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After he got home from Afghanistan things changed again...

I had this idea in my mind of how "perfect" homecoming would be I remember laying in bed alone those last few days of deployment and imagining holding him again... Imagining that first kiss...

When he finally came home things we're how I expected them, I mean we were both happy but it wasn't the dream homecoming... Theres no way that the reality could be as good as my dream it was just to good to ever happen in real life...

He was in a crappy mood when he got off the plane... I ran to home and hugged him and he hugged me back but I could tell he was distracted... He kept telling me he had to get to baggage claim to get his weapon

Its an hour drive from SeaTac back to Fort Lewis... I didn't wanna let him go... We were in the suburban and he sat in the front seat with a friend of ours who was driving and I sat in the seat behind Josh... I remember reaching up and putting my hand on his arm a lot and giggling as I realized I was touching him...

When we got to Lewis we had to stop at the company to return his weapon to the arms room. When we got there a bunch of our friends were there and we stood around talking and laughing for a while... it was weird like I knew I hadn't seen him in months and all that but it was as if he had never left...

After about 30 mins it started to get dark out and I remember whispering to him that it was time to go home so we got back in the suburban and drove to the kennels where our truck was parked... As we went to get in the truck his SGT came up to me and said not to let him drive for 96 hours after homecoming so I drove home bare foot because I had been wearing heels to homecoming.

When we got in the truck and shut the doors he was like a totally different person he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me then pulled away and said "I love you so much and I've missed you more then you'll ever know" and my heart melted.

Josh had never been to the house we had in WA at that point... We lived in Evergreen on Ft Lewis, I had moved in about 3 months before he got home (Feb 14 2011) and I was so excited to show him our beautiful home... I had put welcome home signs on the doors and had all his fave foods in the fridge when we got in the house it was again like he never left...

We went to sleep that night and it was like we were slipping back into a new better normal...

The next few days we spent laughing and smiling and just being together... and then we had our first issue.

Josh was watching TV in the living room and I was sitting on the laptop playing around on FB when I first saw it... Suddenly my news feed was blowing up and I couldn't figure out why so I started clicking posts to read them a little more and I remember saying "oh.my.God." slowly and telling Josh to turn on the news

When he turned on Channel 7 we saw it... Obama was standing there telling the world that the Navy Seals had found and killed Bin Laden. I just sat there in utter shock with tears in my eyes the last time I had been that shocked by something was on 9-11... these were different tears... these were tears of happiness...

Josh and I just sat in silence for a while and then got up and each took a shot of Whiskey to celebrate... He went outside to have a cig and I followed behind him a few mins later... When I got out there he was talking and at first I thought he was on the phone and then I realized he was whispering "We got him..." and it hit me that he was talking to his fallen SGT...

I stood within ear shot of the door and listened and hoped that would be the last time I would ever hear him talk to his SGT... Sadly, it was just the beginning...