Background

Because I am just starting this blog now, let me go back to 2006, the year I met my husband, John, an Air Force Pilot. I was 26 at the time, in a volunteer leadership position in the college group at our church. I remember the first time I met John, I kind of discounted the meeting before it even happened. As soon as I saw his flight suit (which I apparently once called a jump suit in one of our conversations), my mind said, "No." I know, how terrible is that?! Growing up in a small town in eastern Washington, I had never met anyone in the military except one friend who was in the Air Force Reserves. The only thing I knew about the military is that they were away from home all the time, and they moved a lot. I honestly was never exposed (or maybe didn't allow myself to be) to the sacrifice that these people make and that there was more than just deployments. Because of this, I inadvertently set my criterion to exclude a man in uniform. My list of "must haves" for my future husband didn't have "military" on it.

As I got to know John through church, then email and phone during his four month deployment (he left two months after we met), I found myself starting to fall for this guy who made me laugh, challenged me, and was becoming my best friend. I did not want this to happen because of my preconceived ideas of what my life would be like! But...as much as I thought I wasn't strong enough to marry someone who wasn't around all the time (I'm bad with change!), I knew that if I was doing God's will, He'd take care of me, and give me the strength I needed. And life has been good! John and I got married in May 2008, and he deployed that August for 2 1/2 months. A lot of people think that's not bad, but a lot of those people haven't spent more than a week away from their spouse at one time!

Having John gone was one of the hardest things I'd been through, but I survived my first deployment. Murphy's Law definitely comes into play when our husbands are gone. I think we've all come to accept it, but it doesn't stop us from being surprised and stressed when something crazy happens each time they're gone! One story that illustrates this is when my friend had birds come into her oven vent while her husband was gone. While contemplating what to do, some of the birds flew out of her oven and started flying around her head. In an attempt to dodge the birds, she twisted her ankle. She's still wearing her walking cast! I was very blessed to have my family in town while we lived in Washington. If anything went wrong, I knew they'd help me. Most wives don't have that same situation.