five years ago today..

Five years ago today I met Jason on base at a BBQ that I wasn't supposed to be at, in a town I didn't even live in. If you would have told me then that we would have been engaged three months later, to a soldier, I would have laughed. Actually after he stood me up at a party that first night and made me hunt him down at a local pub, I probably would have told you we wouldn't even have been dating. Just kidding. I have to remind him of that now and again.

I feel like we have been together much longer than five years. Of course I mean that in a good way. It hasn't always been easy but being married to someone in the military never is. I feel like our life is never completely our own. We have been seperated just as much as we have been together. People have told me during Jason's deployments, various out of town schooling or business trips that I knew what I signed up for. The only thing I know is I love my husband. The rest I've pretty much had to learn as we go along.

Jason and I spent less than 100 days together the first year we were married. I was stuck in Arkansas, a place I never even wanted to visit, let alone live, pregnant on bed-rest. Isabella was born two days after Thanskgiving and Jason left the day after New Years. The week before our first anniversary we got word he would be deploying for at least a year and frantically made arrangements for me to move to Ohio. Jason left for Iraq three weeks later. Isabella was a little over two months old. He came home for her first birthday and we spent two wonderful weeks together. Of course they went by too quickly but I cherished every moment. I remember driving him to the airport that morning, fighting back tears as I was not going to have a breakdown in front of my husband. It was hard enough for him to leave his family again. He was the last one to board and I couldn't stop the tears as the plane pulled away from the gate. An older woman came up to me as I was sitting there, smiled and handed me a tissue. All she said before walking away "It's hard being in love with a hero." Cliche, yes. True, absolutely.

While in Iraq, Jason decided to join the Acquisition Corps so he could spend more time with his family and have less deployments. Upon his return we moved to Huntsville Alabama in June 2006. We bought our first house and welcomed Amelia to our family two days after Christmas. 2007 brought another pregnancy and finally a boy. Jason was so excited!! William made his debut on December 3rd.

Jason is an amazing husband and an even better father. He has two little girls that miss him so much every day while he is working, they run to the door to meet him as soon as they hear the garage door each night. I have learned that when Daddy is on a trip not to do laundry because they mistake the washing machine for the garage door and keep running to the back door all day. Our little man Will cries if Daddy comes home and does not pick him up immediately. I know as soon as he is able he will be running to the door with his sisters. I am thankful that we only have to deal with business trips and not the long deployments that still affect our friends.

Five years ago I never would have imagined we would be living in yet another state, driving a mini-van (still not cool), with three children. But here I am. Thankful that I was in the right place at the right time and that sometimes we actually do get the happy endings we dream of.