Homecoming!

It is Saturday and Collin is already back at work. But first of all, let me tell you about the homecoming.

I had another sleepless night from Wednesday through Thursday because I was expecting THE call that night and therefore couldn’t sleep at all. Yet there was nothing. Just like Wednesday I decided to take a day off school on Thursday as well because I just couldn’t concentrate on anything else but checking my emails to see if the flight manifest would show up and staring at my phone to avoid missing the important phone call. Around noon on Thursday, my girlfriends and I decided to get some lunch because we all just couldn’t stand being at home waiting. Lunch was great and as soon as I got back home, I went online to check my emails and there is was: the flight manifest. All of our husbands names were on there. I started calling everyone and everyone started calling me. We were so excited. The flight was supposed to come into Nuremberg around 530pm. Around 8pm the buses finally went through the gate and passed the PXtra (shopping center) where we were standing to cheer and welcome them home.

Link to the videos of the buses passing us (part 1 and part 2).

About two hours later around 10pm the 5-min (Thanks God it was only five minutes long!) welcome home ceremony took place. After that… let’s have the pictures tell the rest!

Yesterday Collin had a day off that we spent in Nuremberg. Today he is already back at work because there is lots of reintegration paperwork that needs to be done. He will only have half-days throughout the next week which will be nice.

It is so great to have him home! It is so great to do everything together! I finally feel married again! Hehe. Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments!!!

I thought it was today.

Well, that’s what everyone thought. Today would have been the day and it is not. I am still sitting here waiting in a very clean house that smells like cookies, is filled with lots of presents and is just so ready for Collin to come home. The last 15 month are definitely catching up with me right now. It is not the first weeks or the last weeks that are the worst, it is definitely the last day or days. I remember Sunday when I was like a child. I was giggling and laughing all the time while making cookies. Today I am the complete opposite. I have a headache, I can’t sleep, I have weird dreams. Today I actually have class but I didn’t go. I just can’t concentrate on anything. Instead I will be running a few more errands, meet up for lunch with another wife who is waiting just like me, go tutoring and attend a meeting at school tonight (I originally planned to attend it with my husband…). I’ll keep you updated…

Getting everything ready.

I have less than 100 hours to get this house cleaned and ready for Collin to come home. Time has been flying these past few weeks. School has kept me really busy and it seems like there is always something going on on the weekends. Last weekend my girlfriends and I went on a shopping spree to Nuremberg. I ended up with a bunch of new clothes that I desperately needed after I had cleaned out my closet a couple weeks ago.

Just now I got back from post where we decorated the barracks of my husband’s company. We put a set of sheets, pillows, toiletries and other much needed things into every room and decorated the doors and the hall ways. It was a lot of work but I am sure the single soldiers will appreciate it very much since all their own stuff is locked up in storage and this will be the only stuff they will have for a couple days.

I actually wanted to clean the bathroom right now but I need a nap so bad. Getting everything done in the barracks wiped me out and I am so tired. Tomorrow will be busy as well. I need to get groceries. I want to start baking cookies. I want to get everything ready for Collin!!!! It is so close!

Hello October!

It is October 2008 and this will be a month that I will never forget. It will be the end of our first deployment. Yes, that’s right. Collin is coming home this month. I might only be alone for three more weekends, two of which are filled with super exciting events with my fellow Army wives.

This upcoming weekend I have my hair appointment that I have been longing for for so long. Thanks everyone for the advice on how I should get my hair done. I think I will go with the lighter brown and honey/golden highlights. Also, I will keep my length as I said before. I am just in desperate need of a good trim.

Today was my first day of school. I am doing the 7th semester right now which is packed with classes, projects, labs and presentations. I am really motivated and excited about everything though. Well, it always seems as if everyone is motivated at first but i hope that this time I will be able to keep my motivation alive throughout the next 4-5 months. Hehe. The past few weeks, I have been looking for internships for next year (preferably from August 2009 until either January 2010 or July 2010). The internship of my dreams would be at the DC Water and Sewer Authority where I could work at the wastewater treatment plant doing lots of lab work. I have also been looking into smaller places such as Environmental Consulting companies like this one. Wish me luck!

So, hello October! You may go by quickly!

Only a few more weeks.

Only a few more weeks until Collin is finally coming home. It is September already and the latest news we have received said that the guys will be coming home some time in October. There are no dates yet and I would not post them here anyways. I won’t know when exactly he will be home until I get the call which usually happens about 12 hours before I can pick him up.

There will be so much going in the next few weeks. We will decorate the post for the Homecoming. We will be making banners, posters and so on. It will be so much fun. I am going to ask my mom to bring some old sheets that I can use to make them. I got so excited last night, also because we had a re-deployment meeting that night, that I dreamed about Collin coming home all night. I barely remember any of my dreams but this one I have been thinking about all day. I just can’t wait to have a normal life as husband and wife again. I want to do all the things that normal married couples do. That’s what I miss the most. I mean, I have been living a ’single’ life-style throughout the past 13 months. It will also be a huge adjustment for the both of us but we have been doing so well throughout this deployment that I am pretty sure, we won’t have a hard time adjusting to one another again.

God, I am so excited. Soooooo excited.

Ten months down.

It’s been 10 months since Collin left. On one hand I can’t believe that it has been this long already, yet on the other hand I am so done with it and it is hard to think that we still have 5 months ahead of us. There are so many things that I miss and I can’t wait to have them all back. We are looking forward to going back to the States and to hanging out with our friends and family there. We are talking about it all the time on the phone and it is so much fun to discuss what we want to do and what we are looking forward to the most. It will be over two years that Collin won’t have seen his parents.

Other than that, school is crazy these days. There are so many projects that I need to work on and finish by the end of the month. There is a 100+ paper we need to turn in, an AutoCAD project, two presentations and on top of everything else there will be finals (nine of them!!!) in July. I can’t wait for this semester to end. Next semester I will be with the Senior class. It will be interesting. While all my fellow students will be having their internship semester, I will be taking classes again because I am allowed to do my internship later (most likely when we are back in the States next year – HOPEFULLY! – We are so ready to live back in the States again.).

Next week I will be turning 24 years old. I feel so old. I got my birthday present from Collin already. It is a blue Mountain Hardwear jacket that I have been wanting for so long. I am wearing it right now. Yes, I am loving it that much. I don’t know yet what I am going to do for my birthday. I was thinking of having a BBQ with friends and since the European Championships in Soccer start this week and will be lasting until the end of June, I was thinking of turning it into a Birthday/Soccer-Party. We’ll see though.

 

Time is standing still.

It’s been a while since my last post. The past four weeks have been really tough for both of us. I can’t believe it has only been four weeks since he left… it feels like it has been four months. Time has been going by really slowly. I feel like these next six and the half months are going to be the longest time of my life. Thinking about all the things we will be doing after he gets back doesn’t help. I want summer to be here as soon as possible. I want my birthday to be over and Collin’s birthday to be over. Then it will be October and I will be able to start the big countdown. Gosh, it seems so long until then.

We both have been really busy with school. Collin started taking online classes at the Central Texas College. They have a campus on the military post here in Germany and Collin is able to take classes online at his own pace while he is in Iraq. He just completed his American History class with an A and is looking forward towards his next classes. He is thinking about English and American Government but he will have to wait a term or a couple terms to start because of the current lack of internet where he is at right now. I am really proud of him. This will look really good when he goes to the boards to get a promotion.

As for me, I quit my part-time job that I had always worked on Fridays. I have a really busy schedule this semester and on top of tutoring Math again this semester, I am also the tutor for a class called control engineering. It is fun but takes up a lot of time. But at least it will pay for my tuition for the next semester.

On another note: We only have about 16 months left in Germany. Crazy. We started out with 36 months. I can’t wait to be back in the States again. I really miss our life there. I miss it so much!

18 wonderful days.

The past few weeks have been amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better time together with Collin. He arrived on March 1. I picked him up from Frankfurt Airport early in the morning. His flight was scheduled to arrive at 6:50am and luckily it was on time despite the predicted rain storm. There were a few other wives waiting for their husbands. One by one they were reunited but I was still waiting for a few more minutes until he finally came out the sliding door.

 It felt so great seeing him and hugging him. It felt like he wasn’t gone at all. He still looked the same, he still smelled the same. It was amazing. And judging from that I knew the next few weeks were going to be amazing as well.

I didn’t want to fill his time here with many surpises, I wanted us to do the same things we always did. So instead of going on huge and expensive trips, we only did a 4-night stay at the Edelweiss Lodge in Garmisch. It is a hotel/lodge for military and government personnel only. There we went to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, we went skiing for one day and the rest of the time we just relaxed at the pool there, went around town and had a few drinks at the bar there.

Here are a few pictures of what we did:

Relaxing at home.

Dinner with Tina and Markus.

Bowling in Vilseck after seeing Semi-Pro at the movies.

Us at Neuschwanstein Castle.

At our hotel in Garmisch.

Dinner at Edelweiss Lodge. We got free breakfast and dinner at the lodge because of Collin serving in Iraq.

Us being goofy.

Saying goodbye was sad but not as sad as in August. We have already made plans for when he comes back for good in November. Let me tell you, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Week 28.

We are in our 29th week now. People have been wondering when exactly Collin will be home. I don’t really know myself what day exactly he will be home and once I know I won’t be able to post it because of security reasons. But all I know is that it will be very soon and I am already cleaning the house and preparing for the big day.

 Last week was Valentine’s Day and can you believe that we are in our 7th year of being together but we have never spent a Valentine’s Day together? The first year I was on a vacation with my host family. The three following years I was in Germany and Collin was in the US. The next year Collin had just joined the Army and was gone for school. The sixth year he was out in the field for combat training and this year he is deployed. But next year we will definitely be together because after he comes home, there won’t be any training for three months (supposedly).

As far as preparations for Collin’s arrival are coming along, I actually started cleaning the house. I finished the living room, the bedroom and the kitchen. The biggest challenge will be the office because there is so much clutter that I need to organize. Tomorrow I am going to Nuremberg to do some shopping…. underwear shopping. I know, I know… too much information… I am also getting a manicure next week. It will be my first time ever. I am so excited. Also, I was contemplating on getting my hair done but I probably won’t because I kind of like it the way it is right now. As you can tell, I am getting really excited and also a little nervous. Time seems to stand still now that it is getting so close. But I am keeping myself busy. I need to. Otherwise I would die from waiting and waiting.

Update 2/20/08: I spontaneously decided to get my hair done anyways. My appointment is tomorrow. Yeah!

Week 26.

Today marks 26 weeks that Collin has been gone. It was a really tough week – one of the toughest weeks so far. It started out alright. My final last Saturday went great and I was in such a great mood. Studying felt so much easier and it seemed like I was getting through this stressful time just fine. But it all went downhill after my final on Wednesday. For some reason I didn’t read some of the problems properly and thus made quite a few mistakes. I might have passed but being as nerdy as I am, I rather want to fail and take it again next semester to get a better grade. On top of that I couldn’t take a break from studying at all. The next final was just two days away and I hadn’t even started studying for it yet.

 This is when everything around me started to collapse. I just wanted Collin to be here to give me a hug and to tell me that everything was okay. I wanted to just give him a call but I couldn’t. My day was horrible and the next one was just worse. I felt so overwhelmed with everything and I just started to cry. I can’t remember the last time I cried that hard. But it felt good letting it all out. I just needed this so much.

I guess I can’t be as strong as I thought I could be. Everything is better now but I am being too impatient about his arrival next month and it is killing me that time seems to stand still these days. Let’s hope this week will be better.