The Franklin
Family 2012
Emmry
- 2012
was a rocky start for me. I was born November 2, 2011 and was gratefully
welcomed into my new family. Soon after I joined my family, my daddy left for
Korea. About this same time I became very sick.
My mom spent many sleepless nights and countless hours trying to help me
get better. In March, I ended up at
Primary Children’s hospital for almost a week after losing 20% of my body
weight at only 4 months old. It was a
very hard time for me. I wasn’t sure if
I was going to stay with my earthly family or go back to my Heavenly Father and
Mother. But after all of the priesthood
blessings, the countless heartfelt prayers from my family, friends, and people
that hadn’t ever even met me, and because of the hard work and determination
from my mom, I decided to stay here with my earthly family for a little
longer. With the help of a lot of
doctors and the intense research of my mother, we discovered that I have some
extreme food allergies and sensitivities-even more so than my older sister.
Finally
about June my health began to improve. I
started rolling over, scooting, talking, playing with my sister and dog, and
doing everything else a little boy does.
Some of my favorite things to do included talking with my daddy on Skype
and looking at my daddy’s pictures. Then
on November 15, 2012 my daddy came home and I play with him as much as I
can. I also LOVE to eat! I eat as much as I possibly can whenever I
can get it. I turned 1 on November 2,
2012. I am still little, but I am as
smart as can be. I mimic everything my
sister and parents do and I talk all the time.
I am still trying to figure out the walking thing, but I can army (air
force) crawl faster than most people can run.
I crawl “normal” when I feel like it, but the army crawl works so much
better. Plus, I’m trying to be just like
my daddy in every way I can!
Sammantha- 2012 was a special
year for me. I got to spend a lot of
time with my mom. My dad went to “Koreera”
for work and I was only able to talk to him on the “compooter”. He would call me almost every day and we
would play peek-a-boo a lot. I sure
missed him. But while he was gone I was
a big helper to my mom and I am trying to continue to do that still. I love to help her fold laundry and cook
dinner. I also pick up all of my toys
and I feed our dog Bear. I am extremely
independent, pretty much an exact duplicate of my mom. However, I am a much better dancer than she
is. I love to dance like a ballerina. I also love to dress up in dresses, jewelry,
pretty shoes, and anything else that is pink, frilly, or girly. I didn’t get this from my mom. My fashion sense comes from my Aunt
Lauryn. I am a
social
butterfly and I love to play with friends.
I talk to everyone that I see and tell them about anything that happens
to pop into my head at that moment.
We just moved to “South Carowina” and I am
making lots of new friends. But my
favorite person to play with is still my daddy.
I am so glad that he is home and every morning when I wake up, I ask my
mom where he is to make sure he is coming home after work and that he didn’t go
back to “Koreera”. On December 11 I
turned 3. I got to celebrate my birthday
in a hotel because we were moving. I
loved it! Even though we are moved into a house, I still ask to go back to the
hotel. I am learning a lot every day and
my already large vocabulary just continues to grow. I make my parents laugh every day with the
crazy things that come out of my mouth.
I just love my life!
Camarron- 2012 was a stretching year for me. I left for a yearlong tour of duty in South
Korea on November 26, 2011. I spent my
birthday (November 27th) on an airplane flying to the other side of
the world. (I actually left on the 26th
and arrived in Korea on the 28th. Because of the time change my
birthday technically didn’t even exist last year.) I spent the Christmas and New Year holidays
all by myself. It was quite lonely. After being in Korea a couple months we
discovered that this tour wasn’t going to be anything like what we were
expecting. (Thank you military!) It proved to be much more challenging than we
ever thought. However, I took the
mountain head on and climbed up it the best I knew how.
Despite the challenges of
being away from my family, working 10-12
hour shifts on average, going through many military training exercises, and
constantly worrying about my gravely sick child back at home, I managed to
finish my CCAF degree, pass my Staff Sargent test in the top 95%, and was
awarded Armament Systems Technician of the Quarter at Kunsan AB. I was able to come home two weeks early and
surprised my entire family. They had no
idea I was coming and it was the best moment of my entire life. We have since moved to our new duty station
at Shaw AFB, South Carolina. I am
currently working on getting separated from Active Duty Air Force and
transferred into the Air National Guard in Alaska. There I will continue to pursue my goal of
becoming a military pilot.
My
yearlong tour in Korea was a challenge.
It stretched me in every way possible.
But if hard things don’t kill us, they will definitely make us
stronger. I gained a greater understanding
of what it means to be an eternal family.
I missed my children terribly and recognized how much I love being a
dad. I can’t describe with words how
hard it was being separated from my wife, but I learned how much I rely and
depend on her and also how much she does for our children. I am so grateful to be back with my family
and it was a wonderful blessing to get to spend the Christmas and New Year
holidays all together again.
Aleesha- 2012 proved to
be the most challenging year of my life.
We knew that Camarron was going to be gone and I tried to prepare myself
for it. I thought him leaving was going
to be the hardest part, but it actually ended up being one of the easiest. Soon after Cam left, our little Emmry became
extremely ill. I tried for months to
figure out what was
going
on and went to see multiple doctors.
Every visit though was counterproductive because they all told me the
same thing which was that they had no idea and I again left with a new
prescription that I didn’t dare use since it was just a guessing game. After ending up in the hospital and being
blessed with some great doctors, we discovered that Emmry has some really severe
food issues. For several weeks Emmry’s
life hung by a thread. The military kept
wavering back and forth on whether or not to let Camarron come home. It was the biggest and longest emotional
rollercoaster ride I have ever been on (or ever hope to be).
Then
a miracle happened and a dear friend pulled some strings and got us in to see a
naturopath practitioner who was able to give me some answers to why my son had
been so sick and how to help him get better.
She helped me discover the rest of the foods that were reacting so
terribly to his little body. Because of
Sammantha’s food allergies we had already changed our diet a lot and had
eliminated dairy, corn, soy, citrus, and processed sugar. But after Emmry’s health started to turn
around we realized we had to eliminate wheat/gluten, peanuts, eggs, food
additives and dyes (all of them), and many oils on top of our already
restricted diet. So I spent much of 2012
learning how to cook again. During all
of this chaos I was able to complete my FootZonology Instructor certification
and I taught and graduated my first class of students at the beginning of
December (which included my mother). It
was wonderful!
The best moment of 2012
was on November 15 at about 6pm. I had
spent the entire day getting my children and myself ready for pictures. A dear friend of mine was going to take some
family pictures for us. We had a framed
picture of Camarron so he could be in the pictures too. We were all dressed up and went to the
Bountiful, Utah LDS temple grounds to take them. My friend posed us in front of the entry way of
the temple and had me holding both of my beautiful children. She stepped back and said “On the count of
three smile…one…two…” and then my husband walked out of the temple entry way in
his uniform and surprised us all. I
collapsed in tears, Sammantha ran as fast as she could into his arms, and Emmry
sat reaching for him until he came over and picked him up. Thanks to my amazing friend, we have
beautiful perfect pictures of the entire thing. (Look up this link to see all
of the pics she took. Awesome! http://katiannphotography.blogspot.com click on My Work, then Kids/Family, then
scroll down until you see Welcome Home Cam)
So
once again we are all back together. We
are also all healthy and couldn’t be more happy. We are currently living in South Carolina,
near Shaw Air Force Base and soon we are anticipating another long move up to
Homer, Alaska once Camarron gets accepted into the Air National Guard. As difficult as 2012 was for us, it was also
a wonderful growing experience. We learned
how to better utilize the Atonement in our lives. We learned to have faith in ourselves, in
each other, and most of all in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We learned that Heavenly Father really does
answer prayers, even when it seems like there is nobody there to listen. We learned that serving others can fill up a
void that was left wanting in our hearts.
We learned that we are much stronger than we ever thought possible And
we learned that God places amazing people in our lives at just the right
moments to help us through some of our most difficult trials. So thank you to all of you who helped us
learn and grow and make it through our 2012! May you and your loved ones be
blessed in 2013!
Love,
Camarron, Aleesha, Sammantha, and
Emmry
