And just like that, my whole world is back together again.
If you follow me on instagram, you likely already saw that on Wednesday, October 9th, Ryan arrived home to JBLM from a 9-month tour to South Korea, and we couldn’t be happier! This was our second married deployment and our first Fort Lewis Army homecoming…and an extra sweet one at that. We didn’t tell the boys Ryan was coming home. They knew it was soon, but because the date shifted several times, I didn’t make sense to have them count on one day and have it change for another.
On Wednesday morning, I pulled the boys from school around 10:30, and we made our way to the hangar for a 12 PM arrival of our soldiers. The boys knew we were going to see cool helicopters and some soldiers, but they had no clue that their Daddy was one of them. Our sweet photographer friend, Lynsey, tagged along and captured the moment we all reunited for us, and I have to say that I’m so grateful for (and in awe of) her talent because these are the moments we live for through a deployment. I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
There’s nothing quite like the moment my boys realized that it was actually their Daddy standing in front of them. Spencer realized it first, and ran to him with abandon with Porter following shortly thereafter. Mieke hasn’t seen Ryan since she was 19 days old, and she’s not entirely sure of men at this point, so there were a few whimpers, but now she’s smitten.
We’re excited to slowly but surely settle back into our routine as a family, work our way through the process of reintegration, and get ready for our trip to South Africa in December. Our Fort Lewis Army homecoming was sweet, simple, and absolute perfection. Best of all? I feel like I can finally breathe again.
If that’s not the best way to lead into the weekend, I don’t know what is!
