Nick is home!!

This entry is about 10 days overdue. Nick is home! I am thrilled.

Homecoming was a mess, thank God for one of Nick's good buddies. I got off work, got all dressed up and headed into town. My plan was to get in early, have some dinner, then get a good parking spot at base. I had just gotten to Virginia Beach when I get a text from Nick that they hadn't even boarded the plane from San Diego yet. My enthusiasm was totally lost. I messaged Nick's buddy to tell him the plane was delayed. He invited me to come hang out with him at the VFW. He kept me laughing for a good few hours before we headed over to the base. I was all anxious and excited. We pulled up to a stop light and see two totally destroyed trucks in the intersection and a guy walking towards another truck with a severe head injury. Plenty of people were already on their phones, so I assumed we would get stuck behind the police line. Thanks to Nick's buddy he flipped on his blinker and took some crazy back road to get us to the base.

Finally we were in the hangar bay, waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more. My OpLove photographer was laughing at my nervousness, and I was all too aware of her being there so I kept looking at the camera. However, once Nick sent me a text saying his plane had landed I forgot everything and everyone but him. True to Nick, he wandered off the plane in no particular hurry. I actually wondered if he was just teasing me and wasn't even on the plane.

I kept moving forward until I was actually standing outside the hangar bay. The photographer was great and just kept following me. Finally I saw him!!

I threw my sign to the floor and ran out to meet him!

It was amazing to finally be in his arms again after 7 months.

Then it was time from some Bromance.

 

The Saturday following Nick's homecoming we had a party at the house to welcome him home and to give him an opportunity to meet all my friends. We had a build-your-own shish kabob party.

 

Everyone had a great time, even though we got rained out for a couple hours. 

It has been so great to have him home. It is as if the past 7 months never happened. We fell right back into our comfort level. We will be heading "home" to Idaho, southern and northern, on Thursday for a week. It will be a quick trip as we are splitting the time between both families. When we return back to the east side Nick will be headed out to Fallon, NV for about a month then it will be time to start work-ups for his December deployment. Such is the life of a salty wife. For now, I'm just enjoying every minute I can with him.