He's Home

In case you couldn't tell, my husband is home and I have been delightfully distracted. We are enjoying settling into life as husband and wife together. Both of us are still getting used to the idea that he doesn't have to up and leave again next week or anything like that. It's so wonderful to think that this blissful life as I know it is actually normal life. I love being married. I love my husband. It's so wonderful to have him home.......

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

I'll never forget the day Andy left and the terrible ache I felt as we said our goodbyes. But then when I looked around the sea of soldiers with their families, I saw so many little children clinging to their daddies, begging them to come home, crying in their shoulders, not wanting to say goodbye. That brought tears to my eyes.

The other day I was once again in a sea of families and loved ones who's eyes were on the skies waiting and watching for a plane to come out of the blue, bringing home their soldier. Many of us had flags and signs. I had a couple flags in my hand, and I overheard a little guy tell his mommy, "I want a flag for daddy." I gave him one of mine, and he proudly held it high.

Later on that day after our brief reunion and the long drive back home, I watched the video clip my sister in-law took of the plane landing to re-live the thrill and excitement and utter emotion that filled that moment. And there, drowning out all the cheers and clapping and screaming were the childrens' voices, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! There's Daddy! Hi Daddy! Daddy's home! Daddy's HOME!"

And I realized that of all the brave people in the world, none are as precious as these little ones. Thank a soldier... Hug his child.

[IMAGE: proud brother Zack the day my brother flew in from Iraq.]

Welcoming Our Heroes Home

Both my husband and brother have been serving in Iraq for the last year. They deployed together, but were in different units, and ended up arriving stateside on separate days. Monday was Gabe's arrival.

My family showed up at my apartment early so we could make signs and banners for the guys.

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It was fun, and a great way to pass the minutes before we would finally get to load up in their van and go meet Gabe.

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Off to welcome a son home from the war.

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First hugs, Gabe & Anna (getting married this July!)

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Home!

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Together at last

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CUTE couple.

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Zack was so proud of his big brother

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Happy

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Baby Sis

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Another proud sister

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The following day was when Andy arrived. Happiness!

Lady Liberty

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I was so happy these two characters came along with me to take pictures and keep me sane while we waited and waited and waited.

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We had matching shirts (under our sweatshirts, obviously) which we planned... And matching jeans and boots, which we did not plan. Deep down I think we've always been sisters. We're just so grateful that Gabe decided to make it official for us.

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And the plane landed!! The soldiers step out on to (freezing cold) US soil, while fighter jets flew overhead. It was so, so, sooo cool.

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MY HUSBAND!!! I forgot all about my friends and family with me once I knew it was up to me to get into my husband's arms... They intended to get live footage of our first hug, but unbeknownst to me they got lost somewhere in the crowd. But they did manage to meet up with us before the first big long hug was over.

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Let me look at you!

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Kisses

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Smiles

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More kisses

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(My 4 year-old niece when she saw all the pictures: "Why are Andy and Brittney always, always kissing?")

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And then we had to say goodbye again.... For just a few more days......

Never Gonna Be Alone

...And he's stateside. Not HOME-home yet, but on the same continent, in the same time zone, in the same state.... And will be home in a few days!! This is a video slide show from Tuesday, the day he flew in set to the song that was running through my head the whole day. It was amazing to be together again after so long. That hour flew by so fast... And the following hours have done nothing but draaaaaagged by. But I'm hanging in there. He's almost here. We're almost HOME.

So Grateful

Wow.

I don't know what to say when I read through all your comments that tell me of a readership's existence. I was not expecting that kind of response.

What really takes me back is the realization of the incredible amount of love and support that has followed my husband and I through this last year. I'm pretty overwhelmed to say the least. Shocked, humbled.... and so, so grateful. It amazes me to think that as Andy and I walked through the most difficult year of our lives, we never walked alone.

There are no words to tell you what that means to both of us.

Thank you so much.

Your Turn

So now that I have revealed our past to you, you are now obligated to reveal your presence to me. Heh. You didn't know there was involvement involved, did you??

You see, for the past year, this blog has been to some extent neglected. I suspect that the readership has dwindled to somewhere between zero to three, therefore, it makes me feel like the whole endeavor is a bit pointless. But there's a high possibility that if I know of your existence I will feel more inspired. And if you tell me what you might like to see more of, or some of... it might make me incredibly inspired. You just have to help me out here.

So, answer me this...
Who are you?
What brings you here?
What do you like to see?

The Honeymoon

We flew to a resort on a sunny Caribbean beach off the coast of Mexico to commence our life of bliss as married lovers. It was a gorgeous week... We made the best memories ever!

At the airport at an unholy hour. It was my first experience with airports and flying, but Andy's dad being a pilot made Andy a pro at navigating through the system and getting us safely to our gate in plenty of time.

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Andy was also a pro at being sleepy on boring flights. I was still novice enough to find everything about it exciting and thrilling. [grin]

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Flying into Cancun! I had never seen anything so beautiful. This whole tropical vacation-thing was love at first sight.

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Our room... The bed was big enough to get lost in.

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As soon as we arrived we walked around the resort, stopping on the board walk to take our first picture together on the Catalonia.

Immediately after this Andy suggested we don our swim suits and try out the water, which is when I encountered a mishap that made me limp my way through the rest of the week. Not a half-hour into our honeymoon, I had 2 dozen stinging barbs in the bottom of my foot thanks to a nasty little sea urchin. (Andy finally got the last one out right before he deployed 5 months later!) Very bad ouch.

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So needless to say, our first dinner at the resort was very late (11pm, or so) due to the fact that we spent hours trying to get my foot back into walk-able condition. But cheers, we were on our honeymoon, and nothing was going to ruin it for us.

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Everyday maid service would come and clean our room and leave us fresh towels folded into interesting creatures. This one was our favorite.

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Not only did the resort have a lovely beach, it had swimming pools too!

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This is the view our patio looked out on.

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This is how you get to the lobby.

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So yeah, there was a lot of this going on...

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Chilling out on the beach

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Making footprints

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Looking for cool sea shells.

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Well of course...

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Just married!!! Loved our flip-flops.

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My adorable (talented!) dork

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Our next mishap was when our camera broke half-way into our trip. We bought a disposable film camera and worked with that. This picture was taken by our waiter the first time time we visited the LaCreperia--an ice cream parlor. We were kind of blushing because while we were waiting for our ice cream, we got romantically distracted with each other, and our poor waiter had to stand there and wait. But he thought it was cute and was happy to take a picture for us.

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We visited the most beautiful Mayan Ruins site. It was fascinating indeed. Our travel agent was able to get us in at a good rate, but it didn't include a tour guide. It was nice because that way we could explore it at our own pace. And if we wondered about something, we would just eaves drop on whatever tour was going through at that point. [grin]

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Bye, Bye beautiful Caribbean!

Wedding Bells

Unfortunately, we do not have the digital rights to our professional pictures, so the ones taken by friends and family will have to suffice.

The big day arrived in style, bringing with it, one snazzy limo to bring us girls to the church to commence the great project of getting ready.

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Wouldn't you know, I was on my phone. What bride isn't the morning of her wedding?

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The hair brigade.

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Shoes! The bridesmaids still hate me for making them wear these.

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Curling, and curling, and curling.....

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Janae was so adorable! She was so proud of the glittery eye-shadow she got to wear.

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Putting on the veil

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Ooo, lipstick too!

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Gram'a Norma

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Helping her with her "mittens"

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My beautiful bouquet, compliments to Andy's aunt who is a florist in Chicago.

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Standing at the altar, becoming man and wife

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Yay! We did it!