Finallly....the R&R post!!

Since it's a snow day and I technically don't have to work, I'm being uber productive with my life... such as catching up on blogs and posting about R&R. Enjoy!

omg his plane is HERE!!!

OMG HE IS HERE!!!!!!

finally he is home! HOME!!!!

within 5 minutes of walking through the door, he wanted to open his Christmas presents...so he did :)

we went to his parent's house...where his gift to me was. He wrapped it really extra special for me...see? (these colors just so happen to be our wedding colors. Coincidence? I don't know!)

first time driving his car and his battery was dead. my car to the rescue! we got him a new battery that night though

he's really really home!

we went to my parent's house and he met Harry. Seth and Harry are BFF's. Seriously. According to Seth, "Harry loves him the mostest!!!" And more than Harry loves me, apparently.

We went on a date night! Went to a tapas bistro in town and had rattlesnake/rabbit sausage, lamb with pesto wrapped in bacon, chicken empanadas, and a few plates of veggies. We also had a chocolate lava dessert and a piece of custard pie with fresh berries. Everything tasted soo good, even the rattlesnake/rabbit sausage!

We found ourselves in this hotel room :)

The next morning, we went shopping at a store in the hotel plaza...and found these amazing rabbit gloves that became SO much fun!!

We went to Clementine's with our families. (This is the restaurant we went to the day we got engaged).

This is the backside of the pier, the side that faces the water. It was covered in many inches of ice!

the rabbit gloves are ridiculous!

thick ice on the pier

rabbit gloves picking my nose...(but they were too big to fit in my nose hole)

sunset at the pier :)

some random photographers were out at the end of the pier and were playing with new lighting equipment. They started snapping photos of us, gave us their business card and then sent us a few. This is my absolute FAVORITE one and I've already enlarged it, now I just have to pick a frame :)

another one they took. my face looks all splotchy because it was soooo cold, but it does show my ring :)

rabbit gloves driving us home!

Around this time, we both got sick with the flu. He had a little bit of a cold the day he came home, promptly gave that to me by the end of his first day home and within 3 days, we were both sick with the full flu. We woke up, he said he had a stomach ache, he half puked by the time I left for work, texted me a few times during my half day at work that he had puked more and when I came home from work at noon, he was hugging the toilet and sprawled across the bathroom floor. I felt so bad for him. He looked miserable. :( I went to the store and got him some Pepto and Sprite and came back and we watched a few movies that afternoon. He was determined to go bowling with his dad that night, and luckily, he was feeling better by the evening. We went to his parent's house, found out his mom was sick with the flu too, I had a bad stomachache, so I laid/slept on the couch while he went bowling with his dad. By the time he got home, I had puked. Luckily I made it to the bathroom in time. Even though I still didn't feel too well, we still got up the next day and went here:

happy day :) january 12, 2011

he thought a Double Down from KFC sounded good and would cure him from his flu, so off to KFC we went.

I wasn't brave enough to eat anything but mashed potatoes. First meal in almost 24 hours!

That night, we went to his parents. I don't really know......

the night before our holiday dinner with our family. we made the cake and started defrosting the cornish hens!

our belated holiday dinner for our families. we made cornish hens with homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, Guinness Beef Stew, cornbread, some other things I'm forgetting and we made a checkerboard cake!

we went shooting with his brothers and dad...and the rabbit gloves kept me warm

I can shoot this one mostly by myself!

his turn :)

I'm a badass with a pistol!

awww, he loves me!!!

we went to the hot tubs, which we always do at least once while he is home

we went to the tattoo place so he could get a new tattoo...don't worry, he didn't get one of these, but these were in the tattoo books. For real? Do people really get tattoos that say this?? Do you have a Chinese symbol? Might want to make sure it doesn't match one of these...just sayin'.

he got his hair cut and looked all military like!

For their dad's birthday, Seth's brother, Shane, and him their dad a flag box with both of their ribbons and medals. Seth acquired the flag on his first or second deployment to Iraq, sent the flag to Shane during his deployment and it has gone back and forth between them, and the US, Germany, Afghanistan and Iraq for the last few years and multiple deployments. I absolutely LOVE this. I'm pretty sure his dad was about to cry, but was trying really hard not to show it.

What the hell? Leave is already over?? Waiting at the airport :(

He's on that plane. I waited until it was de-iced and was in the air. Then I left, and the plane was flying over me as I headed home.

I love you babe. This deployment is almost over and it won't be too long till I see you in Germany!! R&R was the best, and I can't wait till we can be together all the time. LOVE YOU!!!!

Wonderful Tonight

My night* has been decent, to be honest, but that's not the point of this blog.

Seth called me last night to let me know he made it to stop number 1.

When he leaves, it's weird. Duh, right? I'm the one that shows my emotions big time prior to him leaving...making a scene crying, big, red puffy eyes and nose. You can tell I'm sad. He will get a little emotional, but he conceals it much MUCH better than me. I spend a few days crying off and on at random times, during random things. When he first began his journey home, we were texting during his layovers. He told me a few times that he loves me so much, he can't put it into words. He said that he hates doing this to me, making me feel the way I do when he leaves, and I know when I cry, it makes it that much harder for him to leave. I seriously cannot help it. I try hard to not cry...I even tell him, "look, I'm not crying! no tears right now!" And I'm genuinely proud of myself. But when they hit, they hit hard and I can't stop them. I feel bad for making him feel bad for leaving, and I know he doesn't have a choice. I know in a few days, I'll be coping with it better and I'll get into my routine. When we talked on the phone yesterday, he said how much he misses me. He whispered it though. He didn't want the other soldiers around him to hear. He told me that I make his heart grow soft :) Excuse me while I cry right now while thinking of that. He said he listened to two songs when he got on the plane. I told him I knew what songs he listened to: Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton and Dear God by Avenged Sevenfold, which is our deployment song. Those are our two songs. I listened to the Dear God song too (I don’t have the Wonderful Tonight in my car).

I guess the weird part to me is that I show my emotions leading up to the days and the day of departure, and he shows his in the days after he leaves. It’s not a bad thing that he doesn’t show them as he’s leaving, it’s just different than how I show mine. It’s been like this between us since we had our first “see you later.” Once we have our last hug, I’m in full on mode of him getting home safely and doing whatever I can to make it easier on him. It’s not any easier one way or the other, departures suck in general, we just show our emotions at different times.

*I started this on Sunday night, but have been working on it since then.

As soon as it starts....

it's over.

I desperately want to go to bed right now. I'm so tired. We've been up since 3:45 AM.
But.
I desperately do not want to go bed right now. It's a cold (literal) reminder that I'm going to bed alone.

We didn't make the bed today before we left for the airport and now the bed is going to be extra cold with all the sheets all messed up and exposed. Plus, it's only 10 degrees outside right now and the windchill is 0 degrees. I'm already freezing cold and I just want a big warm hug from him. I've been wearing his slippers since I got home from work today. I picked up some of his random clothes that were thrown on the living room floor last night. I smelled them and they smelled like his Chanel Cologne and the cigar he smoked last night. I'm not washing them. (Yes, I'm a creeper, babe, and I'm going to sleep with them tonight). His shoes are still by the door. His razor blade on my purple razor is still on the counter. His sunglasses are still on the table. We still have alcohol on the counter. His jacket is still on the back of the chair.

We didn't really sleep well for the first few nights. It's weird adjusting to sleeping with someone after 10 months of sleeping with no one. During our separation, I got used to sleeping alone, so I'd wake up sweating from him curled around me in the middle of the night. I got used to his warmth very quickly though, and now he's gone again. Already. I love R&R because it helps to break up a long deployment. I dislike R&R because two weeks is just not enough. Is it spring time yet? Is this deployment over yet? I've been so over it for a while now, not going to lie.

I somehow managed to go to a 4 hour training today at work. I don't have any idea what took place, what we talked about or what was asked. I was busy tracking his flight the whole way to ATL, and then texting him when he landed. I left the training a few times and we talked on the phone. I got caught up on emails and phone calls for the last few days but was not successful training wise. Someone at work said to me, "we all appreciate what you're doing." WTF does that mean? They're happy it's me going through this and not them? Maybe it was meant to be a compliment. I really don't know. I didn't take it as one though.

I want to go to bed but I don't. Maybe I'll go play the Wii he bought us. It's sort of boring play by myself though. Maybe I'll go to bed and enjoy a new book on my Kindle he got me as a Christmas present. Cold. Alone. Bed. Neither option sounds really fun.

I love you babe. Come home soon. I miss you already.

R&R :)

Seth is home on R&R (finalllllllllllllllllllllly!!!!!!!!!) Reading, commenting and blogging for me has been on R&R too. Hey, I have good reason though!! I’m actually working today….first full day in a good few weeks…and here I am blogging. It will take me approximately 23094820967.5 days to catch up on reading blogs and update you all on the stuff that happened on R&R. I hope to do more picture posts than writing, because lets all be honest…pictures are more fun to look at and they don’t take up nearly as much time.

Until then though, I’ll leave you with one picture. Excuse the red puffy eyes and nose…10 months is a really REALLY long time to be apart and I couldn’t stop the tears from coming….