Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 19

Well it feels great to be completely wrapped on our biggest event of the year! It's been a stressful week for sure, and I've lost the feeling in my smallest three toes on my left foot from so many 15 hour days walking in four inch heels, but it feels so great to be done. Mom Dolan got into town about twenty minutes after we finished this afternoon and it was such a relief to see her! Now it's really vacation time!!!

I did want to share a quick story about something that really struck me and will always stick with me about this event. Our opening keynote speaker was an artist named Erik Wahl. I highly recommend looking into his work, not only as an artist but also as an eye-opening speaker. During his presentation, he took three five minute sections of time to show a video while he painted right in front of us. It was breathtaking to see him create right in front of us. The first painting was of Michael Jordan and then he talked about "instant risk, instant reward".

He talked for a while and then showed another video of soldiers coming home and surprising their families. I had tears in my eyes instantly and thought I could just ignore the video and watch him paint, but it got a little overwhelming I had to excuse myself before I started breaking down in front of 300+ top level executives of 50 of the nation's fortune 1000 companies. After I collected myself, I returned to the ballroom and saw the single most beautiful and moving painting of the statue of liberty I could have ever imagined.

I spoke with our Chairman for this year's event (an SVP at PepsiCo) and thanked him for finding such an all-around amazing guest. That moment stuck with me all day that day and every second since.

Today, it became even more touching and heart breaking as we learned that one of the attendees had had the same reaction to the keynote address as I had, but for a different reason. His son was a marine serving in afghanistan and was killed one year ago today. Some of his coworkers talked to my bosses and the chairman about it and we made a decision to give him the painting of the statue of liberty. There wasn't a dry eye in our closing ceremony today when we told the story and the immediate standing ovation was heart wrenching.

I was trying to explain my thoughts to my coworker this afternoon- I am in a place where I can tell anyone my fiance is in afghanistan and talk about it quite a bit without getting emotional, but when something takes me by surprise like that, it can become overwhelming. This was the last place on earth I ever thought I would shed a tear but it was so touching to see the overwhelming outpouring of support and thanks for our nation's families who have given the ultimate sacrifice.



"LIBERTY" by Erik Wahl 2011


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Location:Masters Blvd,Kissimmee,United States

Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 18

This post may end up holding the record for my shortest post ever, but I've got 3 days til the event in Florida and not a whole lotta spare time these days!

For no reason whatsoever, I checked an old email account this morning and found something waiting for me that Andrew had sent last week. I don't know why he sent it to that account, except for it is similar to my current email address and sometimes he gets confused.

Here is my solider! I think he said he is with a Polish Platoon and an American Platoon in this picture. Can you spot him?!? I think I know which one he is, but I'm not totally convinced that I'm right. High Five to the first person who can correctly identify him!

After this nightmare of a week at work, and a three-day long communication blackout, it is so great to have Andrew quote, unquote in my life again. I live for the little emails and "love you lots, girl"s he sends me, but this picture brought the biggest smile of all to my face.... even if it does kind of look like he lives on the moon...

It might seem a little weird to get so excited about a single picture where I may or may not be able to spot the face of my future husband, but I'll take what I can get these days! When you rely on emails and not a whole lot else to keep you going through the endless months of separations, a picture like that is enough to make your entire week a whole lot brighter.

May the Seventeenth

I have never been one to believe in signs or messages from beyond, but ever since meeting Andrew there have been a few things that have stood out to us that make us sure that if there are such a thing as signs, they're pointing to us being us forever. One of these impossible to ignore signs is this very date: May 17th. This day has been one of the most important days of each year since we have known each other.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

2008:
After studying abroad in Italy for four months, I returned home to the arms of Andrew, who surprised me by picking me up with a beautiful bouquet of flowers at Logan Airport in Boston. My time in Italy was a big test for our relationship, we had only met three months before I left so I was gone for longer than I had known him. I remember my first days in Florence, I couldn't stop talking to people about him (it just kept coming up, like word vomit- name that movie!) everyone was shocked when they found out our relationship was so new. We knew if this was ever going to work for us, long-distance would be something we would have to get used to and Italy was a great test run for that. Plus, looking back, it was a good experience for me to be the one away from home and him to be the one waiting for me. Every single separation we've had since then has been the other way around, so I think it is good we each know what it is like to be in the others' shoes. (er, well, if you take away the war aspect of the equation, I  suppose)

Coming back home and running into Andrew's arms and the fact that the second we got into his truck it was like we had never been apart told me that this was for keeps. I already knew that, but it just validated everything I had been thinking for the past few months.

2009:
Goodbye, College! We graduated from Stonehill in 2009. Emotionally, I had a harder time with no longer living with seven of my best friends than anything else, but it was an adjustment time for both of us. I was such a wreck on graduation day, I didn't even want to take pictures with my family or Andrew for some reason. My parents will get a kick out of this, but: YES I REGRET IT! It was just such an emotionally draining day, but spending time with our families together after the hooplah was all done was a great way to relax.

The night before graduations was hands-down one of the best nights of college. All of the graduation seniors went up to Donahue Hill, which is basically the only hill with a mansion on it on campus, and hung out up there all night. Somebody brought a keg, somebody else brought DJ equipment, it was such a fun time. It started raining at one point and nobody cared, we were all soaked and stayed out til 4 or 5 in the morning when we had to be up at 7:30 for graduation.

wee morning hours- 17 May 2009

2010:
Ranger School Day 1. Something Andrew has been looking forward to for years on end. When I found out last January that Andrew had orders to start "the bad place" on that day, I couldn't believe it. Three years in a row, three huge life events! And arguably the three biggest events in our relationship up to that point (save when we actually met, the first time I kicked his butt at Mario Kart, etc...) it's pretty incredible if you really think about it. Ranger School was another test for us. It gave me a chance to prove that I wasn't going anywhere, even when facing weeks with no communication other than letters, and I think it had a lot to do with us getting engaged when we did.

17 May 2010

A few months ago we also found one more goose-bump inspiring connection to May 17th. Andrew was going to get my engagement ring appraised and insured and took out the certificate of authenticity and my diamond was certified on May 17, 2010. Andrew had no idea when he bought it.

I don't know, maybe we are just looking for reasons to love May 17th and it's all some weird, funky coincidence, but I find that hard to believe. Last year at this time, Mom, Shannon and I were thinking maybe May 17, 2014 (a Saturday) would be our wedding date (that's when I was still convinced Andrew would make me wait til after his first deployment to get engaged).

Today as I drove to work, I was expecting to feel uplifted and happy that we reached another May 17th and that we are 4 months and 1 day into this deployment. Instead I was a little bit let down to not have something really exciting to look forward to today. I think Andrew's unit is on a communication blackout because I haven't heard from him since Sunday night, so when all is said and done, I will count it as a huge victory to get one little email tonight with three little words from a solider who I love very much in a far away place.

Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 17

Well unfortunately blogger had been down for the past 72 hours and now it's finally back up and online! I did write the following positive post from my phone last night:

Sorry for the delay!!

Well this is going to have to be a quick one, folks. (and also I apologize for being past my deadline, I need to work on getting these positive Thursday posts actually done on Thursday's... Imagine that). Unfortunately blogger is down right now so I'm stuck posting from my phone instead of my computer which means I will very quickly run out of patience typing on this ridiculously small keyboard. Also if you have ever seen my thumbs you know that one is abnormally larger than the other so it makes typing on the phone a little awkward.

Okay, so whats been going on this week? Simple answer: work is crazy. Sorry, that's wrong. Work is beyond crazy, it might be certifiably insane lately. It's okay though, one step closer to the event in Orlando and then disney!! All of this hard work will pay off in the end.

Yesterday I had a hair appointment and went BLONDE. Full on, no bars held, blonde. It's still shocking to see myself in the mirror, but for the most part I like it. It will definitely take a little getting used to. I think this deployment has allowed me to be way more daring with my hair than ever before in my 24 years. I love knowing that even if I really screw something up, Andrew won't be there to hate it... Not that be ever would, but as a girl I always have that in the back of my mind. Plus I have a solid 14+ months to get it exactly how I want it for our wedding day. It's been fun experimenting with it! Two weeks after deployment started I chopped 7 inches off!! Maybe that was my way of dealing with my kind of depressed state, because now I would KILL for my long hair back!

Other than that not too much is new in our lives. Today I had a big deployment victory, I got the Internet billing situation for Andrews apartment squared away after we found out they have been being billed for their Internet for the past four months! Lots of calls, but I'm so glad that won't be an issue anymore.

As for Andrew, things are pretty much the same for him. He does say that he misses things that aren't made of dirt. Understandable, as everything from roads to mountains to houses are all made from boring brown dirt in Afghanistan. So fine, you wouldn't believe it, it's almost like a dust. When Andrew sends packages home everything is coated with a fine layer of it.

That about does it for us. I'm just happy that Orlando is right around the corner, and by the time we get back it will be JUNE!! I never thought that day would come!

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MY DONUT IS YELLOW!!

As every good Military Significant Other knows, there is no better way to pass the time than having a kick-butt countdown on your side. One of my favorite countdown tools is an excel workbook that you can download online called the "Donut of Misery". (highly recommended) You enter in your start date and finish date and the spreadsheet does all the work for you! Gotta love technology!

The kids and I used this tool during the second half of Ranger School, and Jared and I affectionately changed the name to "donut of WOOHOO!" because I felt "misery" was just too depressing. That was when I was only a few weeks away from seeing Andrew. Deployments are totally different, this sucker is my donut of misery.

Why, you may ask, is it called a "donut"? Welp, see for yourself: (To Go numbers have been removed along with everything that could possibly have anything to do with OPSEC, even though those to go numbers really don't mean anything since I just made up a homecoming date, willy-nilly, around the 1 year mark)

Click on the image to make it bigger and see the actual numbers of what we have behind us

See that iddy-biddy strip of yellow along the bottom? Yeah, the one that says "are we there yet?" That is what I am getting so excited about this evening! It used to be red, meaning we had a whole bunch of this baby still to go and we were really still in the beginning phases. But now, it is yellow! I thought we were still for-ev-er away from yellow; in fact I had completely forgotten that yellow was (eventually) going to happen. But now it IS yellow! We're in the heart of this deployment, we are getting there!

Every few weeks, that little saying changes, the first day it said something like "Still a long, long, long way to go..." (talk about misery) but now, it's slowly becoming more cheerful!

And what the Donut doesn't know is that I get to cheat and see my man before that bottom stripe (and the whole donut) turns green. Midtour Leave (R&R) will truly be a blessing, and with under 6 months to go until that date (still don't have a date locked down yet- and we won't know for sure when it will be until Andrew's boots are on the ground in front of me) I am finding myself day dreaming of those two weeks more and more lately. I simply can't wait. I'm starting to get giddy at the thought of it, which I realize is still completely ridiculous at this point.

Also another fun fact I learned when studying my donut tonight: A whole nine and a half million seconds have passed since Andrew has left. Piece of cake, right?! ... eh, right?

Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 16

Oh, Thursday, Thursday Thursday... we meet again.

Am I mis-counting? I can't believe I'm already on my 16th DPT! I'm not gonna lie, it feels pretty awesome to officially be into MAY, about to be completely done with four full months!

This week has been full of excitement from many different areas of my life. On Saturday my brother's girlfriend came up to Hershey from DC and we went to a great country concert together! One thing I really miss about Andrew being gone is going to country shows together, so it was awesome to be able to go with Em. Our senior year of college, Andrew and I must have gone to at least 10 different concerts together, and each has a very special memory that I will always hold close to my heart. Whether it be meeting Luke Bryan (remember that name, folks, you'll be hearing a song or two of his at our wedding) or walking along the beach after seeing Josh Turner on a late summer night in New Hampshire, each one has had it's own highlights that I re-live every time I hear their songs on my ipod or the radio.

Sunday was also a big day, as one Miss Alisia took her First Holy Communion! She has been counting the weeks until this day, and she is so excited that we are both going to take our first communion in the same year. Of course, the sad part of the day was when she told me how much she missed Uncle AJ and asked why deployment couldn't be like Ranger School where he comes home after 3 1/2 months (PS- as of this week, deployment has officially been longer than Ranger School. Yay? I guess that's an accomplishment of sorts). It was hard for me to explain, but I think all of her sadness disappeared when I came running up to her in line to take pictures with Father Dave and told her that someone special was on the phone. (I know, I know, I really shouldn't have answered it in church, but it's not every day I get a call from Afghanistan, you know. This was exactly the fifth time I have heard Andrew's voice since he has been gone. Can you blame me?) I think Ali was pretty excited about the call; what do you think?:

This was such a touching moment, I had tears welling in my eyes seeing that smile on Alisia's face. It was so hard for her and Andrew to hear each other, but I don't think it mattered to either one of them. She had her own special moment with Uncle AJ on her special day!

Sunday, of course, came the news of Osama bin Laden's death! I don't think I have  definitely haven't watched the news this much as I have this week since years ago; probably since 9/11. I- along with most of our country- am captivated by this. I thought the Royal Wedding was big news, but this just blows it out of the water. I heard somebody say "Hey, England! We'll take your wedding and raise you a funeral!" It's nice to be able to joke about it, but I did get a kick out of that. Lots of people have been asking me what the troops are seeing in response to this and what their reaction is. Honestly, I can't say much because of OPSEC, but Andrew says that our guys are excited, but it doesn't change all that much. We're still at war with the Taliban; bin Laden was the leader of al Qaeda. Hopefully in the coming weeks, this will continue to help to boost morale. The one thing that I have been loving about all of this is seeing America (for the most part) coming out and showing support for the troops again and showing that "united we stand"-ness that was so prevalent in the months following 9/11. It is a beautiful thing to experience as a military significant other; regardless of what it stems from. I love that people have been coming out of the woodwork to rally and show their support for our brave men and women who serve.

The rest of the week was absolutely crazy. Work is getting out of control lately, as we only have about 2 weeks until our biggest event of the year in Orlando. I'm excited to go, but I won't be able to relax until exactly 3 weeks from this moment with the event is OVER and Mom Dolan and I can just relax and enjoy everything Disney has to offer. I feel like I'm counting down the seconds! The best part is that we get back on May 31 which means the very next day will be June, that feels like it's right around the corner!

Mom has been working on putting together cookbooks for her Non-Profit Organization, Children's Playroom, for the past several months, and the whole project came to a head this week. I've been helping her put everything together for several hours each night. It's ridiculous, because it shouldn't be fun work, it should be daunting and depressing and completely overwhelming, but the two of us just couldn't stop laughing and having fun the whole time. She truly is an amazing woman!

Other reasons to be positive and upbeat today:
- I came home to two of the most smiley little faces (Lillia and Gavin) that came RUNNING up to me and demanding hugs from Aunt Tina. Best. Feeling. Ever!
- I saw ads on TV for season finales of some of the shows I watch! YAY! I never thought summer re-runs would come, I feel like we are finally making some headway in this deployment!
- Yesterday marked the 15 month pre-wedding mark! WOW, we're getting down to the real-time now! It's still hard to believe! After Florida I really have to hunker down and get some of this planning done or ya'll are going to be sorely disappointed when our wedding day actually comes! Don't worry though, we're promising one heck of a party, and you bet your boots we're going to deliver on that promise!
- Andrew's roommate, Jordan (also deployed to Afghanistan), is currently on his way home for his Midtour leave! Although we won't see him, it's good to know that at least for a few weeks he is out of harm's way and enjoying all the best things this fine country has to offer. Plus, it's another one of those things that seemed so far away when deployment started. Just another little step to check off that huge deployment list.

Slowly but surely, and day by day, we are making our way through this beast.

We interrupt this broadcast. . .

...To bring you the following.

I'll admit, when this came across the tv screen during Brothers & Sisters tonight, my heart stopped. My mind immediately went to Andrew in Afghanistan, knowing only HUGE news could interrupt primetime television. I was scared to death, but stopped breathing for several seconds when I saw the following:

Nine years, seven months and twenty days in the making and so many prayers have been answered this evening. Rest easy tonight, America, we got 'em.

While I don't think this means the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, (ie, did we leave Iraq after Hussein was captured and killed?) I do believe it is a huge morale boost for our troops and for our country as a whole. The American People are back in this thing, and that is a force that should not be taken lightly.

I think Former President G. W. Bush said it best: "This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for the people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: no matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

God Bless America. Long live the USA.

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