Where's your Entourage?

What an amazing 2 weeks!

After picking him up at the airport and heading home life began.  It didn’t take long for Diva to get boogery and act out in true Diva fashion… hands on hips and A TON of attitude.  Daddy got to see what I deal with daily; I found the comedy in just walking away and letting him do it!  I did that several times over the course of 17 days… let him have a SMALL taste of my life as the MilSpouse.

As most of you know going into R&R I was anxious and sick to my stomach!  So many questions and concerns…

Waiting at the airport for him I was sweating like a pig… it was NASTY!  Wait I should start from the beginning:

Hubby told me that there was a chance that he would head home early by a DAY, ONE day… no more.  His original date home was the 5^th ISH of April ( I coordinated time with his mom, my work and Diva’s school based on that timeline… should have known better!).  At 6:15AM on April 3 I got a call from hubby that he just landed in DALLAS… 2 days ahead of schedule.  Luckily I know my husband and knew this was a distinct possibility so the house was cleaned and ready just in case.  We had gone to Central California to visit another family in the unit for the weekend so I hauled butt home… showered, hit the gym, walked the dogs… showered again and headed to the airport alone.  Diva stayed at home with Grammie having NO CLUE that daddy was going to be home soon.  I got to the airport anticipating a reasonable wait for security, based on a Sunday afternoon out of Orange County Airport... WRONG!  I got there about an hour before the flight was supposed to land, found parking, got my ticket to wait at the gate and through security in about 10 minutes!  Now I had FIFTY minutes to wait… and sweat, and want to throw up and sweat some more!  *I had this super cute shirt on and I was TERRIFIED that I was going to get pit rings on it before he came home!*  I started texting with friends, surfing Facebook… more texting and finally broke down and called my Grandmother… I felt like I had been there forever already but this was all in about 15 minutes…  I STILL had almost 30 to wait but FINALLY as the minutes squeaked by it was time.  I went to ask the WONDERFUL gate ladies at the American gate if his flight was on time and they informed me that it had JUST landed.  I ALMOST threw up right there.  The moment I waited 9 months for was almost here… our AIRPORT moment was almost here.  She asked if the Soldier on the flight was my husband and where my Entourage was.  NO entourage… just me.  We wanted our private moment that was just us… just kissing and hugging.  Neither of us wanted to make that moment a public and noteworthy thing for anyone but us.  We are both pretty private when it comes to eachother.  That just wouldn’t do for this nice lady… she confirmed my husband’s name and ranked and next thing I hear is:

“ATTENTION in the Terminal, ATTENTION in the Terminal”  You must be kidding… OH CRAP!  I don’t like to be stared at. Then I hear the following -

“We have a wonderful soldier, SSG HUBBY, headed home from Iraq to surprise his daughter for her 7^th birthday (Yes, a HUGE reason we waited 9 LONG months for R&R was Diva’s birthday…hey 7 is a HUGE deal!)and his wife is ALONE~  This just won’t do for us here at AA.  Can you ALL please gather around Gate 9 to give this hero his proper welcome home!”

As appreciative as I was I was thinking… YOU HAVE GOT to be joking!  Everyone is staring and I am already thinking about finding the nearest trash can.  WONDERFUL.  I hear these little girls to my left SHREIK.  “OOOH I SEE HIM… IS HE IN UNIFORM?! “All I could think was, “Yes, sweet teenie boppers… he is in uniform.  OF COURSE, he is in uniform.  Why are you seeing my husband before me… stop squeaking!”   I just waited and waited (SWEATING and did the secret arm pit smell!) and FINALLY I saw ACU’s and I was in his arms with people cheering and clapping, the American Airlines lady took pictures of the whole thing for us.  THANK GOODNESS he was the only soldier on that flight or I may have worried about loving on the wrong man.  He looks TOTALLY different than when he left… crazy different. 

After a quick stop at baggage claim we headed home – making a stop for flowers for Diva.  *Funniest part was that since we were at the grocery store I wanted to pick up lunches for the week… each direction I stepped so did he.  I started using my expert bladed hand gestures to let him know where I was going as to further avoid RUNNING into each other.  I am used to shopping with Diva, my biggest problem is keeping her away from the FREE cookie jar* 

Once we got home I walked in first to get a good camera angle.  She was busy playing with lip-gloss with Grammie when he came strolling in.  Her eyes fell to me first like “who else could come in the door”… the she simply yelled “YOU’RE MY DADDY!”  It seemed as though she was actually asking him the question… it was sweet. I took pictures as they were wrapped in eachothers arms.  Then he and his mom hugged… it was a perfect moment for each of us.  He changed into his new clothes and off to the park we went.   He spent the next hour running around with Diva… in the cold while she is SICK.  Yep, he didn’t know she had a ranging cold and cough.   She just ran and ran – gasping for air and coughing the whole time.  She didn’t want to slow down… like if she did he would disappear.

I will catch you up on the rest of our R&R over the next week.  SO much crammed into such a short period of time.  Thank you to my wonderful Guest Bloggers… I actually have 2 more this week so I can catch up on my job after being out for 2 weeks.

Now off to stalk my favorite bloggers and see how they have been for 2 weeks.