Germany - Homecoming Part 3 (finally!!!)

Remember that time I started writing about homecoming and my trip to Germany...back in April? Remember how I never finished those? Whoops, life got a tad busy. Anyways, I have had this written for a long time, just never finished it, and here it finally is. Part 1. Part 2.

The guys were expected home late late on April 6th, or very early morning on the 7th. Amy had been told at an FRG meeting that the activity center would be set up with the banners and podium once we got the 5 hour call that they were on their way home. (When I woke up on the morning of the 6th, Amy told me that she had gotten a call that trail party was arriving at 10:30 am and our guys would be after that). We took Sarah to her play group at 9 AM, which was in the activity center, and found that it already decorated with banners, signs, and the podium. We looked at each other in shock that it was already set up and wondered where our phone call was. We worried that they had called the house phone, not her cell phone like she instructed, but we continued on with play group instead. We killed time that afternoon by hanging out with the wives of the trail party, waiting with them for a little bit, going to lunch on post, me buying some beer for Seth to put in his room, putting the sign on his door that Sarah and I made and very anxiously awaiting our phone call. We would be in our own little world, dreaming of the next few hours, and one of us would just suddenly say a number, or hold up fingers, indicating a countdown of hours until they were expected home.  We talked about if we didn't get a phone call by a certain time, would we give up hope it was happening that night? When should we go to bed? Or should we pull an all nighter? Should Sarah go down for a nap, or should we keep her up and then put her to bed really early, only to wake her up a few hours into her sleep? Our heads were completely spinning with possibilities as we debated this very serious stuff! My heart would literally skip a beat when the phone would ring. We would turn our heads so fast to look at each other, and our mouths would drop and we'd say OMG! THIS IS IT!  Of course, it wasn't THE phone call, but we'd still get super excited.

Finally, after an agonzing day of waiting and thinking, at 7:30 pm on April 6th, we got our 5 hour warning phone call. We were told they landed in Germany and were going through customs. We were told we'd get another call back when they cleared customs and they were on their way to post. This is what I wrote in my vacation journal about getting that phone call: "All afternoon, every noise sounded like the phone ringing. It finally did for real at 7:30 pm and both of us jumped and she ran to get it. I called Sarah and she had a huge smile on her face. When Amy got off the phone, we both screamed and we got Sarah to scream in excitement and I felt like I was going to puke (from excited nerves) and she got a bloody nose (from excited nerves)."  She put Sarah down for bed, so she would have a little bit of a nap before being woken up in the middle of the night to go get her daddy. We tried to stay calm until we received the second phone call, which came at 8:45 pm. They had cleared customs and were really on their way home!! We were told if we got to the activity center at 11:30 pm, we would be there in plenty of time before the guys. We had planned earlier in the day to trade cameras, so pictures of me and Seth would be on my camera, and pictures of her and her husband would be on her camera. (We did have a girl who offered to take pictures for us; her husband was in the field training for a few weeks so she was free. But since it was midnight that that guys were expected home, we didn't ask her to do it after all). We spent the night getting ready and finally left her house at about 11 PM to head to the activity center. (We headed towards the main gate to exit, only to find that it closes at 10, so we had to back track, go further out of the way to exit the other gate to walk to the post that the activity center is on). She got Sarah up just a few minutes before we had to walk out the door, dressed her real quick and we headed out the door. We were practically running to the activity center, because we couldn't get there soon enough. It was pitch black out, a few street lights, a cool night, a car here and there, and us. Amy stopped to get a daffodil, and put it in her hair and kept one for Sarah. As we were getting to the primeters of post, I heard a diesel engine and looked back and said OMG MAYBE THAT'S THEM!!! Then we speculated, and walked/ran faster then determined it wasn't them. As we got closer to the entrance gate, we heard soldiers being loud and said maybe it was them, they had gotten there early, and they were waiting until 11:30 when familes were expected to be there. Amy said she wasn't looking, because she didn't want to ruin the surprise if it was them.

We got to the activity center at about 11:30 and Toby Keith's American Soldier was playing on the sound system. There were red, white and blue balloons everywhere, kids were running around with pure excitement, throwing balloons, chasing each other, jumping up and down. Soldiers were getting the podium in place, there was a slideshow playing on the wall with pictures from Afghanistan and the level of excitement in the room was awesome. Toby Keith's American Soldier song gets me every single time, and now when I hear it, I have the memory of walking into the activity center, getting ready to welcome home my love from his deployment. My heart swelled with an enormous amount of pride and excitement when I walked into the room. Considering it was midnight...and getting later into the middle of the night as the waiting continued, the kids did extremely well. There were no major breakdowns, the kids all played well, and were extremely excited knowing that their mom or dad would be home SOON. The garrison commander walked around and introduced himself and asked who we were and who we were waiting for. He was pretty nice, but I was nervous as hell to talk to him! Finally, around 1:30 AM, the white buses drove by and we could see them through the open doors. Amy and I sat down on the bleachers, switched cameras and tried to remain calm. The fog machine started generating the fog, the lights were dimmed, the music stopped and everyone got quiet and sat down. Suddenly the guys broke through the big red banner that said, "welcome back, Bravo!!" and everyone started screaming and snapping pictures and looking for their loved one. I scanned every face as they walked in and into formation and didn't see Seth. I saw Lee (Amy's husband) and Bubba and recognized a few others, but couldn't find Seth whatsoever. Amy is lucky that Lee is over 6 feet, so he stood over everyone and I got some good pictures of him. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and I couldn't find Seth. Plus, the fog machine was fogging everything up, so that was blurring the faces. All of them were in, but I still hadn't seen Seth and was getting terrified that he didn't make the flight for some reason. I started re-scanning the faces. I finally found him, in the last row, about 5th from the last! There were a few very short (thankfully!) speeches, and then the soldiers were released and Lee came right over to Amy and I waited to get a few pictures of them before I went and found Seth. Then Amy was right behind me and she got a few pictures of Seth and me. Within minutes, we walked out of the activity center, holding hands, reunited, finally. We walked with Lee, Amy and Sarah and then the guys got their bags from outside, and Amy and I congratulated each other that we finally made it, hugged each other, then went off with our guys. They went home and I snuck into the barracks with Seth for the next few nights.

The next few days consisted of soccer games, in-processing, hanging out with Amy and Sarah, and eating German food. I finally had a chance to meet the soldiers that Seth had talked about so many times too. Seth got a really dirty room and the shower was full of mold. So while Seth was doing his in-processing stuff, I cleaned the hell out of his shower. We had a picnic/bbq with Lee and Amy on a gorgeous, warm, sunny German afternoon. Seth also taught Sarah how to fist bump and it was the cutest thing ever!! Seth accompanied me to the Frankfurt airport (the train was packed for some reason, and I'm pretty sure we walked the whole length of the train cars to try to find a seat...and found nothing. We finally sat down in an area where the doors open and close, because it was a long ride. We hung out at the train station for a little while and then stayed the night at the Sheraton. (That place is really expensive in Euros!)

Ok, if you made it through that long of a post, here are some pictures!!! 

<3

welcome home!!!

waiting to be released!!

armed with tilex to take care of the mold in the shower. i used a clean sock as a face mask and one of those stretchy things to hold their uniform pants up on their boots to tie it to my face. a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...

german soda

soccer game. or football as they call it. 

walk back to post from lee and amy's

so this banana here? when seth got his stuff delivered from storage,  he got his favorite black backpack and it had mold all over it. he couldn't figure out why and was getting pissed that they ruined it....and then he found a banana sitting in the front pocket. it was so old and gross and hairy and nasty, it didn't even smell bad (thankfully). but he hosed it off the in the shower and it's good as new, as he would say. it's sitting on our living room floor right now. i would have thrown it away if that happened to me.

frankfurt train station

Married life

Quick update because my life is about to change like whoa:

Last Saturday, Seth and I got married. More pictures and details to come later. He wore his dress blues as a total surprise. I've never seen him in his dress uniform...EVER. I've seen a picture of him in them like 2 years ago, but that was the old dress uniform, and we bought this when I was in Germany in April, but they had to order some of it, so I've never seen him in it. Apparently everyone knew about this surprise except me, and it was the sexiest surprise ever.

We had a quick honeymoon in Northern Michigan the last few days and got back late last night. Yesterday we watched the sun rise over Lake Michigan in Traverse City and watched it set in South Haven. It was beautiful, but pictures haven't been uploaded yet. (Sorry!!!)

And now, we just found out a few hours ago that I can move to Washington with him when he heads out next week. I was not mentally prepared for this at all, and I'm a crazy ball of nerves right now. I'm excited, happy, scared, nervous, anxious and every other emotion simultaneously. I was thinking I'd be able to move out there in September or even October, so moving in July is a huge difference.

So if I don't blog for a while, it's because we're frantically packing up the apartment, saying all of our goodbyes, and driving out west...all in the next week.

After 43 years...

I saw this clip on the CBS evening news yesterday evening. It was too sweet to not share.

The written story can be found here.

It's not over

I wasn’t expecting to wake up this morning to the news that bin Laden had been caught, killed and his body has already been buried at sea.

I’m glad that he’s dead. I’m glad his body has been buried at sea. I’m glad that a “bad guy” (a really REALLY bad guy) is now off the face of this earth. A bad guy whose ill-intended actions influenced Seth to join the Army shortly after 9/11. The events of that day have deployed Seth three different times, totaling about 39 months. While I'm glad that he's been killed, I am not "celebrating" by any means.

But at the same time, I’m worried that his killing will cause retaliation. What does it mean for America now? Will other members of al Qaeda retaliate? In their country? In ours? Somewhere else? Will other countries get involved and retaliate? What does it mean for our troops currently overseas? It’s scary when you think about it like that. Of course, his killing does not bring back any of the lives that were lost on 9/11, or the lives that have been lost in the war since it began. Unfortunately, his killing does not mean the end of the war that is still going on.

Major props to the guy(s) that shot bin Laden in the head. (That’s really morbid, I know. One article said he was shot in the left eye? Damn, good shot). Even more major props to the group of SEALS that carried out this mission and kept their team safe and unharmed.

I will say that I have enjoyed listening to all of the country songs that have been playing non-stop today. After watching coverage of this on the morning news, I turned CMT on. What song was playing? One that made me get teary eyed, and reminded me of nearly four weeks ago, when I stepped into the activity center at 2330 on a post in Germany for a welcome home ceremony for my Soldier: American Soldier, by Toby Keith.

MilSpouse Friday Fill In #3

Another MilSpouse Friday Fill In with Wife Of A Sailor. Go link up!!

1. 1. What is your favorite MilSpouse blog (not including Wife of a Sailor who we all love, or your own)? submitted by Our Crazy Life (Wifey note: whaaaat? You can’t say my blog? No fun! LOL, just kidding)
   
   Oh gosh, I can’t choose just one. I do have a soft spot for ‘cause I don’t know how it gets better than this….I think she was one of my first followers, we’re very similar and we it seems like our guys are too, and we email back and forth pretty much all day long. We’re both going through a deployment right now, and her husband left just a few weeks ahead of Seth last year. Plus, I steal cool craft ideas from her, one which will be coming soon :) But rest assured, I have a LOT of favorites
   
   
2. What are your favorite perks about your s/o being deployed (we all know there are perks)? submitted by Ramblings of a Marine Wife
   
   My most favorite thing about a deployment, besides the most obvious homecoming/reuniting moment, is not having to shave my legs. The other day I shaved them for, I think, the first time since he went back after R&R. And it’s been almost 1 month. Yikes, huh? I also love making care packages. I did a blog about this a while ago, here.
   
   
3. How long did you date your significant other before getting engaged? Married? submitted by Utterly Chaotic
   
   Let’s see here…met online in March 2008, met in person in June 2008, dated from June 2008 to December 2009 while he was in Iraq, and Germany and engaged from December 2009 till nowish. Our wedding is in July and I can't wait :) (I use the term "dated" loosely because he was in Iraq, then Ft. Drum, NY for 5 months, then Germany for a year, so we physically didn't go on dates. We webcammed though and that was the closest we came to going out on dates. Don't get me wrong, we we were in a committed relationship from June 2008 and there was no dating others, but not physical dates for us together either. Just to clarify...)
   
   
4. What do you think your would do if s/he wasn’t in the military? submitted by Adventures of M-Squared
   
   Oh dear, you name it, he wants to do it. We’ve talked about this many times and he wants to do a little bit of everything. First and foremost, he’d love to own his own business (preferably a bowling alley), perhaps be a police officer or a fire fighter, a professor, a CEO of a company, obviously a soldier, investment banker, financial consultant. We’ve seriously talked and thrown a bunch of careers out there, but I am almost positive, that no matter what, he’ll be a career soldier. I think he would be a great CEO, but he would have a hard time sitting at a desk each day. He needs more physical activity and excitement that I’m pretty sure a CEO position wouldn’t be able to provide.
   
   
5. If you could talk to the Secretary of Army, what is one suggestion you would like to bring to their attention in order to improve the lives of military families? submitted by My Life as His (Air Force) Wife
   
   I haven't experienced military life to the fullest yet, because we've been separated our whole relationship, so I don't think I'm too qualified to answer this completely. However, I would like to inquire about shorter deployments for the Army, and while I'm at it, longer amounts of time between deployments. And also, perhaps getting just a girl with a status of girlfriend on his orders so I could have gone to Germany with him when he PCS'd there...and not have to pay all of the expenses out of my pocket.
   

Donut time

I had two donuts this morning. I had my R&R donut and deployment donut. I washed them both down with an Irish Coffee...with lots of whiskey.

Here's my progress!

(I'd better start figuring out what I'm going to wear!! Only 9% to go?!?!! AHhhHHHhHH!!!)

Both of these donuts are getting stale. I've been eating away at them for a good 9 months now. They're almost done though. Then I'll regurgitate them with pure excitement like you wouldn't believe.

Is it 2011 yet??

"I'll Be Home For Christmas"

My mom has a subscription to Reminisce magazine. It’s a magazine with real life stories from the “olden days” …back in the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, etc. I love looking at the black and white pictures and reading about the differences between now and then. I am catching up on some reading from January 2009 (wtf, I know, right?!?) but I came across a story that I just had to share. It’s called, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”

(I'm also waiting for Seth to get online in the hopes we can webcam).

"I'll Be Home For Christmas"
By Bernadette Porter
Villa Park, IL

At Christmastime 1945, the excitement of the season was doubled because the boys were coming home from war. One long year before, Bob and I were married, on December 9, 1944. Five days after our wedding, he received his orders to ship out.

In early 1945, Bob was aboard a German cruise ship, the Blum Fontaine. One night, during the 43 day trip, he was talking with another soldier. The fluorescence in the black water was quite beautiful. Bob stared down into the depth and said, “I’m praying I’ll be home for Christmas.”

“Are you crazy?” said the soldier. “We don’t even know where we’re going. You’re nuts!”

Bob said, “I’m praying, crazy or not.”

Their destination was the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, where our Marines, 4,163 of them, had fought to take it. Bob’s 506^th Fighter Group was to occupy the island. Bob wrote to me every single day and I to him.

Now, the long, lonely year was over. He had been many thousands of miles away. It was hard to believe Bob was coming home, but how? Men needed points to fly home. Flyers with 70 points had left earlier. Bob, a master sergeant, had 60 points.

For reasons we never knew, the naval destroyer USS Independence came by Iwo Jima. The crew called for anyone still on the island. Points did not matter; they were heading home.

The captain challenged the men. “If you boys tighten your belts and not waste food, we can be home for Christmas. If we’re not careful, we’ll have to stop for supplies.”

Of course, there was nothing more the men wanted but to be home for Christmas. Because of this and the captain’s plans to travel straight through, they made the trip in 16 days.

On December 23, the Independence reached its California port, which was filled with ships. This was no problem, since the only place available was an empty dock too large for many ships but made a huge destroyer. The men were offered a 2-week pass; discharges would come after Christmas.

Bob took the pass and hurriedly sent me a Western Union telegram before getting back on ship. It said, “Darling, expect to arrive at Fort Owens, Massachusetts on the 24^th. Suggest you leave Chicago to arrive Boston the same date. Register hotel manager at North Station will meet you there.”

Whether it was serendipity or fate, it was with Bob and me throughout our attempted reunion. The Independence coming when it did, picking up anyone left on Iwo Jima, was a miracle to us. The captain’s challenging plan to sail straight through to reach home by Christmas was also a surprising success.

By train, the men got to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, later joining hundreds of soldiers lined up to take the train to Boston. This crowd would never fit on one train!

Just then, a cabbie arrived, shouting, “I’m going to Boston, $10 each, with room enough for six.”

Bob ran to be one of them, and he somehow made it. This, too, was unlikely. Bob wondered how I was maintaining my trip and hoping I would have the same good fortune.

At home, in Berwyn, Illinois, my bag was packed. People thought I was foolish, since there were so many unknowns. My friend Laura took me to Chicago’s South Station to catch a train to Boston.

The train station was jam-packed, with people standing shoulder to shoulder. One Coast Guard man asked if I was meeting someone special. I answered, “Yes, my husband.”

A fellow Coast Guard man said, “There won’t be a seat on the train for you.” Yet another of the servicemen said, “I’ll carry her luggage and hold her arm. They’ll let us both on if they think we’re together.”

We climbed abroad, but there was no seat for me, so I turned my suitcase on end and sat on it. It was a long ride from Chicago to Boston, but I was delighted just to be on my way. The unbelievable had happened again. Today, I wonder, how did all these things fall into place?

In Boston, our train came in under a hotel. Hundreds of men in uniform were milling about. I walked up to the Travelers Aid folks for help. They read my telegram and explained that I could not meet the manager. They suggested that perhaps it meant that I should go to the Hotel Mangor, upstairs, and meet my husband there. It seemed reasonable that the Western Union worker misunderstood the message when he or she wrote it down.

I went upstairs to register. The hotel clerk was very sorry, but there were no rooms available. I decided to wait in the lobby. It was about 9 pm on Christmas Eve, and at least I was there!

About an hour later, the clerk came over to me and told me a room would be available in a few minutes. I could not believe it!

I waited in the room until about 10:30, when there was a knock at the door. It was Bob! We were both shaking so much that it took quite a few minutes to settle down, or even know what to say to each other.

After we calmed down and got through our hellos, we wanted to go to midnight Mass. With directions in hand from the same hotel clerk, we walked through the busy crowds.

It was Christmas Eve, and Bob was home – safe and sound. As we entered the warm, gently lit church, Bob looked at his watch. It was midnight and as we knelt down, the organ began to play.

I can just imagine her excitement on that day. Can you imagine getting a telegram? A TELEGRAM?! Those things are ancient. I wonder how long it had been since she actually spoke to him. Probably a really long time. I would have done what she did though, if I got a telegram saying to meet me at such and such a place at this date and time, I would have hopped on a train just like her to go meet my husband. I also would have lied and said I was with another Coast Guard man to get me on the train. A girl's gotta do, what a girl's gotta do. I'm jealous of Bernadette's reunion story.

October 18th - I am SO excited for you!

I got a work email the other day from a really good friend and collegue and she asked me to pull data on how many military students we have in our school district. We don't record this information, so unfortuantely, I was not able to do this for her. We do have an Army National Guard base by us, but it's a few cities over, and I would assume the kids would attend the schools much closer to them, than here. It'd be about a 35 minute drive, so I made the assumption that even though we have around 9,000 students in our district, we probably wouldn't have too many based on the commute alone.

Anyways, my coworker, S, was contacted by someone (I'll call her T) at the MI National Guard offices and asked if we would like her and another woman to come into our schools and "brief us on resources available to military children and youth, and how school staff can support military families they work with." S forwarded me the email and asked me how many students we have that have a parent in the military, which I wasn't able to give her. S wrote T back and said we don't record that information, but said that she would still like to meet with her, but doesn't want to waste T's time if we don't have a significant amount of military children in our school district. She then asked T if she had a way of knowing how many students of military members attended our district. T wrote back that she doesn't have the numbers broken down by individual school districts, but there are about 600 students in our county. This number is actually much more than I expected; the MI National Guard base is in the next county over, so I didn't think we'd have too many.

Either way, when S first asked me for the numbers, I told her that if she were to meet with T that I would definitely be interested in meeting with her also. We have a meeting set up on the afternoon of October 18th and I am SOOO excited for it! Maybe I can meet some people in my area who know what it's like to be in my position!!! I live in a very civilian oriented community and I've looked online for support groups, but I've not found any in my area. So hopefully this will bring me at least a friend or two who I can hang out with, while our fiances/husbands are deployed!!

I CAN'T WAIT!!!

It's been 194 days....

...since Seth and I have seen each other in person. That is such a huge number.

We were chatting on gmail this morning. Well, actually, he was signed in, but he wasn't there, so I was somewhat talking to him, with no response. When he finally came back, I said, "where have you been all my life?!?!" And by "all my life" I meant the last 2 hours that he was signed in but wasn't at his computer. Anyways. I'm soo not dramatic.

His response was so cute. He said, "I've always been right here...waiting :) "

So cute, huh!? YEP HE IS!!!!

We also got to g-video chat this weekend. It was for like less than 5 minutes and he had just woken up and was in his pajamas/PT shorts and shirt and had on a beanie and he looked sexxxxy as hell. And he was rubbing his eyes cuz he was sleepy. And he is growing his hair out, which he showed me. It obviously won't last for long because they won't allow it, but he has had a shaved head for a long time now. I like when he has hair. Then we got disconnected and he had to go shower and get ready for work. I'll take 5 minutes over no time though. Especially after 194 days of not seeing him.

Is it January yet??