Erik's Home!

And I'm pretty happy about it.

Melissa's sign cracked me up!

About to head in!

Some of the coffee group ladies :)


Mandy and I were pretty excited even though it was really ungodly hot in the building, and as you can see my hair-do was really starting to reflect that.


They had this screen up in the corner so we could see the guys coming in. Would you believe they showed an Army commerical on there too? Hellooo, I think we're already committed.

The best part :)

Where Men Win Glory

I came across this on Jackie's blog the other day. It's a little long but it's definitely worth watching. Though it really hurts my heart to think about the things they saw over there and they way they had to live, I also can't bring myself to ignore it. There are still soldiers living, working, and dying in Afghanistan and we can't forget about them.

You will probably notice the 10th Mountain patches the soldiers wear. While the footage was filmed during the time Erik was in Afghaninstan and these are 3-71 soldiers, they are from A Troop. I think it's a really interesting look into the way they lived and the things they encountered. And it reminded me once again that this deployment is nothing like the last and for that I am incredibly grateful.



Jon Krakauer's Afghan Diary - Long Form from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group on Vimeo.

Okay, I'm getting sick of this tsunami business. In the last week we've had two watches/warnings and I'm afraid that soon the meteorologist is going to become the boy who cried tsunami and when there really is one coming no one will believe him. And honestly, why do I live in a place where these things happen? Give me a tornado any day...

How Did We Manage?

So today is the 5-year anniversary of our first date. We don't really count it, because we didn't go on another date for a month afterward, but that's a story for another time.

Anyway, our first date was over Labor Day weekend in 2004. And somehow, in spite whatever the heck life was throwing at us over the last few years, we've managed to always be together over Labor Day weekend (inadvertent though it might have been at the time). We've only ever spent 2 Christmases together, maybe a couple of birthdays and only half a wedding anniversary, but Labor Day weekend - that's our time. Until this year, anyway...

But it's okay because we always have next year! We should go to Maui...

"Not Much Longer Now"

wait
–verb (used without object)
1. to remain inactive or in a state of repose, as until something expected happens

Tomorrow begins the several weeks I have deliberately crammed full of things to keep me busy and make the days go fast as I count down to redeployment. Tomorrow, my great friend Carmen and her little ones come back from an extended trip to the mainland. Saturday is a meeting with my coffee group and a roller derby/dinner/after-party event with some girls from work. Sunday is up in the air but I think it involves mopping - and best of all, KATIE ARRIVES late in the day. Monday I'm off, and the weeks that follow hold about a million other things. And I'm thinking about reading Twilight again...

I suppose the truth is that while I hated having to say goodbye to Erik and spending the last year without him, it's been good for me. I've learned a lot (like how to mow the grass), I've done a lot and God knows I have stepped WAYYYY out of my comfort zone. And it's just a good feeling to know that when he has to leave again, it'll be okay. I was very nervous about this deployment because we weren't married during the first one, we hadn't ever lived together, we only knew separation - this time, I knew his absence would be much more noticeable. It's good to know that a deployment doesn't break our stride (too much).

I've been thinking about Ft. Drum lately. Melissa and I discussed this once, and we both have a very romanticized view of Drum and we think it's because we moved there solely to be nearer to our (now - and then in her case) husbands - the one thing we had waited on for so long. I recently realized that I don't think I'm going to have a whole romantic view of Hawaii. I feel more *me* here than I did there. I have a life here. I like it here. In New York, I was a girl who was waiting on a boy, waiting in limbo for my life to really get going. Here I don't feel like I'm waiting for something, I'm waiting on someone; but I don't know that I'd even classify it as waiting because by definition, I'm not "waiting". It's more like ... I'm saving his seat (I do NOT mean this in the negative way I feel like it could be interpreted!). I feel like I have this whole life built up around me, different from what it was before Erik left, and I'm sad that he couldn't be here while it was coming together but I really can't wait to share it with him. I've felt rather nomadic over the past 4 years or so, but I feel like I have a home base here now, and that's a great feeling. I hope that he can be here long enough to begin to feel this way too.

Today at work one of the ladies asked when Erik would be home. I was far too excited to say "not much longer now"...

Tune in this weekend for a special "anniversary" post.