Chris' Deployment Journal

Finally! Chris arrived home on Tuesday, Nov. 8 around 1:00pm. My first view of him was when the rear door of the plane opened and he stuck his head out looking for me. I was waving frantically but he didn't see me. I pulled out my cell phone and called him, told him where I was standing, and then he found me.

Since he was in the back of the plane, he was one of the last to get off the plane. Seeing him walking towards me was surreal - it is still hard to believe that this is finally over.

While we had a great homecoming, I felt terrible for probably 80% of the soldiers and families. The stupid military actually loaded up the plane and took off an hour EARLY, but most families didn't know the soldiers would arrive an hour early. (Fortunately, since Chris had a cell phone, he called me while boarding to let me know he'd be early.) One of the saddest sights I've seen is soldiers walking off the plane to a fairly small crowd, scanning and not finding their families. You could see their excitement and anticipation crashing when they realized their spouses, kids, etc weren't standing there waiting for them. While we were driving away from the plane, lines of cars full of kids, balloons, etc were just arriving. It broke my heart.

Our first 24 hours together were less than romantic. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up feeling sick and spent 1/2 hour or so vomiting. Chris got a crash course in parenting our first full day together taking care of Lillian while I slept my illness away. Fortunately, it was a short-lived bug and we are now able to enjoy our time together. Talk about stepping right back into real life!