My husband re-enlisted in the United Sates Marine Corps this week, and I could not be more proud. I am so proud to be standing beside such a dedicated, loyal, caring and well respected man.
He's something = )
The truth is though, I can't believe we're already here.
At this point.
Married, two kids, re-enlisting, PCSing soon.
Seriously.. when did that happen?
Seems like just yesterday we were strangers falling in love.
Okay, so maybe this isn't exactly how I'll explain it to my kids one day,
but here's how it all began....
I was 18, just twelve days after my high school graduation when I left my own military training. I was off to Basic Training for the United States Air Force in Texas. I signed my life away the summer before my senior year. Turns out it wouldn't be my whole life =) I was scared, nervous, excited.
I survived. and Honestly I would love to share stories from my boot camp experience but so much of it is blurred by the sleepness nights and endless marching that I don't remember much. I have a few short memories, but for the most part, those weeks remain a fuzzy haze.
Tom and I at Tech School
After Basic, I moved right across the street.. literally - for more training. I was lucky in that a few friends of mine from basic would be in my tech school. Tom, was one of the first people I met when I got to Basic on that first night and she quickly became my wingman in tech school.
She's a character. Borderline crazy, but awesome nonetheless. We did everything together.
(I should probably dedicate a few posts to some of those crazy stories later.) Anyway, like normal 18year old girls that just spent the last two months with 60 other woman 24/7... we we're a little boy crazy. Just a little.
Tom's brother was a Marine at the time, and I can't tell you how many times she told me that we needed to find the Marines on base. Though it was an Air Force base, she swore there had to be some somewhere. I wasn't so sure.. and how do you find them anyway?
Turns out, they just find you. And you really can't miss them. It's the hair... or something?
We went bowling one night and a few guys ended up taking the lane next to us. (My husband has since told me that they actually requested that lane in hopes of getting lucky with the girls occupying the other half. Sly move.. sly move.) I don't remember my husband much from that night, other than him telling me he was from Michigan - being from Ohio, I obviously got excited about someone being close to home, but I had never heard of his town so that quickly faded.
Tom ended up hitting it off with one of the guys, got his number, made plans, started talking... you know the drill. I was less enthused. But they made plans for a weekend and she was trying to get me to go with her (we couldn't go anywhere alone). She was meeting up with this guy and his roommate downtown for a date and since the other guy "thought I was cute" I needed to go.. she says.
What other guy? (There were a few the night we went bowling)
.. The one from Michigan...
No thank you, he's too short. (Apparently the only other thing I remembered about him from that night), and so she told him.
He said I should go %&#(*% myself. Sweet, isn't he?
But Tom couldn't find anyone to go and I couldn't let her go alone, so we went.
And we split almost immediately after meeting up with the guys.
My night was slightly awkward.
The only picture I have of us in Texas:
it's awkward, I know... but it sums up so much.
Until he took me on a boat ride and used his sweet talk.
Don't let my husband fool you now with his harsh words and bad ass attitude... he's a total softy.
Always has been.
And the rest is really history. We hit it off and kept talking, seeing each other every weekend until he left to his new duty station in CA. Granted, that was only a month later. I stayed in Texas for two more months after that and went back to Ohio where I was a part of a National Guard unit and started college.
Lucky for us, our home towns are only about 2 hours apart. So between me going to CA to see him and him coming home on leave, we were able to see each other about every 2-3 months. Now that we're married and he's stuck with me forever it's REALLY great that our hometowns are so close.. I could not imagine trying to visit family if we were from further states.
First visit...
It worked. And after I got out of the military (the only thing keeping me in Ohio), I got a job at a summer camp and moved to California.
My husband proposed that summer, we got married a month later and in just over a year we moved to Japan and had our first baby. How crazy. And now we have two.
Just nuts.
It still blows my mind to think about the way that everything in my life has aligned so perfectly to bring me to here and now. And how completely happy I am with that, even though I know 6 years I would have called myself insane.
