Our hero comes home!

From the moment Michael steps out of my car with his ruck sack all ready to go and boards the plane to leave us for months the count down officially begins to the day he comes home. I keep a journal of things I want to make sure and tell him every time we get a chance to talk, I count the Sundays until he is home (seems less overwhelming that way), and my prayer journal is filled with pages of prayers asking to bring him home safe. Well no more journal I can just tell him in PERSON, no more Sunday counting because he will be sitting right next to me in a pew at church and my prayer journal will now be filled with thankfulness for bringing him home safe! HE IS HOME!!! So if you are military, or should I say SF, you know how the redeployment works they give you a tentative date which is tentative for a reason because it will change a hundred times before he is actually home. You have a hotline number that you call and it is updated with the most frequent arrival times. This time around wasn't nearly as bad as last deployment. I think it changed only four times. FINALLY after calling that dang hotline numerous times to only be disappointed with a new arrival time, I woke up Fri morning to the hotline still saying they were in route and scheduled to arrive that day.....so I RAN upstairs to wake our baby boy up to tell him Daddy was coming home! We started jumping around the room and saying "here we come daddy" the tears were already flowing down my cheeks. I was so excited, or should I say WE were so excited. Of course I was little worried as to how Parker would take to Michael, would he be shy right at first or run right to him?? As we were making the drive onto base to go get daddy the song "Chicken Fried" came on and these words played "

" I thank god for my life

And for the stars and stripes

May freedom forever fly

Let it ring.

Salute the ones who died

The ones that give their lives so we

Dont have to sacrifice

All the things we love"

and I started to get very emotional realizing how many women lost the chance to make this drive to this amazing homecoming but instead made a drive to meet a casket. I right then and there prayed out loud thanking God for this day and to comfort those who waited months for this day to come and had it taken away from them. I quickly dried my tears and refocused my thoughts on the joy of this day!!! As the plane landed Parker and I stood behind a fence and immediately Parker started jumping up and down yelling "daddy, daddy, daddy" again the tears started flowing lol! I was a mess this whole day. Once the plane lands we go to the front of the building and wait for the guys to be brought up in buses, when the bus started to come down the street Parker started jumping up and down he was so excited. I'll never forget I put him in front of me with my hands crossed across his chest and I could feel his little heart beating so fast it made me realize just how much he understood what was about to happen. As SOON as daddy stepped off of the bus Parker sprinted and leaped into his arms...there was no hesitation no shyness, it was his daddy and by gosh he wasn't going to let him go for nothing! Again I was sobbing by this time....of course. Michael needed to make sure he was cleared to leave with us so he told me to take Parker and put him in the car he would meet us there, Parker had this panic stricken look on his face and Michael and I realized he didn't want to let his daddy out of his sight. It was so cute but at the same time a realization that this deployment stuff isn't easy on him. We got a real dose of that later that night at bed time. He asked daddy to lay on his bed with him while I read his books we said our prayers and both kissed him good night. When we started to leave his room we noticed tears streaming down his face, I asked him what was wrong and he said "daddy fly on the airplane, he leave again" I of course lost it, Michael and I jumped right in with words of reassurance that daddy wasn't leaving. He soon had a smile on his face and went right to sleep. I think we were all exhausted from the emotions of the day. That night I laid awake next to my sleeping husband and just smiled looking at him, my nightly prayers of having this moment, sleeping next to my husband again had been answered. See as a military wife you know how precious moments like these are because in a life where so many don't come home you better be thankful for EVERY second you get with your husband. I love him so much and I thank God he is home safe! My life seems so complete........ Now bring on big event NUMBER 2....Hudson Michael Keenan!

Wish I would have been taping Parker jumping up and down when the bus was pulling up but if you listen you can hear him screaming and clapping! Melts my heart!