Our Seabee is Home

Luke came home to us on Thursday morning at 7:00 am.  We are so happy to be together again.  The second I saw him, it was like this huge weight was suddenly gone.  The officers were the last off the flight and our poor little girls were watching seabee after seabee go by when we finally spotted him.  Strawberry immediately took off.  Poor little Apple was a little intimidated by all the people in the way, but managed to get through and run to her daddy too.  It was beautiful.  I didn't realize until I was looking at the pictures later, but Luke said that Strawberry was totally bawling when she got to him.  I was oblivious to everyone but my little family, but I love how in the background of our pictures, we can so many of our friends reuniting with their loved ones too.  It was such a perfect day for so many of us.

The girls and I had made shirts to welcome him home rather than signs, and they turned out pretty cute.  Strawberry and Apple were both up on their own really early, but I had to drag Mango out of bed, and she was not very happy about it.  Strawberry and Apple made a sign for the door.  I gave them complete artistic freedom and it was so cute.  They drew a bunch of flags and planes and Apple drew a big yellow plane with him sitting in the middle of it.

Deployments kind of mess with my perception of time.  It was so long for us to be apart and it felt like it while it was happening, but now that it is over, it's like it was the blink of an eye, and it takes external things to remind me of how long it really was, like pictures of the girls from when he first left, or little things that we bought after Luke left that had become familiar to us but are new to him.  The past is just kind of 2-D, all lumped together in memory.  It's funny.  And of course, time has flown since he got home.  It's only been a couple of days, but it seems like hours.

Mango was a little wary about Luke at first, but is definitely warming up to him quickly.  When he was putting her into her carseat, she just kept staring at him with this sort of confused/interested look on her face.  It was so cute.  She never quite treated him like she does strangers, so I think that there was hint of recognition there.  She still wants Mommy when she is upset, but she will play with him and crawl to him and interact in ways that she doesn't with other people.

There is no way to describe how amazing and sweet and beautiful a reunion is after long separations.  This is our second deployment and even though things are a lot different than the last time, there is still that sense of joy and completeness that you don't realize was missing until you get it back.  It is really funny looking back all our time apart.  The first was before we got married when he went home for the summer for three months.  Then he went to officer candidate school for three months, he moved to Virginia ahead of us for one month, he deployed to Iraq for 7 months, went for training for a month, then three weeks at field exercises, and then this 7.5 month deployment.  So we have spent a total of almost 2 years away from each other in the last 12 years.  Isn't that crazy?

Poor Luke--the girls and I are totally fighting over him.  =)  They're trying to fit in 8 months of daddy fun and mommy keeps taking him away for herself.  The girls had him out on the trampoline within minutes of getting him home.  Mango felt left out.  He is very relieved to be home though.  He finds the bed very very comfortable and is loving the 70 degree weather (it was hitting 140+ in Kuwait before he left). He's got lots of funny stories about his time over there, but he much prefers living with a houseful of girls to living with a campful of guys.  He missed Diet Coke and warm showers and civilian clothes and driving and internet that actually works.  So far, he says doesn't miss anything about Afghanistan.  He will have a week or two off before he goes back to work.

Thank you everyone for your prayers.  This was a very tough deployment for our family, and we definitely had our struggles, but we made it through to the bright side.