Life is Good

In retrospect, my husband wasn’t away for very long. We’ve gone through longer spans of seperation and we’ll go through even longer deployments in the future. Looking back on it, now that he’s home and life is good again, it was a culmination of so many things that made December miserable. Coming down with the flu two days before Christmas, celebrating the holidays—our holiday—without each other, and getting teased over and over and over and over and over again with return dates, were just the tip of the iceberg. 

But enough about that, because as I said above, life is good again. He’s home and everything feels complete. In fact, we were just talking about how it feels like we’re on a second honeymoon. Get your mind out of the gutter; we’re just completely in love and enjoying being in each others company. Everything from going grocery shopping, making our weekly menu, and cooking together to sitting next to each other on the couch just feels so right.

Since it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, I wanted to share a few pictures from the holidays. I wish I didn’t feel like death have the flu over Christmas, because I didn’t really care about taking photographs, I was just taking random pictures—if that makes sense.

Every Christmas, Santa (yes, the Santa Claus) visits my aunt and uncle’s house. The kids get pretty darn excited for his visit. 

See, I told you I wasn’t lying! Santa and his (modern day) elf make a stop to hand out presents to the little ones.

Next year I think I need to steal Santa and his elf for a little photo shoot—how fun would that be? 

I hated the thought of my husband sitting in his hotel room on Christmas Eve (it was actually Christmas Day for him), so we tried to use technology to our advantage and let him take part in the festivities. (My cousin had to also miss out, because his job wouldn’t let him off work in California. Shame on you, employers).

Unfortunately, although we could see my husband, he couldn’t see us. He had audio, just no video. But that’s okay, because a few days later we had a “Christmas re-do.” Since we kept getting conflicting stories about when he’d be back (he was supposed to be back before Christmas, then they said he’d be back before New Year’s…they were all lies) we were “holding” Christmas for him. So when it turned out that he’d come back after everything, we decided to have Christmas re-do at our house so he could see everything.

This time, he could hear AND see us! 

This is one of the presents he “opened”: 

He also saw everyone else open their presents.

With Christmas under our belt it was time for New Years. Five years ago I met my husband on New Year’s Eve, so I missed him very much that night. That’s our holiday, ya know? Luckily, my brother and sister-in-law invited me over to their place to celebrate and keep me occupied. 

To pass the time before the clock struck midnight, we played Taboo. I rocked that game, by the way! Then before I knew it, the countdown was about to begin! 

My brother took this opportunity to pop open some bubbly: 

Getting ready….

Oh, the joys of military life: 

And so, on January 1, 2011, I started the year talking to the love of my life. Despite our rocky ending to Twenty Ten, I have a feeling Twenty Eleven is going to be a fantastic year. Thanks for being part of it!