And It's Over!

He's home!

I couldn't imagine this day 10 weeks ago to be honest with you.

Typical Marine Corps deployments are 7 months long, but for some reason, these 10 weeks seemed longer than any deployment we've endured.

I think it was the fact that this summer was going to be a life changing summer for our family.

The future of our little family of 4 depended upon Nick's completion of OCS, and that just made the anticipation of the end of summer so much greater.

But it's finally over now, and my house is a home full of laughter and fullness.

A recap...

The plane ride alone with an almost 1 year old and a 5 year old was "hellish" to say the least.

Mattis screamed, cried, and fidgeted the entire hour and a half.

He slept for a total of 15 minutes.

I was THAT mom.

In fact, he was already being unruly at the gate before we got on the flight, and people were staring at me probably thinking...

"Oh Lord. That poor woman. I wonder what seat she's got? I hope I don't have to sit next to her!"

I survived the flight, and vowed to never fly again with Mattis until he's 15...

I know this may look like an adorable photo of my kids, but in actuality, Mattis was screaming like a banshee while banging on the glass...

We met up with my parents who flew in from Houston!

BACK UP! YEEESSS!!!

"here mom, take the baby!"

Papa and his grandkids

Thursday was the OCS family day where we got to meet up with Nick and spend the day with him.

We had to first sit through an hour long brief with the Commanding Officer that seemed to have lasted for more like 5 hours.

Of course Mr. Mattis was not behaving, so I spent the majority of that hour pacing back and forth with the stroller outside while my parents sat through the brief.

I don't know what was worse, sitting in the brief in the frigid cold room (Feckel Hall) or dealing with my heathen of a child...

It also didn't help that Nick was literally a 3 minute walk away from where we were, and they weren't letting me see him yet!

Talk about BUTTERFLIES!!!!

Finally, the brief was over and we headed over to the parade deck to meet up with Nick!!!!!!

For those of you asking about my outfit, the dress is from "Jenny Boston" (a boutique here in Natick), the shoes are Sperry Topsider espadrilles, and of course the bag is Louis Vuitton.

We got to the parade deck, and all the candidates were in formation getting ready to be secured for liberty.

We sat there in the bleachers just staring at them for a few minutes (which seemed like an eternity).

I just wanted to run out there, grab my man, and plant a huge kiss on him!

Being just a few feet away from Nick (live and in person), but not being able to touch him was agony!!!!!

I think I cried a little just watching him.

Finally, they secured them!

I cried.

I kissed.

I squeezed.

Dannika was ELATED to have her daddy back.

She would not leave his side!!!

We had an absolute amazing day spending the day just hanging out as a family.

I'll post details on what we did in a future post!

For now, I'm gonna enjoy this coffee that my honey made for me this morning, and go enjoy my first "Nick's famous Saturday morning pancake breakfast" with my family of FOUR!