Home At Last...

After seven long months, Dan finally arrived home this morning at 3:35 am. The kids actually went to sleep fairly easily, maybe because they knew that when they woke up Daddy would be home. We left at 2:30 am and (of course) headed to Timmie's for coffee and hot chocolate. Holy freaking slow.. we were the only customers and it took her 10 minutes. Did she not know we were in a hurry? Hello, my husband is coming home from Afghanistan in 30 minutes, not the time for you to be chatting Missy! While we were in the drive through, two buses drove by and Jennifer was freaking behind me, thinking it was them. Luckily, it was not, they were Greyhound buses. When we got to the base, there were already tons of people there waiting, all just as anxious as we were. The kids were pretty sleepy at first, but that didn't last long. I thought there'd be some whining about waiting, but they didn't complain once. They actually amused themselves with a few games of tag. Dan's new CO was there, waiting to greet the guys. He's actually an old friend of ours, so we had a nice chat while we were waiting for the bus to arrive. I almost heard a story about something that happened to Dan while the new brigade commander was over visiting last spring, but he stopped himself before he spilled the beans. That's probably a good thing, I'd much rather hear about these things from Dan.

After waiting for about 45 minutes, the bus finally arrived. You could feel the excitement in the room as it pulled in. The kids and I were bouncing, we were so excited!! We didn't have to wait very long, Dan was the first guy off the bus. As soon as he grabbed his bags, all three kids threw themselves at him. I haven't seen them this happy in about 7 months. That's when it finally hit me, it really was over, and he really was home safe and sound. It was the best feeling ever, and totally indescribable. Overwhelming relief is as close as I can get. I know we are very lucky to have Dan home safe and sound with us. And I will be thankful for that for the rest of my life. For the first time in months, I'm actually looking forward to the weekend (and Dan fetching me a coffee tomorrow). Thank God it's Friday, and thank God it's over.

"Happiness pulses with every beat of my heart."~~Emily Logan Decens