14 months and 30 days later

HE IS HOME!!! Let's all do a collective happy dance. This Deployment is O.V.E.R. We made it through! Maybe not as gracefully as we could have, but we made it. 14 months and 30 days is a long time. A very very long time. Almost 65 weeks. 457 days. 10,968 hours. 658,080 (give or take a few) minutes. Around 39,484,800 seconds. That is a LONG time.

14 months and 30 days of mass cooked meals for M, sleeping on cots and bad mattresses, living in extreme heat and nasty cold, dust and rain, sand and mud, seemingly endless missions, successes, losses, learning, meeting amazingly generous and grateful people and partaking of some really awesome Iraqi food.

2 of W's birthdays, 2 of my birthdays, CB's first Christmas and birthday, our 4th anniversary, the first time CB rolled over, crawled and walked all happened while he was away. 2 hospital stays for CB and 1 for W, countless sleepless nights and frustrated tears, dirty diapers, doctor's appointments and timeouts were all missed, some of which I think he is a tiny bit thankful for.

14 months and 30 days of being an incomplete family. 14 months and 30 days that we could have been making memories together. 14 months and 30 days that I had to tell my kids that their daddy was gone so he could help other people. 14 months and 30 days that we did the best we possibly could for our family with what we had, which wasn't much. We did it. He did it. And we will do it again when the time comes. Hopefully not for 14 months and 30 days, but enough time for him to go and do the job that he needs to do to ensure the safety and freedoms that you have.

When you go and vote next week, don't you dare go in there thinking "I know this dude who was over there for 15 months..." We are not a cause and refuse to be one. Yes, it suuuuuuuuuuuuucks and it is far from ideal for a family to go through the stress and danger of a deployment but there is still so much work to be done and pulling them out would make everything they have done pointless. It would be like you working your butt off building a house, only to stop working and move into it before you put a roof and walls up. The foundation is laid, the studs are in, the plumbing is done and the electrical is installed, it just needs the final touches. Let them finish doing their job and then bring them home. As much as you may disagree, we believe that he, and everyone else, were and are there for a reason, which is why we don't want to be a cause. It may not be a reason you agree with but please do not disgrace their job and the work they have done and are doing by voting for someone just so the troops come home ASAP. Vote for someone who has a plan for seeing this through by making responsible and effective choices. Ok, end of the seriousness. Onto the pictures!

Where is he??

There he is!

Picture taken by W