Military Life | A Homecoming Story

First and foremost, thank you to everyone that reached out to me about A’s return from deployment, it really meant so much to me! I had all these plans of how I wanted to document that day, as most of you saw, Snapchat was my outlet for capturing moments of that day. I didn’t exactly get the point of when we actually reunited for the first time, but I have pictures, and to be honest, who really cares about all of that stuff. My husband is home and I couldn’t be happier!

Safe to say, I sleep better when A is around. The past few months, I’ve been having a crap time sleeping and would wake up in the middle of the night for no reason. It may have been a mixture of things like couch surfing for what seems like forever, we’re still doing that sort of thing, or just a mixture of emotions. As you all know, I’ve been doing the whole couch surfing thing since November, and good news, we’ll be moving back into our old place this coming week for the remainder of our stay on Oahu. Not too long before A returned, we found out that we wouldn’t be PCSing until later in the Summer, very annoying, but that’s just how it goes. Get mad about it for a second and then get over it. It was a huge relief that it worked out perfectly at our old place, the current tenants are moving, what are the odds? We loved our old place and can’t wait to move back in. Plus, we’ll be happy to just have a place to call home again.

OK, back to deployment.

The morning of Homecoming, I was nervous, anxious, and probably a million other emotions. And due to my delicate planning throughout the week, I didn’t have any last minute errands to run that day except well pick flowers for a lei I needed to make for the next day. Not homecoming-related whatsoever.

Had breakfast at Morning Brew in Kailua, which is definitely one of my favorite coffee spots on the whole island … cause there’s “so many”. When there’s good coffee nearby, I’m very anti-Starbucks.

And then I started to get ready for the actual event. I offered to pick up one of the ladies, who happened to be surprising her fiance at homecoming, for all that saw my Snapchats that day, she was the couple I captured reuniting! Such a sweet moment.

A couple of days before, I ended up chopping another inch and a half from my already short and called it good. It made it easy to get ready that since make-up is such a quick process for me. I learned the whole girly thing my senior year of college. When the occasion calls for it, I can make pretty-pretty 😉

A few of us ladies opted to get lunch beforehand at the Air Force Base before we headed to another area on base to watch the boat (submarine) pull in. A was up top, so he was texting with me the whole time, which made me even more anxious. Before we left our lunch spot, we were actually able to see them way off in the distance. And it all got real from there.

Sometimes when I’m crazy nervous, I’m in chill out mode to the max, it’s nearly unnatural how calm I can be. Once we got to our spot to watch the boat pass by, there was quite the group there already. We had about 70 family and friends from the mainland that flew in and that alone was just amazing. Homecoming is such an exciting time, not only do I love the fact that I reunited with A, but I love seeing everyone else reunite with their loved ones. All around such a happy day.

Originally I wasn’t planning on my making a sign, but I found one on Google that I just had to do. I went for the funny route instead of a cutesy one, I was pretty proud of it and A gave me a thumbs up for his approval. Success.

FINALLY, we made it to the pier. It was a hot day with very little to no breeze at all. I asked one of my good friends to come with and capture homecoming day for me. We talked about how amazing it would be if Starbucks was there (I know I mentioned I was very anti-Starbucks), but we’ve heard and seen at other homecomings that they were serving ice teas and coffee. Boy was I happy when I saw their tent, I pretty much b-lined right up to them and picked up a passion iced tea! I was probably too excited for my iced tea, which is ridiculous because I was about to see A in less than an hour.

Homecoming went by so fast and I spent most of the time underneath the tent watching the boat pull in. I waved a crap ton to A because he was top side and that’s when I was able to show him my sign. It wasn’t long after they were all tied up, they were already coming off the boat. I think I waited about 15 minutes before he was making ways to the pier. They have a red carpet all laid out and there’s submarine veterans right at the front to welcome them home and give all the guys,leis. I stood right at the end of the red carpet with the biggest smile in the world. We finally locked eyes and the moment arrived, I was back in his arms; home. Several more hugs and kisses later, we left. The end.

I’m so happy to have him back, it’s been such a relaxing stand-down with zero big plans. Since we weren’t expecting to be here for much longer, we didn’t plan a trip. Instead we’ve spent a little over a week in Kailua then making ways to the North Shore before we have to move back into our old place. Like our first deployment, we haven’t had any reintegration problems, I just don’t like the fact that he lost so much weight and that I have been eating more than him. We’re working on that. But we’ve just been enjoying each other’s company again and it has been great.

I have a few more posts planned for the week, all homecoming related, but to be honest, who knows if that’ll get done. I’ve been in non-blogging mode for quite some time and probably won’t get back into my routine until we’re at our place.

Thank you to everyone who has made it to the end of my post and enjoyed my homecoming story. Even though this is my second deployment, I’m no pro at all of this, but feel free to ask any questions about deployment or well anything! I’m here for you.

x | pictures were taken by my dear friend, Alyson, and SubPac PAO

x | until next time.