Well, it's Friday evening and I've finally decided to join the ranks of BLOGGERS!!! Kind of scary.  Well, not as scary as raising 5 kids in todays world....now THAT is scary! We have successfully moved one child on to the world of adulthood...tomorrow is Kyra's 19th birthday and her first away from home.  She is in the United States Navy and lives 1000 miles away in Great Lakes, Illinois.  Oh, how we miss her!  Letting her go was not as traumatic as I thought it would be-ok, at least not as traumatic as the middle school/high school years....but I would drop everything in an instant (well, maybe not the baby) just to see her right now.  Just to pull her into my lap and wrap my arms around her and look into her beautiful hazel eyes and listen to that sparkling yet hearty laugh come from that amazing smile...now that would be a good chunk of Heaven on earth!!!  Then I would have some words with her-she left me here with all these testoserone laden men!  What am I supposed to do with them....besides hold them and love them...nurture them and nourish them.  I am often subjected to watching the Alpha male and the Beta male have a good natured go at each other.  I am always careful to not mention how silly they seem.  I am told it is an important rite of passage for these men.....I just sit back in a nice safe quiet corner of the room and thank Almighty God for these blessings he has given me! It is most of the time like living in the center of a whirlpool (washing machine that is!)-most of the time I seem to be on "agitate" or "spin" cycles....how I long for the soak cycle....well tonight might be ok...a date with my beloved.  We'll see how the Beta male does with babysitting the informer and the destructor for awhile...Oh, Kyra, my darling daughter, I miss you so much!  May God's light shine on you and may you know how deeply you are loved by this family and so many others.  Let the adventure continue!