Yay, my honey is home from Afghanistan! His deployment is over.
Actually he has been home for several weeks now, hey it’s better late than never, right? He actually came home a week earlier than expected and I had to keep a secret! I found out the week of Thanksgiving that he would be coming home but he wanted to totally surprise the girls. A hard secret not to share, but I managed. My first response when he told me was ”crap, the house ain’t even clean”!
I had hired a cleaning crew to come in that following week to totally clean and get the house ready for David. Unfortunately, I had to cancel.
The girls and I returned home after Thanksgiving and we started getting things ready for David. Anyone that has lived through a deployment or the absence of a husband for a few months, knows that routines change and priorities shift resulting into whatever works to survive! Needless to say, keeping the house spotless just did not make it to the top of my priorities, or the girls’ either!
Banners on the Cheap had contacted me earlier in the deployment asking to show their appreciation and support for our troops by offering up some swag. Heck yeah! They have many to choose from, but when we saw this one with the dogtags, we knew it was the one! Perfect for my soldier!
I have to say that hanging these banners on our home was the best feeling of all! Not only did we feel the relief of a deployment coming to an end, but the pride we felt for being a military family was indescribable. I highly recommend this company, they support our troops and we need to support them. These banners are thick, very good quality and are Very affordable. Shipping was quick too.
If your guy is coming home, you really need to get a banner. Even if you aren’t military, there are many others to choose from.
Monday morning came, the girls went about preparing for another week of school; it was business as usual. I was picking David up at the airport and were going to check the girls out of school for the day. Little did I know, Fox News of Tampa Bay would be there, cameras and all! My wonderful sister had contacted Fox News and informed them of David’s early return from Afghanistan, they wanted to pick up the story.
Here’s how the surprise went down.
I had contacted the school earlier to inform them that David would be coming to surprise Gabby. Her class was at lunch so we were able to set up in the classroom and wait on her to enter. Gabby was pretty shocked as she walked in the door, she actually stopped dead in her tracks for a moment. I figured she would have screamed, but she was very quiet, in fact the room was so quiet, we could have heard a pin drop! Gabby said nothing as she ran over to her daddy! You can seen entire Fox news story here.
We collected ourselves and off to get Hayley from the middle school. David stayed back in a room off of the front office so when Hayley came in, she immediately started freaking out thinking something was wrong! I really thought she was going to have a panic attack and her daddy had to quickly show himself so she could settle down and breath! Once she saw David, she screamed “daddy” and jumped into his arms and started to sob.
Many teachers and staff had heard what was going on and so they began to come and view the homecoming. Not a dry eye in the room!
It’s really interesting how both girls reacted! We had thought Gabby would be the one screaming and crying and Hayley would remain her calm, cool, and collected self. They surprised us with how they reacted!
It took us a few days to actually feel normal and realize it was not a dream.
Three weeks later, I am happy to report things are back to normal! My sleep is disturbed due to my snoring husband, my laundry basket is overflowing, my floors need to be continuously swept, and dirty dishes are piled up in the sink.
The girls and I are back to fussing because it is too cold in the house, losing control of the remote control, somewhat enjoying duck dynasty, reluctantly watching doomsday preppers, and secretly thanking god that my dad’s golf shows recorded over all episodes of Walking dead. Yes God does work in mysterious ways!
And my husband puts the preppy into prepping!
But its all good, deployment is over, my life is once again complete, I feel grounded and my honey do’s are back on schedule!
Welcome home honey!
I love you!
