Brandon is finally home!!!!! If you are wondering why I'm bothering to tell you that it's because he has spent the last year in Korea. Hopefully this explains my lack of posting and why he has been left out of photos, except Hawaii, and pretty much everything we have done over the last 12 months.

Last spring we thought we were staying in Florida and he was going to continue working, but on a different side, with the residency group he had just finished. Then around April everything changed. The military needed someone to work in Korea and in a place that family could not go with him. So... we loaded all our stuff into 3 different u-hauls and moved the kids and I back to Montgomery. Both of our parents live here or near here and our best friends, the Khans, do too. If it was just going to be a deployment I wouldn't have bothered moving, but since it was a year, I knew that I would really like being near family so they could help out.

I cannot tell you how amazing this year has been. Yes, it has been hard being away from Brandon, but just knowing that I have someone to call at the last minute, or in the middle of the night (thankfully I never had to), if anything ever came up gave me a peace I can't explain. And giving the kids a year with their grandparents and the Khans, well, I wouldn't trade that for anything! Don't get me wrong, I definitely had moments and days where I would have given anything to have Brandon back home, but I also had those kind of days when he was working nights or out of town. I just woke up every morning and pretended like he was going to be working nights. He was always gone by the time we woke up anyway.

The other positive (there's a positive?!?!?!?) to Brandon being away for a year? We talked more than we have in years! Since we have been married he has been either studying in medical school (remember, for the first two years of our marriage we pretty much only saw each other on Friday nights and Sunday mornings) or busy with crazy hours in residency and you will look forward to Skyping with him on a daily basis.

The final positive was that we got to see him 3 times this year. Most people who are "deployed" for a year only get 2 weeks of leave. Since Brandon was stationed in a remote area and not technically deployed he still got his regular amount of leave time. We decided to break that up. Hawaii was the halfway point. 

There were definitely some negatives, but I don't want to get into that. I think that you can pretty much figure out what those are for yourself. But like I said earlier, school and residency prepare you for deployments and getting used to taking care of things by yourself. All I care about right now is that he's home.

The best part? I had NO CLUE he was coming home!!! My sister was going to Atlanta with me today to drop off our van so it can be shipped to Guam and she told me that we had a little detour to make. It was to the airport to pick up Brandon. It was the greatest feeling in the world to see him again and knowing that it was for good this time.

Want to hear something funny? Christopher knew 2 WEEKS AGO that Brandon was coming home and is so good at keeping a secret he didn't tell anyone. Of course he didn't really know when the "12 days" were going to be up, but we couldn't believe he never said a word. Another funny thing about today? It's my brother-in-law's birthday and happens to be the exact day that Brandon left for Korea last year.

And I have to say a HUGE and even HUGE-R thank you to our parents and to our friends the Khans. I could not have done this year without them. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.......

We are headed out to dinner with Brandon's parents now so I better go. Korea isn't known for it's Mexican food, and what Daddy wants, Daddy gets. (Plus I don't have to cook!) See you later!!!! : )