Change of Plans

Ah, the military life. I'm still trying to get a handle on what it'll take to be a military wife...will I ever fully get the gist of it?

Long story short: Kenny's deployment got switched from this summer to the winter. This is sad news mostly because he'll be gone for his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years (which is also our three-year anniversary). If everything goes according to plan, he should be back in the States at least a month before our wedding.

He told me about the new schedule this afternoon and I was strong; I didn't shed a single tear. In fact, I didn't cry all afternoon! Until tonight when I thought of all the special days we'll miss together. Such is military life. He was a sweetheart on the phone tonight and came up with all sorts of positive aspects of him leaving:

* He'll do nothing but eat healthy and work out every day while he's gone and lose another 30 pounds (hmmm...sounds like I'm the one who needs the "Deployment Diet" instead of him!)

* Since there's literally nothing to do out there, he'll be saving us money.

* My cell phone bill won't be as high because we won't talk as much.

* I won't have to buy an outrageously priced plane ticket to Atlanta this Thanksgiving.

* I'll be too busy planning the wedding to think about him.

* I can try my hand in the kitchen by baking new goodies to send him in care packages each week (okay, I thought of that one all on my own).

* He hopefully won't be deployed again for at least a little while after we get married, so we can enjoy time together as newlyweds.

....um...yeah, those are all I can remember. And truth be told, I see the immediate downside to each of those points and they all start with me missing him. Oh, and as he was trying to be optimistic about this deployment my strength became weaker and weaker until I noticed a tear streaming down my face. Now they won't stop falling. (The latest thing that turned my waterworks on again was me getting sad that we're going to miss our traditional Callaway Gardens weekend.)

Nobody said this would be easy, but I really hope you guys will all be here for me, because I'm not just marrying the love of my life, I'm marrying the Air Force, too, and unfortunately they don't care about feelings or "special" days.

And He's Off

Well, I had him home for 12 fantastic days, but now he's somewhere in the air flying the friendly skies on his way back to Georgia. It was great while he was here. I got to see him almost all of the 12 days - usually at night for dinner. He got to see my work, go to a work party, we went to three Halloween parties (!!) had dinner with both sets of parents and grandparents and then we had dinner with both parents together. Whew. It was a whirlwind.

And now I'm sad because he's gone. The thing is, Kenny will always miss out on different functions because of the military. Tonight my friends are having a party and tomorrow we're celebrating my great aunt's 95 birthday, but he'll be back in Warner Robins and not here. There will always be something he's missing.

I do feel bad though because I've been sick the last few days and haven't been able to see him as much. It started off on Wednesday just feeling like a cold was upon me. On Thursday I woke up and felt like I was gagging and chocking on something. The uvula in my mouth/throat was swollen and preventing me from swallowing; combine that with all the aches and pains I was feeling and the fever I had and I was definitely under the weather. I slept most of Thursday and hoped I'd feel better on Friday. Friday morning rolled around and I felt worse. My throat felt like it was on fire, so a trip to the doc was in order.

It turns out that the rapid throat culture says it's not strep, but the doctor still gave me an antibiotic, so I'm hoping it's going to kick in ASAP. My throat still feels like it's on fire though. And now i'm going to go take yet another nap.

Picture and Update Fest!

Oh goodness, it's been awhile since I've posted! Well, I'll try to make this short and sweet, but we all know that's probably not going to happen!!

Backing up:
Kenny came in Friday (9/5) night! But he was supposed to originally get in on Sept. 2, then that was delayed to Thursday the fourth in the morning, then it was the fifth in the morning...and so on and so on.

I freaked out when I heard it was going to be delayed AGAIN because I was supposed to leave Sunday at 8 am. I called Delta and spoke with some not-very-nice lady who only cared about following the rules and was going to charge $450 to change my flight for later that . Yeah, that wasn't going to fly, so I called back and talked with a supervisor. I pulled the "military card" (hey, I wasn't about to spend $900 on this trip) and she worked with me and we ended up changing my ticket to come home on Monday morning for a $170 change. Now, I could handle that.

I stayed with Kelly, Bryan and their two kids (THANK YOU A MILLION, AGAIN!!!) and we made a sign for Kenny before he got in:


But back to the homecoming. It was awesome. I had NO idea what to expect, but I just went with the flow. We actually got to see the plane fly in and land on base.


There must have been about 50-75 (maybe more, i'm a bad judge of numbers!) people waiting for their loves, family members and friends to get off the plane. The rolled the stairs up to the plane and then they started deboarding. It was such a sight to see.





I started crying almost immediately because a little girl ran up to her daddy and just hugged him like there was no tomorrow. He said, 'Ok, I have to stand up now," and she just shook her head and said, "I don't wanna let go of you again." Ah. It breaks my heart all over again!

Kenny was one of the first to come off the plane, and I know this sounds really, really silly/stupid, but I was most nervous about not recognizing him. You see, they were ALL wearing the SAME uniform/color and I was just so afraid that I wouldn't be able to pick him out. But the minute he came through I knew it was him.

Really there were just lots of hugs and kisses and tears. I think I cry more when I see homecomings not directly related to me, but damn do I love them! I saw moms reunited with their kids, dads who missed birthdays and lots and lots of love all around.

And that was my first homecoming; I apologize for how long it took me to get the pictures up!

Now back to real time:

I had a pretty good day yesterday! I got to sleep in a bit and then went gallivanting around town with my mom. We had lunch at a yummy casual Italian restaurant and I had a very delicious sandwich! Then I came home and took a nap (I LOVE Saturdays because taking a nap in the middle of the day is perfectly acceptable).

After the nap I decided to make some cupcakes. I LOVE cupcakes and decided I'm going to make a valid attempt to make them more often! Today the church my dad grew up in out in Tome has a "Fiesta" for all the churchgoers and at the park they have a cake walk, so I wanted to make some for that. I'll try to remember to take pics of it!

I had SO much fun making them! Here are some pics:

Me (I'm even wearing an apron! Go me! lol):


The FUNFETTI batter:


pouring it into the mini cups!


What 80 mini cupcakes without frosting look like:


I dyed the white vanilla frosting pink (it's much more vibrant in person):





And blue!:


And then I mixed the two and made a purple:

I ended up having two more pans of each. Woohoo! I'm really excited about doing this and can't wait to make more! :)

Happy Delayed Tears

*So I wrote this yesterday, but instead of pressing "publish" I accidentally pressed "save now", so here ya go:

Well, i woke up today at 5 am because of two reasons 1) there's a class at the gym I wanted to go to at 5:30 and B) I have to be at the airport tomorrow morning at 5 am, so I figured I'd try to ease myself into it.

But now I'm awake and sitting on my couch and it's 5:32 because I also realized I wanna check into my flight and have to do that at 6 am. No gym for me. I may do something from my ON DEMAND here after I write this.

It kinda sucks, but there's a slight chance Kenny will be delayed even further. He said he'd let me know ASAP today, so I'll be on pins and needles trying to figure out what to do. I'm going to do my best to not freak out and just go with the flow. This is what being a military issued girlfriend is all about... right?!

On a plus note, my Kenny is too freaking good to me. We were talking last night about him staying in the AF and he asked me if I thought I could do this for another 18 years. I said I could and that it'd be different if we were married, because I'd be there when he got home and it wouldn't be this difficult dealing with airplanes and worrying about time off work. Well, then I reversed the question and asked the same thing to him and he said, "I know i can, as hellicaious as it is out here, i like the job and everything. Im willing to give it up in a heartbeat for you though. And id never ever regret it." And I absolutely believe him.

Heh. Then I told him that I may have been crying (it was an emotional day yesterday!) and he said, "i still feel bed. its my job to make you not cry." And I thought about that for awhile.

When I was younger I used to like this quote:
The one who makes you cry isn't worth your tears, and the one who is worth your tears would never make you cry.

I remember that from growing up and I thought it was silly, because every boy I had been with or liked had made me cry for one silly reason or another. And now here's Kenny. I'll admit that I've absolutely cried over him, but every single time I can think of me crying it's been because of something the Air Force has done. Not him. He has never made me cry. And that makes me smile (and maybe cry a little bit...but they're happy tears! Happy tears don't count, because he makes me cry happy tears all the freaking time!).

On hold

Heh. I knew better than to get my hopes up and get excited. I just knew it. Kenny just called me about a half hour ago. As soon as I saw the familiar Air Force number I knew it would be crappy news. He always calls at night, so for him to call about nine hours early meant something was up. He started the call with, “It’s not my fault.”

And it’s not, and I know that. They’re delaying his departure by a day because of the hurricane, which I whole-heartedly understand. I realize a day isn't a whole lot in the whole scheme of things, it’s just that when you only have less than 60 hours to spend with your love to begin with, every hour counts. We’ll be down to being with each other for about 48 hours now and I’m now there’s one less night that I get to spend cuddled up in his arms, but I fully expect to do my best to make every moment count. It just sucks and I’m praying he doesn’t get delayed more—something I can honestly see happening since Hurricane Hannah hasn’t even hit the US yet. I made myself not cry over the phone, and I didn’t cry when I hung up, but I can feel the tears on the brink of falling now.