104 Days..roughly

So much has happened since I last wrote but there really isn't much important news to touch on so...here are the highlights.
1) I am Acting Store Manager of the Pac Sun up here.
2) I have officially lived here for one year.
3) Shawn and I truly enjoyed our leave time in Florida two weeks ago.
4) I took a leave of absence from school because of work.
5) I start again on the 13th of February.
6) 104 days about until the day Shawn should be home from this deployment for good.

Well I hope this blog finds you and yours well and that you enjoyed all of the wonderful holidays that commenced after my last blog and that you are already getting ready for Valentine's Day!! *sarcastic* Woo Hoo! I'm not even going to begin to express how disappointed I will be this V-Day so I am choosing to ignore it and buy myself chocolates instead. OH!!

I just remembered two VERY important events that took place.
1) Shawn and I celebrated our first year of marriage on November 23, 2011
2) I got a car for Christmas! WOOHOO!

Ok..anyway..

I'm missing Shawn a lot tonight..don't get me wrong I miss him every night but day is the first day that I've been truly alone since I left Florida on Sunday. And it sucks. Saying good-bye a second time was much harder than the first. And it was even harder to say good-bye to my family too. I have always been very close to them and living 5000 miles away just seems astronomical sometimes.

On the bright side though we did have an amazing time on leave. We stayed at a little beach house the first week and went out and about on the town, did some shopping, and laid around a lot. Second week my parents put together a little shin-dig for us at their ranch which was a lot of fun, about 50 people total ended up coming out and seeing us. The second week we spent a lot of time with family and we went to Texas De Brazil..an awesome restaurant, I highly recommend it.

I've been very lucky since he left for Afghanistan that he's been able to contact me at each landing point. I wasn't expecting to hear from him for three or four days but so far the longest I've gone without hearing from him has been roughly 12 hours. For which I am truly and thoroughly thankful for.

Over the last few months I have realized just how much of a toll deployment can take on an individual and on a marriage. Although this deployment has not been as hard as I thought it would be there was a point a couple months ago where I was really concerned about the strength of our marriage. I knew that I loved Shawn more than anything, that he completed me in a way that I had never felt before...but he did something that really hurt me and when he did I began to slowly shut him out. It got pretty bad between us and I went out with one of my girl friends, just completely at my wit's end and was talking to her about it and she asked me if I still loved him. And I told her yes, I always had. And she told me that if I could give him one more chance and it worked out I would be grateful forever. But if I walked away and never gave him a second chance that I would question myself every day. And I realized she was right. Long story short Shawn and I did a lot of talking and discussing. We went and got some one on one time with my parents' pastor and we did some praying too, and let me tell you something. It was like the last eight months and pain and hurt had never even happened. I can tell you today with full certainty that I am more in love with him right now than I ever was before. And that I trust him and have completely let my guard down.

Life with Shawn is amazing. We are constantly holding hands, or touching in someway, or we'll look at one another and realize what the other is thinking. Even though we bicker and banter back and forth we know that without a doubt we will always be there for one another. Tonight has been a rough one, but hearing his voice for just ten minutes turned my entire world right side up. I almost can't believe we have been through 9 months of deployment and at most have 3 months left...or roughly 104 days.

Anyway that's all there is for me. I'm going to try and write more...I actually really enjoy it.  :) Night ya'll.