Welcome Home!

After approximately four delays in the two days leading up to their scheduled arrival, Nathan FINALLY made it home Sunday morning at 2 a.m. Yes, 2 a.m. He spent 360 days away from home. Most soldiers don't push the 365 day limit so much, but in Nathan's group someone had gotten to 362 days. If a soldier spends 365 days in the country he's deployed to, it costs the Army a lot of extra money. The Army tries to cut it as close as possible without risking going over.

Our good friend Sarah spent the day helping me frantically clean, and then came with me to the ceremony to take pictures for me :-)

Since the Welcome Home Ceremony was supposed to start at 1 a.m. up until they changed it four hours before, I decided to show up a little before 1 juuuuuuuust in case it started early anyway. At 1 a.m., they started showing the video of the plane carrying all the soldiers landing, and then all of them coming off the plane and shaking the big wigs' hands. They played the video over and over and over... It was painful to watch, really. I just wanted them to hurry up already. This was also the point where my hands started shaking and I got light-headed. Nerves do some crazy things to the body! It was a long hour for sure, watching my hands shake and trying to focus on breathing.

Here is the huge open gym where the ceremony took place.

It was agonizing just sitting there, watching some of the important people come in, hug their families, knowing we're all watching them and wanting our soldiers back. I think if I wasn't allowed to see my husband yet, they shouldn't have been hugging their families right in front of us. I just think that's bad taste. But you know, my opinion just doesn't matter much to the Army...

Here is the group of soldiers. Now how in the world am I supposed to be able to pick Nathan out of that group???

I couldn't very well. This is me, totally not clapping like we were supposed to be doing, and thinking "Which one is Nathan?!?!?"

He told me later where he was in the line up. He's in that second row, fourth in line. The one with the tiny black arrow head pointed at him. I most definitely couldn't tell that from all the way up in the bleachers.

After a short speech that I couldn't understand because of a bad sound system, and really didn't care to hear since I was looking for Nathan, they said a prayer, sang the 10th Mountain Song (I'd never even heard of it, but it was so important they had to sing it at 2 a.m. before turning the soldiers loose???), sang the Army Song, and then all out chaos. Fortunately for me, Sarah spotted Nathan. How were two short people supposed to find each other in that crowd?

This is my favorite though. You have no idea what a good feeling this is.

I really really missed this guy :-)

Also, the guy on the left hugging the woman in black is Nathan's friend Rich. He was creeping in most of our pictures. There's a picture where Nathan is kissing me, and Rich is looking over at us and laughing. I've done a bit of creative cropping :-) Rich said we're in all of his, too, so I guess that's only fair.

Somewhere around 3:00 a.m., we finally made it out of there and headed home. Saturday/Sunday morning was probably the absolute longest day I've had all year, but deployment is OVER!!!