Midtour-The Airport

We had a general idea of when John was going to be coming home for his midtour leave.
Ironically enough the estimated week was the same week as my finals.
Go figure, right?
Well, we had an estimated date of May 1st, of which was the one off day I had that week between my finals.
Wouldn't you know, for the first time ever in our time in the Army, I got the call that he was coming home a day early.
While most would find this good news, which I ultimately did, but I also instantly got a sense of panic.
That day early was the first day of my finals!
Before I called/texted/emailed/messaged any family I immediately got in contact with my teachers about my final.
I have to tell you, after going to a private university, I was not expecting much from a community college and was expecting to do the majority of the teaching/work myself.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I have met some of the most inspiring, talented, and down to earth people at PPCC and thanks to these people and (I have to pat myself on the back a little bit) me having perfect attendance and just being a super cool student (haha) I was allowed to turn my stuff in late and then not even take the finals. Straight A's in both of them without taking the final.
Three A's total.
This mama is stoked!

Anyways!
So I get my classes taken care of and then am in a panic about getting everything ready for John to arrive with one day less than what I thought I had.
Nothing you can do can fully prepare you for these long awaited two weeks.
This is our third deployment.
Midtour, all three times, have been very different.
This one was one for the record having the babe in tow.
As of that day, he'd been gone for 218 days.
For the first time, in all the times I've done this, I was nervous.
Nervous more for him and her, than me.
I was nervous she would cry.
I was nervous she wouldn't recognize him or even like him.
I was nervous that he'd get hurt feelings if she did cry or not like him.
We had talked about this before he came, that he couldn't get hard feelings if she didn't react well, but it's easier said than done.
Because of him coming a day early, my parents and GG were able to come to the airport with us (if he were on time they'd have already left for my little bro's graduation in Missouri) as well as my mother in law and one of my brother in law's.

Of course his plane was a little late, but he finally walked out of the terminal and now it was time for B to perform.....except she didn't really.
We stood there together, her holding a picture of them before he deployed.
She'd look at the picture...look at him...look at the picture...look at him.
That's about has far as it got.
Finally my mother in law just took her from me and handed her over to him and I cringed waiting for her to do her "stranger danger!" antics.
But she didn't and and I was SO relieved!
She let him hold her for a while, sometimes with a cautious eye, but most the time pretty distracted with everyone else fluttering around giving hugs and congratulations.
By the end of the day, a mere 5 hours later, we were home and she was dragging over books to her dada and crawling into his lap just like they were BFF's.
The fun was just beginning....

Brynlee approved walking buddy.

Showing her pictures of Afghanistan
on his iPhone.