Welcome Home!

We made it. A little over a week ago Caleb came home after being deployed to Iraq for 12 months. (!!!!!) This past month has been so busy...After Shiloh and I got back to Orlando from Montana, we got to packing up our "home in Orlando" to move into our new house in Georgia. We (well, I) packed and packed, and bought lots of needed things for our new and bigger apartment. We spent as much time as possible hanging out with friends because from now on I will only see them about once a month. Caleb's family drove up to Georgia to help me move in...honestly they actually did most of the moving (I "directed" boxes....and unpacked). We moved in like 2 weeks before Caleb was "supposed" to come home. Then it was back to Orlando to finish up things and then Betsy(Caleb's mom) Shiloh and I all came up to officially "move-in". The apartment almost looked like we actually live there by the time Caleb came home. I know none of this is really all that important...honestly who cares about what I did for a month. The important part is next! Not to worry.

Friday finally got here though, I don't think a week has ever been that slow, not to mention that the time and date Caleb was coming in on wasn't "official" for a while. And the time....oh my god. On Thursday, Caleb was getting here at 1235 am on the 16th. Then (thursday still)  he was getting here at 1155pm(the 15th) then, a few hours later it was 1205am then MB5(his flight "number) split into 5a and 5b which where now arriving at 11something and 615am. I was just going off of what someone told me, and praying that Caleb was actually going to be a 5a, but since I hadn't talked to him since Monday I really had no idea. Then around noon Friday, the day he was coming home, I get an email with the official list of who is on what flight. Yey! The flight changed again to 1(something)am while My friend Erin and I were getting pedicures. At about 6pm I finally heard from Caleb, well let me just side track for a minute. Erin's boyfriend Sam is in Caleb's unit and since they are like boyfriends and such they are pretty much always together. Well I found out from her that Sam had been talking to her, so clearly I got a little pissed that Caleb hadn't gotten online or called me since Monday. So I told Erin to tell Sam to slap Caleb for not talking to his wifey. Which he did, and then what do you know....Caleb called me about half an hour later. Now, you may think that having someone slap Caleb "from his wife" is rude. Well, I am rude and I knew that I wouldn't care that he hadn't called or talked to me since...blah blah blah.....when I finally see him. I would be too happy for all that. I got my point across and got to talk to my hubby a few times before he came back. So in my opinion, that slap worked out wonderfully. Anyways. Friday went by sooo slow. I don't think I have ever gotten that much done in one day. It was crazy. Anything I did, I took my time and then only like half an hour would have gone by. Here are some of our day... We sat around my house in the morning and drank at least 2 cups of coffee...then I slowly started working on my sign. It was a very slow process, I produce art at a snails pace. I took a shower, a long shower. Then did my hair, and my makeup. Got dressed. Ate sushi! Wondered around shoe stores. Got pedicures, went grocery shopping. Got cable and internet. Made pizza. And then sat around for like 4/5 hours waiting. They were "getting here" at 205 which turned into like 3 for some reason. So we hung out at home until Caleb called to say they were leaving the airport. On post where the ceremony was held was pretty packed. It was exciting though. Everyone there was equally exciting, holding signs for their PFC's, SGT's and so on...I had butterflies in my stomach the whole time. There was some terrible army band there playing covers trying to keep people excited(not that they needed it). When they pulled up in the buses it seemed to take forever for them to get out and in formation so they could in turn walk out onto the field. But they did eventually. And my god...I don't think I've seen any one person get as excited as everyone there was. I mean, I was excited too but you would think that some of those people just saw Jesus walk onto the ceremony field. (lol its so true though) The crowd literally tried to rush them...there were so many signs and flags waving it was hard to actually see the soldiers. The "ceremony" part was like not even 5 minutes long thankfully. And then we were told to go attack our soldiers. Shiloh and I stayed where we were and waited for Caleb to find us which took a whole like 2 minutes.<3

I don't think I have ever been more happy than I was to have Caleb home holding Shiloh. The last time he held Shiloh he was a little 6 day old baby, who was 7lbs. Now he is 6 months and like 16lbs. He says "mama" and army crawls himself everywhere. I am so glad that Caleb is home. And never deploying again. Yey! He won't ever have to leave and come home to his baby being not the same little guy again.