No, he's not home yet. But back in November, we were soooo blessed to be able to have him home for about 10 days. Jason's sweet Grandma past away and he was able to come home to speak at the funeral. I know that Grandma was thrilled to be a part of our short little reunion.
Don't worry, Jason is not on chemo, he just shaved his head while in Afghanistan. He knew the funeral may be coming soon, but continued to keep the new do. It was a little shocking at first (I had seen it on skype, but it was still a surprise), but I was surprised at how quickly I got used to it.
Jason flew in late on Friday night. He didn't get to the house until midnight. Lucy and I were able to greet him. Graham fell asleep on the couch around 10:30. It was absolutely amazing being able to hold him and see him face to face. He was hungry, so the three of us had a Digiorno pizza before bed.
We left the next morning around noon for Utah to attend the funeral. We stopped in St. George for the night and made our way to Salt Lake for the viewing that evening.
Raegan, Lucy, and Lori at the viewing.
Graham, Daniel, and Benny
The kids were all being super crazy after being at the viewing for a while. It was held at a mortuary, so the employees there were getting a little impatient with their volume. We gave Graham Jason's IPad and Ben my IPhone and they were quiet the rest of the time. We decided we'd worry about technology detox at a later date (they had spent the whole drive from Cali with their faces glued to one Apple device or another).
Crazy, crazy girls.
We only stayed in Utah for 3 days and then made our way back to Oxnard for some family time. It. Was. Amazing.
J took the kids swimming a couple different times. The pool is so much more fun with Dad. He does tricks and actually gets in the big pool instead of staying in the hot tub :) .
On the following Saturday, we got a babysitter for a while and had a wonderful date. We attended the temple. Oh yeah.....Jason shaved his head, did I mention that?
We met the Jarvis' for dinner in Santa Monica. I miss Laurie so much! They moved in November to Huntington Beach. After dinner, Jason and I went to see a movie.
Friday night is our family movie night. The kids were excited to have Daddy home for it. We started this tradition a month or so after he left. We took a chance and watched the first Harry Potter. We were worried they'd be too scared, but it was great!
And of course, there was lots and lots of trampoline time.
We were sooooo very sad to see Jason go after the 10 days were gone. The time went too quickly. Jason and I were both worried about how the kids and I would be when he went back. We had a little bit of a setback in behavior and I had a hard, emotional week, but we got through it and it was totally and completely worth it.
The time for his homecoming is getting closer, but it still seems so far away. I try not to think about it too much because the days seem to crawl by if I focus too much on it. It has been a long six months. I haven't blogged about it as much as I wanted to for a couple reasons. First, because I just haven't had the time or the energy. Once the kids are in bed I need to just sit and do nothing for a while before I crash. The main reason, though, is that it just makes me too sad to sit on the computer and think about it all. I miss him so much and I worry about the kids all the time. For other trials or periods in my life, journaling helped me through, but with this deployment, I have had a hard time putting it into words. I find myself getting really depressed when I try to sit down and focus on how I'm feeling. Especially at night when it's quiet and I'm lonely.
Even now......don't want to do it. We are less than 50 days away and I cannot wait. It is hard being without my other half. No matter how happy a moment is, there's always a part of me that's sad that Jason isn't here with me. Sometimes the feeling is overwhelming and feels too hard to bear, but on most routine days, it's just this little prick in my heart that always, always misses him and is ready for him to be home to stay.
