couldn't wait to play with even before they were out of the box. It was so much fun. Joel even crashed out hard that night when he got home.
  The next day he had his one year old check up, and shots. He did very very well. Thank goodness for tylenol. The doctor was very impressed on how well he was doing. He also said he was going to talk to an ENT specialist about Joel's frontelum that he had that was causing trouble.
  The same day Joel and I went on his first vacation to Kansas with our grandparents to visit our relatives there. Joel did very well even with just having shots. He slept a good portion of it on the way there. He tried to play with his cousin Blake a little but mostly just wanted mommy because it was new people. When we got to our Aunt and Uncle's house in Salina, Kansas we were all tuckered out but we sat and chatted for a bit. Aunt Nan rocked and cuddled Joel until he fell back to sleep. We took Joel to a park. He played for hours with grandma and grandpa on the playground equipment. Grandpa and Uncle took turn walking him in a stroller up and down the street a couple of days. By the third day post shots Joel spiked a fever and wasn't feeling good. Aunt Nan and Grandma took good care of him. Many warm baths, chicken noodle soup, and a lot of TLC. They told me to relax that it was my vacation. Joel did good on the way back as well. It was a blast. I think he missed his family back in Iowa because when we saw them he wanted them right away. I think that they missed him too.