To start, I have to admit, I am loving that I am able to honestly say we are about halfway done at this point. It's so funny because the last 5 1/2 months have been such a blur, but also have seemed to drag on at the same time. Now with the promise of midtour leave seemingly right around the corner (obviously still a huge exaggeration at this point: we still have over three months until October even starts), I feel like we are finally making some real headway.
Sometimes it is hard to imagine that 2012 will ever actually get here, but yesterday for the first time ever, I saw a commercial for a line of 2012 Chevy cars and trucks! Hearing the word 2012 mentioned in a commercial for a product that is actually available to the general public RIGHT NOW was an amazing feeling; it's hard to explain, but it makes everything real. It's like when you are a kid and all you want is for Santa to come, but it's only December 1st and you still have 24 whole entire days to wait. You never think you'll actually get to Christmas Morning (at least, I never did when we started our Advent Calendars), but as more and more families begin to put up their Christmas Trees and decorations, you realize that soon Santa will come. That Chevy commercial made me realize that this deployment will eventually come to an end, that this lonely feeling will not always be my reality, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it.
As June comes to a close, it feels like ages ago that we were in Disney. But today is a day to celebrate, not only because it is the last day of another month that we can forever bid farewell, but because of two very exciting events that happened in the Dolan household today. The first: Mom finally got her voice back after being told by an ENT not to talk at all for the past six weeks (we cheated a little at Disney, but who wouldn't) due to swollen vocal chords. And the second: Dad's big 60th birthday! We had the whole family over tonight for dinner and dessert by the pool and it was just a perfect evening. A great way to close out a pretty bum month!
And, with the start of July, brings another trip for me! Tomorrow I leave for 6 days in Germany visiting with family and friends. We grew up visiting my grandparents every summer, and as Mark and I grew older it got harder and harder to find time for all of us to go. I haven't seen my Oma in three long years (since I took a weekend trip to visit her while I was studying in Florence in '08) so I am definitely ready to wrap my arms around her. Mom Dolan helped my pack tonight (have I mentioned I hate packing? Literally I did dishes for as long as humanly possible tonight just to avoid it, then stomped around the house groaning about how much I was dreading the task ahead of me for almost a solid hour) but miraculously I fit everything into a single carry on suitcase! I'm pretty darn proud of myself.
I told Andrew that after post-deployment block leave and our Honeymoon, Germany is a vacation priority. It kills me that it is such a huge part of my life (and family) that he doesn't know. I dream of the day when my grandmother can finally meet him. Since my grandfather was in the military during WWII, she knows what it is like to have the love of her life away fighting a war, and she often tells me what a tough journey it is. She finds it so hard to fathom that Andrew and I are able to communicate so often and quickly. In her day, it took weeks and weeks (sometimes months) to get letters to one another, and she and my Opa wrote every.single.day. That is what I call love, and I think it is an excellent example they set for us.
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