A flight home

     This morning I am boarding a plane to head back to the United States with the same dread in my heart that I felt the day he deployed. The fear of being apart, of him being in a war zone, of my daughter being without her father again. But I must stay strong, we are on the final leg. More than 3/4 of the way done, we hope. But I can't help the pain, the fear, the tears.
     But amid the tears and the dread, I am overwhelmed with memories of our first family vacation. We have been married over four years and other than our honeymoon, this is the first time we have gone on a vacation that did not require seeing family (while seeing our family is wonderful, bonding as our little family of 3 was awesome). The memories of the way Maggie's face lit up with delight when daddy took her swimming or when we would let her ride the Minnie Mouse carousel. The memories of feeding each other food we have never tried & discovering Maggie's love of spatzel. The ease of falling back into a partnership & arguing about making small decisions like whether or not to go into a department store while walking the city. And the joy in Scott's eyes every time he looked at his not-so-little little girl amazing him with all of her skills like talking, running, singing, and so much more. He is such a proud dad & I was able to see that so clearly while we were together.
     My favorite memory though was the tears that escaped my eyes when I saw Scott walking towards us in the airport the first day. The way Maggie did not reject him & the first hug. It was more overwhelming than I ever thought it would be. But that just confirmed that I have fallen more in love with my husband through out this entire deployment. And that after almost 9 months apart we fell right back into being a family.
     And a observation that will never slip my mind is that after 9 months apart and spending 15 days together in a small hotel room (or 3 actually) we did not fight. We did not argue. We spend 15 days loving our time together, never taking it or each other for granted. But now I realize just how much I want my husband home. Just how much I hate the distance that will separate us, the ocean between us. But I have so much to look forward to. I have so much to be happy for.
      I have so much to be thankful for. We are a family no matter where we are at & we always will be & I have that to look forward to each day & I cannot thank God enough for my family or for these 15 days or that my husband will be home in 3-4 months. I cannot express how much it all means to me. Stay tuned for more details on the 2 weeks we spent in Germany over several posts. We did so much & I want to share it with you all. (This should have been posted this morning, but lack of Internet impeded my efforts.)