Homecoming came and went and now my husband has been home for almost a week! Homecoming itself was a long day of waiting. The classic, "hurry up and wait" situation that the military often provides us. Travis woke me up bright and early with a nice conversation from him in transit across the world. I hurried up and got the house ready. Then stalled for a bit and forced myself to sit long enough to eat something. Then hurried up and took a shower. Then waited around because it wasn't quite time to get ready. Then hurried up and fixed my hair and got dressed. I got over to the battalion and waited around for the Marines to turn in their weapons and such. Finally after a long day and lots of waiting in the cold at almost midnight, they came marching out! Sharing that first hug and kiss after several long months was amazing!! It's like our first kiss all over again! I wish I could put into words what homecoming means to so many military families. It's something you can only experience if you've been there. So much good and bad anxiety is built up over deployments that homecoming just waiting for the other shoe to drop it seems. It's exciting, magical, relieving, like a big weight lifted off your shoulders, wonderful, and relaxing all at the same time.
Our first week reunited has been wonderful. My cheeks literally hurt from all the smiling and I don't think I've laughed this much in a long time. It's wonderful to be able to see my husband laugh. I truly missed that.
We are also in the midst of some serious nesting. Again like last deployment, I moved while he was deployed. So this is a new house for him and fairly new for myself too. We're having a great deal of fun making this house our home. We've done some decorating and gardening which has been exciting. Hopefully soon we will have fresh tomatoes and squash popping up in our back yard.
As if this past week hasn't had enough excitement, tomorrow we celebrate our third wedding anniversary! I can't believe we've been married three years, yet at the same time it feel more like a decade!

Things are coming together! I am really enjoying our house on base. I was a bit skeptical about it at first, but it has ended up being a great place. Over the years living here I have grown accustomed to the artillery noises and tremors. After a while it just becomes the low lulling booms in the background. It almost seems too quiet when there is no artillery. This house however is different. Now instead of artillery helicopters fly over constantly. Monday through Friday every ten to fifteen minutes a helicopter is flying over our backyard!  There is still some artillery to be heard but it's even different. It's Naval artillery instead of the Marines playing. New house and new things to get used to.

This is a great Wednesday for a "What I'm Loving Wednesday!"

I am loving our new place! I really like the layout, the location, the fact that everything is coming together. Boxes are slowly disappearing and it's starting to really look like we live here.

I am loving my husband! We haven't been able to talk much recently, just little short conversations here and there. But they are wonderful conversations. I  have absolutely loved hearing him laugh on the phone and I can't wait to hear it every single day again.

I am loving that homecoming is getting closer and closer!! We are right around the corner and I am so close to seeing my husband for the first time in 2012! Woohoo!

I am loving the view from our bedroom. It's beautiful! I have the bedroom layout done so when I am sitting in bed this is what I see..

I am loving the California weather! It's kind of a weird state, but I'll admit I did miss the wonderful weather while I was gone.

Well I have been missing for good reason.. I have finally made it back to Camp Pendleton! Home sweet home!!! I have the house, have groceries in the fridge, just got the internet all set up, the place is filled with boxes and stuff is everywhere! I am very happy to be back home.

The only thing left is my wonderful husband.

The trip across country went very well. I was bit nervous about driving across country during Memorial Day weekend. I usually stick to driving during the week to avoid traffic and such. But it went off without a hitch. This is also the first time that I really took the time to stop and see some sights. Well worth it! It is amazing what you can find in some of these small towns across our wonderful country. This is just the tip of the iceberg!

These trees were in the Deming Museum in Deming, Texas. The museum covered a wide array of history but this was my favorite part. The tags covering these trees were placed by visitors either commemorating a fallen veteran or celebrating a currently serving military member.

A beautiful view of the Texas sunlight right after driving through my first dust storm.

I have officially been to The Center of the World!! A very odd stop, but someone somewhere decided that Felicity, Ca is the center of the world. There are long granite walls etched full of world history. A very hot trip in the middle of the desert!

A stop off at the Desert View Tower in California. Amazing to see the difference between the east and west coast. 

Now it's just a waiting game for the husband to arrive home. As deployments and homecoming always go, the end always seems never ending. The very long drawn out wait for that first hug make every day seem like an entire week. I can't wait to have our family whole again.

Wow, has it been a week!!! First off, I finished with the semester. I am very happy to have that weight lifted off my shoulders! I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but that's just life. I'm not going to dwell on those grades.
Then, later in the week I received some wonderful news! Travis called and as a huge surprise to both of us... he is coming home early!!!! I am beyond thrilled and still very shocked. We don't get too many good surprises with the Marine Corps. So homecoming has changed considerably. Happily, I am running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I have accomplished so much in the past two days. I've planned my drive back to California, secured a place for us to live, gotten my mother in law's plane ticket back, planned to see my family before I leave, gotten some clothes packed up, and much more! And this is all happening the week before my brother in law gets married! Family started trickling in today for the wedding festivities and Saturday I will have a new sister in law! Post wedding it's more packing, a dentist visit, and then I am off to Camp Pendleton, California!
I can't wait! I am so excited this deployment is coming to an end!! I absolutely can not wait to see my wonderful husband. We are both so ready to get back to our normal lives. So ready to spend some time together without a looming deployment. Since February of 2010 we have had a deployment looming over us or being surviving a deployment. We are both thrilled to just be together and to be able to actually focus on each other. Elated doesn't even scratch the surface!!

Two peas in a pod

This week has been a challenge.
Sadly, my sweet Dixie cat left this world this week. It was a hard decision to make, but somewhere inside I know I made the right decision. It was very emotional. I've had Dixie for as long as I can remember. We have shared some wonderful memories these past 16 years. She's been the sweetest cat, a good friend, a comfort for when I'm sad, and if you knew us well you would agree we shared many of the same personality traits. It was very hard to let her go. This was the first time I really felt like I needed my husband during a deployment. Of course I want him home every single moment of every single day. A strong want. But I felt like I needed him. This has been a big fear of ours since the first deployment. It was a hard feeling. And I know he wishes he could have been here. But amazingly enough, I made it. Dixie has been my deployment companion! When my husband is away for field training for weeks at a time, she's there to cuddle on the couch with me to watch a tv show. She's there to share some dinner. She's there to lounge on the patio in the sun. Dixie has made it through five moves, four cross country drives, and lived in three states.
I will miss her a lot.

Well, we hit a small hiccup. Unfortunately, this already unwelcome deployment was extended a little bit longer. We were very excited to finally hit what we thought was the half way mark. Then, in keeping with the Marine Corps theme, the deployment got extended. Now we are eagerly awaiting the half way mark to roll around again. I've unwillingly accepted the extension. I think my husband and his team are unwillingly accepting it will be just that much longer till they are back in the United States.
School could be going better, but it could be going worse as well. I haven't done as well as I have in past semesters but honestly my mind is elsewhere. My motivation and drive with school is dwindling quickly. Only two more weeks of school and then I am free for the summer. I've gathered quite a few little craft projects for the summer. I'm very excited to get my mind off of stressful school work and preoccupy my time with something a little lighter. One project I've posted here before that has our wedding vows included. I would love to have our vows displayed somewhere in our home. Deployments make you acutely aware of each vow and how much you deeply cherish your marriage. Not to say that those who have never been through a long separation don't cherish each other. It just goes along with the saying, "you don't know what you have till it's gone."

My little bass!

Easter weekend has come and gone. For the most part it was fun, filled with things to do but it still came with that tinge of another holiday missed with my husband. The weekend itself was nice though. My brother's birthday came, along with a wonderful visit with my precious niece! It was wonderful to see how much she's grown! I can't believe she'll be turning three this summer. I still remember going to the hospital to see her and loving her tiny little features. I went fishing with my father in law and got my nails done with my mother in law. Easter service with my mom. And a full Easter dinner cooked. I successfully made prime rib for the first time ever. And this week brings me up to midterms week! After this week I will be four weeks away from a much needed school break!

I have been a terrible blogger lately. This term has proven to be more challenging that I originally thought it would be. Most of the challenge though is probably due to some lack in motivation. It feels like I've been going to school for an eternity! Also as homecoming draws closer and closer, the less and less I want to do any school work! I'm thrown off a bit about my classes. Before I started I prepared myself to have trouble in statistics and do well in microeconomics. So I'm a bit surprised it's quite the opposite. It seems I'm doing very well in my statistics class and should have no problem pulling out an A. Economics on the other hand is a different story. I am going to need to reread everything we've gone through. There is just so much to remember.
We are finally into April! I'm so happy to see Spring weather finally making it's appearance in Georgia. I love the flowers blooming, the birds coming out, the trees starting to blossom. It just looks happy outside. I can't help but to feel a little bit better when there is so much going on outside. April also means deployment is nearing it's 100 days down mark soon. I torn between being happy and annoyed. I want to be so happy we are finally getting through this deployment. I can't help but been annoyed. It seems like it's been so much longer than just 100 days since I last saw my sweet husband. I miss him dearly. I try not to worry too much but sometimes it's hard to see so many people affected by deployments. Not everyone's husband comes home. There are so many widows younger than I am. So many wives that now have husbands that are unable to walk. Life isn't fair and danger doesn't care who it hits or misses. I feel like I already got lucky that he came home last deployment! I can't wait to have him home again. I will try to err on the side of happiness though! I am very happy we will soon be on the downhill side of things. The next month will be very busy with school, Easter, my brother in law's wedding, and many fun activities!

Spring break went by so quickly! For the most part it was a good week. The only downside of spring break is the phone my husband has been calling with broke. It was slightly different circumstances, but this happened to us last deployment too. Most likely it wont be fixed. So that means the second half of this deployment is going to be quite different communication wise. The end of March is quickly approaching along with three months down!
Spring break did come with a momentous goal accomplished! I ran my first ever 5k! I ran the Fallen Heroes of Georgia 5k. It was a wonderful experience.. besides the rain! I ran it quite slow but finishing it was a great accomplishment! It was very humbling to see so many people there remembering those killed in action in Iraq or Afghanistan.