Home Sweet Home

He is home. Home Sweet Home.

I can't even express the amount of relief, sheer relief that was lifted from my shoulders when I saw him and when I finally held him in my embrace. It was literally a perfect moment.

The day began with another homecoming just hours before. Only slightly stressful, but a perfect distraction. I ran around the gym, playing with little ones, calming down stressed out friends, watching the boys file in, snapping pictures for friends, then helping the Chosen boys find their Welcome Bags, posters, and food back at the company head quarters.

Kaitlin and I had 20 minutes- we touched up in the head quarters bathroom...gross...and headed back to the gym for OUR turn. MY turn. I have been to so many homecomings that this one felt just like any other one, except I didn't have a camera in my hand the whole time. It was my turn to be the subject in the camera.

When they started playing that song. The famous song, The Boys Are Back in Town, our heads snapped towards to the door to watch. Impatiently waiting to see his face. Katie to my left, Kaitlin holding my right hand, and Lindsey beside her. Taylor was the first one spotted. Then Mason. Next Alex. And I was still waiting. And waiting. Panic is seriously the best way to describe the following moments. It felt like a hand was squeezing my heart. This was my nightmare coming to life. It was seriously happening! My sweet friends all stopped screaming and yelling and started scanning the crowd for me. "He has to be here, Anna." "We will find him" "They called you to tell you he was here." "This is the last flight, they didn't leave him."

Caleb, one of James' squad leaders, "I see him!"

I have never been so thankful for another set of eyes. I rushed over to where Caleb was, totally disregarding the prayer, and frantically tried to follow his finger through the crowd. Found him!

Literally just in time. I found him, and they were released, and I was gone.

I wish I could describe it. Put into words what it felt like. The emotions my heart felt. But I'm not that good with words. You'll just have to trust me. Definitely won't experience another moment like that one.

Reminiscing

I was looking for a birthday card to get into the mail and instead I stumbled upon my Sweetheart card holder. Kara gave it to me...it is a cloth envelope for me to keep letters from my sweetheart. It has an American flag on the inside and this poem:

Sweetheart

I thought that you would like to know 

That someone's thoughts go where you go, 

That someone never can forget

The hours we spent since first we met.

That life is richer sweeter far

For such a sweetheart as you are,

And my now constant prayer will be 

That God may keep you safe for me. 

I have lots of letters. Letters from high school. Letters from college. Letters from Ranger School. Letters for our engagement. My Sweetheart has a way with words. He is so eloquent and can be so ridiculous. For example:

"I really have to sleep now (unintelligable letters/words) In fact, I just passed out writing this and someone had to wake me up..."

"I heard we don't get our packages on the bus this time, so not so much food, but definitely chips and cookies and candy."

He is so sweet to me. He always has been. Even though we were far apart. And I am so glad on days like this that I can sit back and read his words. How he can still make me smile- even though I know what the letter says and how he can still call me out for having the same "eye rolling" and "head shaking" reactions. 

Our love transcends any distance- it always has and always will. One day it won't have to. One day soon we will be back together. But for for now, the poem's words ring true- my constant prayer is that God may keep him safe for me.

Black Mold.

Ew. Gross.

Exactly what when through my head when I saw the black spots on the ceiling in the bathroom. I noticed it one day- it had started just above the shower, and then it grew. Everyday worse and worse.

Then I got sick. Couldn't breathe. Terrible cough. And while it was most likely a normal cold due to the change in temperatures, I blamed it on the mold.

So I called the Housing department, who called my landlord. And long story short- she was in the hospital, so no one got in touch with her and I had to figure it out myself. Thankfully, my mom told me I could get a mop- the sponge kind- soak it bleach, and then wipe down the ceiling.

So this is how I reached my 12 foot ceilings:

Safety first.

Life of Nomad.

Well, that maybe a little dramatic. August 29th was 9 months since we touched down in this Italian world. I definitely could not imagine this life when we first got here. Popeye's for the first meal, living in a hotel room, appalled at how early the sun went down, and how cold the winter air felt. I distinctly remember thinking that I was never going to make friends or find a place to live that involved storage. I thought I was never going to like the Italian coffee or be able to eat a whole pizza by myself. Let's just say I was wrong. I usually think, about once a day, "I can't believe this is my life." Sometimes it is thought in frustration, but I never could have imagined that I would grow to love this place as I have.

 It takes some adjusting, that is for sure, but I am so so glad that I am not in the process of moving right now. The crazy thing is that this is the longest James and I have lived some where and definitely the longest time I have lived in one home since I left for college.

College life tends to involve lots of moves- move in August, move out May, live somewhere random for the summer and then do it again...three more times. It was exhausting. I hated moving in and out of a new room every year. It drove me nuts. So clearly the next logical decision was to marry an Army boy, because the Army definitely allows you to stay in one place for an extended amount of time.

We were in Oklahoma for 8 months, Georgia for 8 months, and will be in Italy for "3" years- or whenever the army tells us to move. Luckily, each little home of ours has grown- it really could only have gone up from the apartment in Oklahoma. We have a couch, coffee table, chair, dining room table, bedroom furniture, and an extra bed to call our own! And the plan is to leave Italy with a china cabinet to call mine as well....we will see though.

Sadly, I don't think I have gotten any better at packing or unpacking a house. I've learned little tricks- how and where to store certain items, make sure all clothes are basically on hangers- otherwise the movers use them as padding in other boxes, and make sure they movers take the boxes after they are unpacked.

James on the other hand has actually only been in Italy for 6 months- considering all of his trainings and his most recent move. Goodness, James is going to have lived in Afghanistan longer than any place we have ever lived!

I'll be honest though- this home, my home,  is still incomplete. For home truly is where the heart is, and for now, mine lies in Afghanistan.

One Month

Actually, tomorrow it will be 5 weeks. Five whole weeks.

It has been hard to write anything recently. While posting pictures of trips is one thing, writing about much else doesn't really seem worth it. I have been busy these past 5 weeks. Mary Kathryn has kept me busy. We have traveled a lot. Vienna, Salzburg, and Rome- plus the shopping downtown and multiple trips to surrounding wineries. We ate out a lot- just to make sure she had the real Italian experience. I have tons of pictures from the trips...they will be up soon. 

But now, it's just me. Waiting for skype calls or emails and trying to figure out how to spend these next months. Once again 5 weeks. It's crazy that it has even been that long. The majority of the days, I feel like time couldn't move slower, so I don't know how it got to be 5 weeks down. I find myself thankful for the downtime. Some time to just sit and drink coffee...or wine, depending on what time it is...but mainly just a little bit of time to process. I haven't processed much yet...this week my body has been craving the tempo of the past weeks. So staying up late, going to the clinic, house sitting for friends, trying to keep plants alive, dealing with banks and bills, meeting friends out, putting together tricycles have filled the days. But it sometimes scares me, because I don't want this time to slip away...well I would like the time to slip away, I would like to blink and for it to just BE April. But time doesn't work that way. Time will creep away and steal the life that I have between now and then if I let it. 

I wanted to avoid survival mode, but the truth of the matter is that sometimes survival mode is the only mode you can get your body moving in, so I'm taking baby steps :) Trying to think of the little things around here that I want to do...like go to more coffee shops. I always walk around downtown and say, "Oh, I should go there, or try that" Why don't I just do it? So the rest of this month, I"m going to just do it. I'm going to be trying out different coffees and different little coffee and tea shops...or bars as the Italians say.

So here is to baby steps.

Chosen Company Family Day

We had a Company Cookout on Thursday and the boys set up the Jump Tower for all of the wives and kids to jump out of...and of course I got roped into doing it. And I'll let you know...I don't like scaring myself. I think its pointless. It's why I don't like watching scary moves or intentionally jump off cliffs, free climb, or anything that my husband deems as "fun". But I had to jump out of this...so here are the photos:

Jump Day

Last week the Company had a Family day when the went to Aviano to jump! It was awesome and BEAUTIFUL!! Here is the back drop to the boys jump...

Here are the first set of planes flying over

Then the boy's plane broke...so we waited...and waited...and watched the sun start to set over the mountains.

Then they came!!! I only got one picture, but I have this video. James is the 4th on from the far left- he was the 2nd to last one off the plane on the right side...not complicated at alll

(And the video won't upload...I'll keep trying. Here is the picture)

Preparation

The preparation for the deployment has begun. Driving on post proves it. The companies are lined with massive cargo-like boxes. The boys are laying out all of their weapons and to the civilian eye, metal pipes, tripods, and cloth looking tarps and such. They walk around carrying army green duffel bags stacked on their shoulders, packed with who knows what. They stay late. They are making lists- lots of lists, and trying to cross everything off before they load the plane. Families are squeezing in last minute trips, soaking up last minute classes provided by resources on post about resiliency, deployment, and benefits. No one is sharing their time. Dinner parties and going out for drinks are few and far between. No one wants to share that precious time with other people. Everyone knows it and no one cares.

Honestly, it is so weird. This community creates its own reality and its own rules to live by and to the "civilian" eye, it probably looks dysfunctional. If I suddenly holed up in my house in Charlotte, didn't call any friends, attend any gatherings, spent the weekends away- not inviting anyone else, then people would probably be concerned. Well, concerned at first, and then they would just stop inviting us to things/places/whatever. But here, it is normal. And once June hits, everyone will ban together and swing far to the other side- filling their calendars with so many social events they can't keep up. It seems manic. Army life is manic and slightly unstable. And oddly enough, I like it.

I'm preparing in my own way. Soaking up every moment, every touch, every look, every word. Hoping that my memory can recall enough to soothe my soon-to-be aching heart. I have my own list of things to accomplish before he leaves. Papers that we need to fill out. Finances that need to be sorted. Emotions that need to be tamed. Questions that need to be answered. I swing back and forth from pushing him away to suffocating him :) My goal for the next few weeks to just to be normal!!

It is going to be a strange rest of the year. I know I will be sad, but I know that I will survive. At the beginning of the year my goal was seriously to just survive. To just make it through. But now I want more. I want to do more than just survive. More than just sit and wait and panic every time the door bell rings when I'm not expecting someone. I hope that I can find opportunities to do more than just survive. I want to look back on this time and know that I accomplished something, to know I didn't just sit at home and mope. So I am looking for things to do, classes to take, and praying for a job to open up :)

Preparation is a good thing and so is a healthy amount of denial :)

Promotion Time

I received a text Monday morning that said, I'm getting promoted on Thursday. I had knew it was close to promotion time, but I had no idea that it was actually HERE!! Initially, we were bummed because Mom was leaving on Thursday morning, but James' Battalion Commander was going to have to perform 2 promotion ceremonies so he made one on Wednesday so Mom could attend. We were beyond thankful!! Mama was so excited to say the least! I was too- this is the first time I had been at a ceremony like this since I missed his commissioning ceremony...whoops.

It was wonderful and intimidating and crazy at the same time. Everyone gathered at Battalion headquarters- and by everyone I mean a TON of people. James led me to believe that it was going to be in Col. Larsen's office with me, mom, and his Company Commander...wrong. It was a big deal. People fro the company and battalion were there to support James and the other LT that was getting promoted at the same time.

I was awkward. Per usual. The best/most awkward part was that i was told I was going to have to hit him and kiss him to "make it official". I of course, think everyone is joking. James' Company Commander and Platoon Sgt are both jokers. Big Jokers. So of course- why would I believe them?? I wouldn't. I didn't. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself and James in front of everyone. Let me also add here that when the boys are in uniform, there is no PDA. None. Ever. James will seriously not even hold my hand. This just fed my belief that the wool was getting pulled over my eyes. Well needless to say, I was suppose to kiss him. So what it looked like was a SUPER awkward kiss. Col Larsen told me to kiss him, and I looked at him like really?? Is this a joke? Then I looked at James with big eyes like, please don't make me kiss you in front of everyone. He of course grabbed my head and forced the kiss...bless his heart. Now everyone probably thinks we hate each other :)

Our usual picture...James not cooperating.

Finally, a good one

Col Larsen talking about what a horrible job James is doing...

Me looking at the BC saying, "Right now?"

Me awkwardly kissing James and Col Larsen laughing...

It is official!! He is a 1st LT now! Woohoo!!!

Monte Romano

This is what James has been doing this past week!! He was in Monte Romano- about 8 hours via bus...it wouldn't take that long in the car, Italians have weird bus rules.

I don't know if you can see the picture really well, but the big dot below the "A" is Rome.

Watch this video to see what they did this week!! James got to jump out of this CH-47, this is his platoon!

Only slight proud. No big deal at all.

Lake Bled, Slovenia

This past weekend was a four day weekend for the boys- and we were ready for it. The plan was to get up, have a leisurely morning, get on the road to Slovenia, go hiking, go to dinner with friends, spend more time around the lake in the morning and head back home that afternoon.

One of those things happened. One. Thankfully, it was dinner with friends. We did sleep in and enjoyed the morning, but per usual, when I looked at the clock and it said 11am and we still eating, in pajamas, with not a thing packed, I went into the zone. Not a good zone, necessarily. The one where I run around huffing and puffing trying to get everything done and James just stares at me like, "why are are you so weird?" It never helps the situation.

But eventually we were off- at 1pm. It is a 3 hour drive. It gets dark here around 430. Hiking appeared to be out of the question.

So, because gas is a little under $9.00 a gallon here, we get gas coupons to help supplement. We still pay for the gas coupons- about $5.00/gallon with the coupons, which still made my eyes bug out of my head. The downside to the whole gas coupon situation is that they are only accepted at one gas station- not that big of a deal, because they are very popular in Italy- but not outside of Italy. So the idea being, you fill up with gas before you exit the border and hope that you make it without paying out of pocket. Finding a gas station was super easy- with the help of our GPS, but getting the gas station was the tricky part. Well, exiting the autostrada in general is pretty tricky. There are no exits- except for towns. There are not really rest stops or easily accessible gas stations on the side of the highway. So we venture into a little town- probably like 10 min off the autostrada, get gas, check out the car because it was making some funny noise and I was convinced that we were going to break down on the side of the road- and there are no shoulders on the autostrada, you can't just pull over on the side of the road. So basically, you have to have a very strategic breakdown. No worries, it didn't happen. But while we were off in this pretty cool little Italian town, someone ::cough:cough:: names will not be mentioned, hit the detour button in the GPS. So we take back roads all the way up to Lake Bled...and added another hour and a half to our trip. Hiking was definitely out of the picture.

Ulitmately, the back roads were beautiful, and we were really thankful because we weren't driving on toll roads. ONCE again another blessing- because in Slovenia you have to buy a "vingette" to drive on the roads. Fine is 800e if you get pulled and don't have one. Did I mention that they have toll like booths that have you have to drive through so they check to see if you have the vingette sticker thing??? They do. We went through 4 on our return trip. Hoping that they can't track us down.

It was a short but sweet trip. Slovenia, is beautiful. Lake Bled lies in a plateau surrounded by the Julian Alps- yes they were named for Julius Caesar. The lake has a little island in the middle, known as, The Island. It has an old Slavic church and cemetery located in the center. The only way to get to the island, besides swimming-which you can do in the summer, is on these pletna boats. These are traditional Slovenian gondolier-like boats. Supposedly tons of people still get married on this Island and the groom is suppose to carry the bride up the 99 stairs that lead from the boat dock to the Chapel, to prove that he is fit for marriage. American men get it so easy. There is also the Bled Castle that sits up on this rock overlooking the lake. It is a SERIOUSLY steep hike. But the castle was really cool- it was built during the medieval times and has a beautiful chapel, a slightly interesting museum and the best view of Lake Bled!

Here are some pictures!!