Monday, January 27, 2014

Kevin, Leesa, Yoshi, Molly, and......

So I have never been very good at writing these entries. I think this is the same reason why I have never really kept a journal very well. However I thought I would take some time and share a few things on here. Mostly I just wanted to make an entry about our growing little family. Leesa has made a few different blogs about our family and talked about Yoshi and Molly and our little girl that is on the way. I thought it was my turn to write about each of them. 


First I want to take some time to talk about my wife. Leesa is the strongest person I know. Over the past 5 years that we have known each other this has been proven time and again. Our life has not been the easiest in the short time that we have known each other. Not too long after we got married she suffered the loss of her grandmother, something I will never forget I saw just how strong and independent she could be. Shortly after that we lost our first child Matthew. Again I saw Leesa's strength as she recognized the reason for this loss. It didn't come all at once, but I watched her struggle through her emotions until she understood God's plan for our family a little more. I didn't come to terms with this as fast as she did and as a result I stopped caring about school which forced us to change our future quite drastically. Once again Leesa's strength and love shined through. She never wanted to be a military wife and I didn't ever think I would follow my dad and brother in the service. Then to top it all off I took her half way around the world to a place we had never even talked about going. (I just put it on my list as a filler, guess I learned there.) She didn't believe me at first and then really disliked me after hearing about how much snow they get. 

We decided the military was a good place for us to be since we would have healthcare and would be able to plan for our future family and the needs Leesa would have being high risk. So when we got to Japan we started talking about maybe trying for a baby again. The answer would always come back as wait. So we did and in the mean time we decided to expand our family in another way. 


So we started looking for a dog and Leesa found Yoshi. I had never heard of a Corgi before and when we went to go meet him for the first time I thought he was the funniest looking dog I had ever seen. Short, stout and what big ears you have, not to mention his lack of tail. Leesa didn't judge Yoshi at all and I only saw love in her eyes when we met him for the first time. We were very grateful for the previous owners choosing us to let him be a part of our family he is a great dog and we love him to death.

We started considering maybe a baby again after a while and decided that before we got serious about it we should try to find a friend for Yoshi so he didn't get jealous of a baby, and had someone to rough house with. So we started looking around and heard about a litter that was going to be born. We let the family know we were interested and never heard from them. We figured that we would not be getting one and decided to keep looking. 

The family finally did get back to us and we got Molly.


(She was a puppy when we got her but Leesa already put up puppy pics)

We picked up Molly the same day that the family let us know they still had a couple available. I saw that love in Leesa's eyes once again as she saw all of the puppies running around and we chose Molly to join our family. 

Then we found out we had another addition coming. Leesa was pregnant. We were both excited, scared, overjoyed, you name it. It was a mix of emotions all the way around. We just got a second dog and now had a baby on the way as well. What we were thinking. Then to make matters worse I found out I would be deployed in November. So Leesa was going to be left on her own with 2 dogs and a newborn and no husband. 

She was mad at first I am sure anyone would be in this situation. I was upset as well. I had passed on a deployment because I knew we would be trying to have a child and I wanted to be there. As it got closer to me leaving though her unwavering strength started to appear again. She realized that we probably wouldn't have this child coming or our little family if it weren't for my job. As tough as it was going to be she saw the silver lining. 

Leesa has been on her own with our little family now for about two months. She has been taking care of everything on her own and this just shows her strength once again. She is going to be an amazing mother to our daughter. 


Seeing the love and care and kindness she has had for myself and our dogs I can only imagine the love that will be in her eyes when she holds our daughter for the first time. I am heartbroken that I won't be there for this moment with my family, but I know that there will be many more moments for me to see the love of a mother. Leesa is strong, smart, kind, loving, charitable, sweet, and caring. And I could go on and on. I will forever be grateful to her for raising our children and agreeing to marry me 4 years ago. I can't wait to make it back and see our growing little family again. 

So to finish off this blog and the title. This is our family. 
Kevin, Leesa, Yoshi, Molly, and Brooklynn Elkins