God is Good!

The joy, relief, and love was so intense I felt everything around me glowed with a brilliant light!!! God is Good!

The DAY OF PREPARATION

We wrapped up birthday and Christmas presents for Dad!  

 Painted a sign.  Got a phone call he was coming home an hour early, so we quickly finished and got ready.  

WAITING AT THE HANGER
 I took some pics of the boys when we arrived at the hanger.

A friend from church, Becky Westover, offered to take pictures of us reuniting.  So the rest are from her, unless noted.

Boys entertaining themselves.

Bloody nose.

PLANE ABOUT TO LAND

Me telling the boys, "We did it!"  (Pela took the next two pictures)

 How happy we are that he's going to be landing soon!

 We see the plane!

 Yay!  

 When are they going to open the doors!!

 My dear friend Pela video taping.

 He's 7 out of 237 off the plane.

 Yay!  He's here!

 I'm jumping up and down flashing "I love you" signs.  He flashes a "two" back!

 I just saw him!

 They lined up in formation, opened the hanger doors and they marched in.

 We cheer as they enter.

 After a brief ceremony, they release them to see their families!

 We reunite!

 Hugs all around!

 Love this.  Colt was holding on as Doug was kissing me.

 And one final kiss before they lined up again and marched out to turn in their weapons.

 We met up a couple hours later and headed home as a family!  There was a full moon which was cool and Doug liked his sign.

6 months and Counting

  Well I hit my six month mark this week.  It some ways it seems it flew by, but then I think back to the many nights and days missing my wife and kids and know that it has been a long six months.  I stopped to think about the experience thus far.  I can sum it up in a few phrases but that makes for a short blog post, so I'll try to outline more.
  At first time dragged and my heart ached.  Days were filled with nothing and it seemed this deployment thing would never end. I tried to find things to do, so I went to the gym, read books and played games.  These activities distracted me, but did nothing to ease the longing for home.
  As time wore on, I turned to the Lord.  He blessed me without holding anything back.   He gave me strength, hope and happiness.  Even though I was far from my family I could feel close to them.  He helped me to express my love to Amber through our daily emails and phone calls.  He blessed us with a deeper love.
  I know that "abscense makes the heart grow fonder" but I think it only works if we are trying to make it grow stronger.  Amber and I feel one of the blessings of me being deployed is a greater, deeper love for each other. We worked at making our heart fonder!  We were forced to focus on it and to express it in words and talk through things.  Our communication has improved.  Our teamwork has improved as we tried to make decisions together though separated by thousands of miles.  I know the Lord blessed us though this whole time.
  Now the ache is not as bad, but hasw been replaced with joy and a heart thumping pitter patter overcomes my heart. I still miss Amber and the boys but the feeling is not as desparate.  I feel joy knowing we are an eternal family and that when we are reunited it will be glorious!  I am glad that through this experience we once dreaded we have found blessings and a have turned to the Lord for His healing strength and power.


  I love the Lord!  He is my Father in Heaven and has blessed me with an amazing wife and kids!!!!

Anaconda Wrestling

Aunt Kimmie has been and still is the boys' favorite playmate.  You should have heard the squeal of delight that came out of Talon when he saw Aunt Kimmie pull up to the house.  And you should have heard the cries of the heartbroken Jaxon when Aunt Kimmie left 2 days later and Jax was devasted that they didn't get to go on a date to Nashville or Target.  Even Colton bonded with Aunt Kimmie and wanted her to tuck him into bed the night she left.

One of the favorite things they play is "Anaconda Wrestling".  Here they are in action: