To say that we are beyond happy, is an understatement. After 202 days of waiting for our little family to be reunited, Sunday night was probably one of the best nights of my life! It felt like Christmas Eve… on steroids. For a deployment that was only supposed to be 6 months, and ended up turning into 7. After them delaying him not once, not twice, but 4 different times… I was incredibly happy to have Don back in my arms!
For the past week, I had been trying to explain to Everett that his daddy would be coming home, but after 7 months of not having daddy around, he didn’t understand that he would ACTUALLY be coming home that night. Not until he saw the busses drive up. The busses were significant because daddy left on a bus and throughout the deployment, we rehearsed that, “Daddy went bye-bye to work on a school bus for a long time,” to help him understand he wouldn’t be around much. So when those same busses pulled up, his WHOLE FACE lit up! “My daddy’s on those school busses, mommy!” We ended up bringing his “Daddy Bear,” the bear he got the day daddy deployed, and he kept telling his daddy bear that his daddy was coming home! My mom heart was melted!
Every time a marine walked by, we frantically looked to see if it was him, and when it finally was, we were both in complete disbelief! It took a good minute for everything to even register, but when it did, Everett’s scream, “DADDY!” could have made anyone cry. I for one, forgot just how tall my husband is in person hahaha! But one of my favorite things was seeing Don get to talk to and feel his little girl kick and wiggle for the first time! The whole rest of the night, Everett followed him around everywhere he went and copied almost everything he did!
Even though we got home at 2 A.M. the wait was well worth it! Coming home and just soaking up all of the sweet time we’ve had with him the past 2 days have all been worth it! It’s so surreal whenever he places his hand on my belly and gives our little girl kisses, or when he walks through the store holding Everett’s hand in front of me, or just waking up each morning for our whole family to squish into our bed for late morning snuggles! We are SO HAPPY to be back together again!