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.

Happily Ever After...

(...Is Just Around The Corner)

[So (ahem) that was an impromptu blogger hiatus you just saw happen.]

It is with great joy I get to announce that the official rumor is that Andy's return date is set for January! We are so excited as the two-digit numbers are growing smaller and smaller. Part of me wishes I had done a better job at blogging my thoughts and documented the roller coaster that has gotten us to this point after a very long 2009... The other part of me is glad I can forget it. Because when it comes to matters of importance, I am going to be wrapped up in my husband's arms where all the time, loneliness, heartache and tears will totally melt away... And that blessed event is a matter of weeks away. I'm so happy.

Right now we're in that phase where time can't go fast enough. I'm so grateful to have a lot I want to get done before he gets home. Time goes faster that way. It only drags, as opposed to totally drags. One of my experienced military-wife friends told me that with deployment, the first months drag, and then you get semi-used to it, and every day is not so agonizingly long... And then you get to the count-down phase, and once again, time is dragging. She was right. There have been days in more recent weeks where the countdown in my head was reduced twice. Oops.

But we're almost there!!!

[Sorry, this is among the most dis-jointed blog posts I've ever had the opportunity to write. You understand that with all the excitement, brain cells have greatly deteriorated, don't you??]

The Last Goodbye

A storm blew in from the North last night. Temperatures outside have dipped into the 50's and there's a bone-chilling wind. Normally I greet the Autumn weather with a bit of trepidation. Colorful trees,warm, cozy fireplaces and snuggly knit sweaters hold the initial charm of season's changing. But as the temperatures steadily drop you know that it won't be long before the roads are glazed in ice and snowstorms will dictate your ability to make plans and keep them. Plus, I have zero tolerance for cold... I. Do. Not. Like. To. Be. Cold.

However, this year the shivers down the spine from the first chill outside holds a bit of a thrill. By the next time warm weather sets in, Andy will be home. Never have I so anticipated winter. Ever! BRING IT ON.

After being apart for 135 days, Andy finally got to come home for 15 blissfully wonderful and horrifically fast days together before we had yet another tearful goodbye for another approximately 130-some, give or take, days apart.

Our one-year anniversary was on the 30th of August. Andy came home on the 4th of September and we celebrated in style, re-visiting our honeymoon location on the Carribbean beach of Mexico.



It was an absolutely beautiful time making memories together we'll always cherish. We spent 8 nights in Mexico, and then returned home for the small remainder of time that was left. Every day we were together I was reminded over and over again of how wonderful my husband is and how much I love to be with him and how great it will be when we never have to say goodbye like this again (not that I ever doubted the above-stated facts).
It was especially special this time around because for the first time we had a home of our own for him to come home to. A real home! And we loved every minute of our own space and our own time. He was so cute about how much he liked it... *grin*
(Cutting our wedding cake... and yes, this time it ended up all over my face. But naturally he didn't get away with it)

And then it was time again to say goodbye. I hate goodbyes! But the only good thing about this one was... it would be the last one. It is a relief now that we are in the home stretch... Sitting at the wretched airport wishing the clock would just stop for once, I felt a slight tinge of happiness (as much happiness as the moment would allow considering the circumstances) when it hit me that we would never have to do this again.

For now, of course I still feel every hour that drags by. I'm all for skipping October, November and December this year. But next time I kiss him hello, I will be kissing goodbyes goodbye!

El Paso, Texas!

It was so much fun to board a plane and go to a state I had never been to before to be with my man whom I had not seen for so long. Of course, it was a trip that I had spent months looking forward to with excitement and dreading with agony all at the same time. I knew it would be a very sweet and wonderful time of being together with my husband again, but the goodbye that was to follow would be the worst yet.

I was right.

It was a blast traveling with fellow-sweethearts...

During a layover at the Dallas Ft. Worth airport sporting our new favorite T-shirts that claimed, My soldier is hotter than yours!

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First hugs... together at last--my brother and his fiancee
(My husband's company wasn't released for another hour, so there was no one around to take these kinds of pictures for us... sadness, I know.)

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Just a glimpse of one of the many mountain ranges around El Paso and surrounding areas--view from our hotel.

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Nothing so sweet as being together!

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My favorite picture from the zoo--a spider monkey

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...Sweethearts...

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Forever and Always!!

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It was so wonderful to spend that time together!

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...Saying Goodbye...

It's Really Happening

I just returned home from a 5 day trip to El Paso, TX. The love of my life got a 4 day leave that allowed us to be together for a total of 100 hours before a very tearful goodbye on an airport curb. And now he's gone. As in really gone. We're talking miles-and-oceans-and-land-and-seas-away gone. The distance is so great, the separation so long, yet he still managed to leave that sweet and wonderful adoring love of his home with me in my heart and I know he carries mine with him. Lonestar's "I'm Already There" says it the way it is for a military couple so much in love with each other, but so far apart.

The miles between us are too mind-boggling... God only knows when the next time will be that I will hear his sweet voice... It will be months--several months--before we will be together again, and even then it will only be for a short time before he must leave for another several months... I can't even bear the thought of the long journey still ahead of us.

I will post pictures from my trip in the near future... And being on my own, my life is becoming one tale after another of a military wife on her own, doing things like trying to replace windshield wipers (in a blonde, clue-less sort of fashion) in a WalMart parking lot during a severe thunderstorm with sirens blaring all around after discovering that the old wiper did nothing but flap and whip a rubber blade around on a rain-soaked windshield. Perhaps the crazy happenings in my life might warrant a few chuckles on your account.

In closing, I want to thank you all for your love and prayers and support. The last two months have been long and hard, the next ten or more don't promise to be any better. God has given us grace--not in day, week, or month-size portions, but moment-sized. We still dearly miss our baby and always will, but are comforted knowing that our blessing is waiting for us in heaven. Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Our Joy in Sorrow

When tragedy comes into our lives, there is so much we can not understand. The Why's? go unanswered and sometimes it feels as though the tears will know no end. Yet even in the darkest valley, there is one thing we can be assured of...

The presence of an unfailing Father.

Even though I will never understand why we had to experience this loss and I will never find a reason in this that was worth the life of my baby, I can not doubt the love of God. From the moment the nurse sat down next to me and told me that she's sorry, but my baby died, I experienced the hand of God working like I had never known.

I could give you a million examples. But the one that stands out to me the most is how Andy got to come home. Initially his request to come home was turned down. Our situation would generally be considered a "medical condition" as opposed to a "loss in the family". Naturally we both felt it keenly as the latter... Our baby was not a medical condition! Yet what could we do to convince anyone of that? But then the leadership in his unit bent over backwards... in an amazing way. They knew it was important for him to go home. I am so grateful for the incredible amount of effort and inconvenience they went through to see one of their soldiers go home to his wife in a time of grief. I know they didn't have to do that, it was only because of the care and concern that they felt for us that they did everything in their power to make it possible. And they did indeed make it possible... Andy came home for over 5 very special days.

Saying Goodbye

“Couldn’t we just go home?” the crying little girl asked her mommy, as if that would keep Daddy home.Her plea echoed my own. Everything in me screamed to take my own man in uniform and… just go home. Leave this deployment behind and go on with our lives: together. Set up our own home... watch our baby grow... see our dreams unfold... experience the joys that life brings to most normal newly wed couples...

But no, that wasn’t the answer. Just going home wasn’t the way it worked. I felt so sad as I watched my husband and all the other soldiers there that day finalize their packing and load up all the possessions they would have to their names for the coming twelve months into semi trucks to be delivered to their next destination. Their mood was one of anticipation and excitement, mixed with a hint of apprehension. In just a matter of moments they would be hugging their loved ones goodbye… Some of whom they would most likely not see for an entire year’s wait. Proud and supportive loved ones stood around, yellow ribbons pinned to their jackets. Wives and sweethearts spilled tears on the shoulder of their soldier's uniform. Little children sobbed into the necks of their daddies, trying to understand why they had to leave. Emotions were high, yet a quiet sense of strength and American pride was felt in the crowd gathered that day. For myself, saying goodbye to the man I so deeply love was the hardest thing I've ever had to muster up the courage to do. A year is a very long time to be apart, and this day I had dreaded since we met eleven months before. It was now time to turn over the most amazing part of my life; it was the moment that marked the end of the 5 ½-month blissful dream we had lived. For the last time, he patted my tummy and told me to take good care of his baby. For the last time he wiped away the tears trickling down my cheeks and said that everything would be okay. For the last time, he held me close to his heart and whispered that he loved me. And then he walked away, joining his platoon just before they marched out those doors and through the canopy of flags to the cheers and applause of the locals gathered outside. Just before he disappeared, he turned around and blew a kiss... for the last time.

Even though the miles between us are great and the time between now and his return is too much for me to wrap my mind around, the bond between us has not weakened. That's the amazing thing about love and its strength.It's the prayers and support of our friends and family across the nation that keep us going. I want to say thank you to each of you who remember us in that way.