homecoming.

here we go.

this was my life in the days leading up to Jon's arrival.

7 days before reuniting with jon. 

Amanda Marie and I made a welcome home banner. 

this was a king sized duvet cover that i cut and sewed smaller. amanda used her pretty handwriting and then we used yarn to stitch the letters in.

the tape on the left is to show how large the banner is! 

 

 6 days before. 

shopped for and picked out an outfit to wear when picking him up. something that hopefully wouldn't date the photos too much, something cute but doesn't make me look 12. breezy in case its hot, but still modest. 

ugh, it sounds as hard as it was to find. but i found it, thanks to my darling friend, jenni hens.

5 days before.

one thing i liked about having jon away: i could do anything to the house that i wanted.

i knew that was going to change when he got back. 

so i celebrated by painting the front door.

  4 days before. 

i hung jon's signs!!!!!!!! that way, the whole neighborhood could celebrate with me!

the last two (seven month old) jr mints tasted better than the first two fresh ones!

2 days before. finished painting the door, and cleaned the whole house.

1 day. 1 day before. the DAY before he got back.

 cleaned our car, to make him think it was that clean the whole time he was gone. 

freaked out, freaked out, freaked out.

and failed an accounting exam because i was too busy freaking out to study.

then the day finally came.
after 209 lonely days apart.

April 10, 2011.

The day i had been waiting for since we found out he was deploying, over a year ago.

on sunday, i woke up anxious and panicky. 

i text my favorite girlfriend from church to tell her i couldn't come because i was too....just too.

she said that she thought coming to church would help, so....reluctantly, i went. 

she was right, it did help.

after church, i went and visited with the Vigil's in Carlsbad. 

they are our biggest fans, they're so so good to us.

they helped me calm down and made me feel a lot better.

then i met up with AMANDA.

jon was supposed to get home at 3:50 pm. his flight got delayed, so we did what anyone else would do. ate mcdonald's and chocolate. 

and, as you can imagine, we regretted it soon after.

greasy mcdonald's food, soda+caffeine, sugar+chocolate mixed with anxiety isn't good for the belly. plus, we had driven off base to find a pf changs to fix our addiction to their dessert shots, so we were about 30 minutes from where we were supposed to pick jon up and it was getting REALLY close to that time. so, our nerves were through the roof.

 then, i got this alert. 

(the timing was a little off)

and that did it for me. we really needed to hurry. so we sped back up to camp pendleton!

 and once we got there, we realized that we hadn't written on the windows!

my phone was blowing up with texts from jon saying he was on base and that he would be there soon and that he was nervous and couldn't wait to see me, etc etc etc...and the producer was calling me over and over asking me where i was because we needed to get our microphones on and everything and i hadn't put any lipstick on, and i hadn't written on the windows yet and ahh! it was a lot!

after writing on the car, we ran over to the parade deck, met with jon's family, got our microphones put on, and pushed in front of the cameras. it seemed like ten hours, but i think it was actually ten minutes before the motorcycles pulled in, followed by the big white buses that me and all the families had been dreaming about for seven months. 

they all parked, and i looked in the third bus and saw a tiny little hand, waving at me out the window about six rows back. i waved back and when i couldn't handle it any longer, i ran to the bus that jon was in and he jumped out and ran to me and we hugged the best hug i've had, ever. and hugged and hugged. he was squeezing me so tight. then we looked at each other, i took off his cover and his shades and looked at that cute leathery, clean shaven face and relief washed over me. finally, my boy was home from war, safe and sound. and it wasn't a dream, it was for real. he looked cuter than i'd ever seen him look.

 he was sooo happy to be hanging out with his favorite twins again!

 this is the photo that i sent out to my family, letting them know that he was home.

my car, on the way to dinner.

we all ate at the California Pizza Kitchen in La Jolla afterwards, and this was our view as we left the restaurant. 

the beautiful San Diego Temple. 

Welcome Home, Jon from Double Scoop Photography on Vimeo.

video from my amazing photographer. 

Double Scoop Photography.

wk 45.

our home. <3

obama's speech.

"It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory - hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

Servicemen hang off a lamppost near Ground Zero and cheer news of the death of Osama bin Laden

A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

"The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who's been gravely wounded.

So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defence of our citizens and our friends and allies. 

We will be true to the values that make us who we are. 

And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to Al-Qaeda's terror: 
Justice has been done."

Barack Obama's full speech.

God Bless America.

wk 44.

birthday girl at the one and only ikea. 

coming home. pt 1.

jon and I are going to be on tv.

you read that right. 

a little snippet of our story is going to be on the show 

'Coming Home'.

ever heard of it?

the first season started a couple months ago, 

while jon was still away.

i'd watch it every monday. bawling my eyes out. 

on march 7, i was watching the previous nights episode online, and saw that they were looking for more stories to feature...

i thought to myself hey, why not? and sent them our story. 

march 9th, they responded. 

Alexandra,

Thank you for writing to us.  Do you know the window for your husband's return?  Where in CA are you stationed? What is his unit?

All the best to you and your family.  Thank you for your service.

we wrote back and forth, and on march 14th, she sent me a questionnaire to fill out. 

i was starting to get a little bit worried.

for 6 months, jon and i had planned on having just the two of us at his homecoming, so we could hug and kiss and talk and just look at each other. so we could get reacquainted and catch up on lost time. it was going to be a romantic reunion, just husband and wife after a long 7 months, not having to worry about anyone but us at that moment.

would having a camera crew there ruin it? would they be pushy? would it be awkward? 

i had no idea what to think.

a couple days later, march 16th, i filled out the questionnaire and returned it. 

the plan was based loosely around surprising his dad. 

well, they liked that idea. 

she emailed me back promptly, 

and asked for a few photos of jon and i. 

luckily, we aren't hideous. 

she called me. 

she asked if we wanted to be on the show. 

i told her i'd think about it, this was a lot right now, 

and i had to wait until jon called me so that we could discuss. 

i had signed us up without even thinking very much about it. i had no idea that this would actually be something that we could do. it didn't seem like they would ever choose us. jon and i hadn't even talked that seriously about it. jon had never seen the show.

when he called me that night, he said someone from camp pendleton had called him in afghanistan. (umm....where was that number when i had something to talk to him about??)

they were encouraging him to do it. they wanted someone on the show to give the marine corps a good name. he told them he wasn't sure if we were going to. so we talked about it a little bit. i told him more about the show, and told him about a father/son reunion they had on the last weeks episode. we were both silent for a minute. then, jon said he wanted to do it. 

so i called the producer. 

i told her i was nervous and wanted to know all of the details. 

she offered to go to coffee and discuss all of this. 

so on March 29th, i met with her and decided that we would definitely do the show.

then i REALLY started to get excited. and. um. NERVOUS.

i called john (jonathan's father) asap. just to get it over with. 

"hi."

"hi..."

"so....someone nominated us to be on a military documentary. the show contacted me and asked if you and i wanted to be on it. they're looking for a military family to feature. they want to fly you out here for jon's homecoming. and want to interview you. what do you think?"

"of course. i'll be there. i would love to see him come home."

luckily, he was somewhat busy, so the conversation was brief. 

everything was set up! the producer and i kept in really close contact. she got jon's step mom in on it as well. we definitely needed an insider to keep john preoccupied and not questioning too much. she got their plane tickets for tuesday night, april 12. jon was set to come home april 10, the sunday before. 

john was under the assumption that his son would be returning home april 15 or 16th.

jon's little brother, alex, actually told jon's little sister kaitlyn when exactly jon was supposed to come home.

kaitlyn told her dad, john, that jonathan was coming home sunday.

john told kaitlyn that she and alex were wrong.

WHEW!

april 9th.

this happened:

 the coming home crew came into my house, 

and exploded their stuff all over my living room/everywhere.

 moved things around and added cute drapery...

and interviewed the S out of me. 

my, my, my. it was quite the experience.

i know i sounded like a total tool talking. 

i'm so nervous/embarassed to watch it.

the camera guy was probably 50 years old. skinny. 

known for wearing stripes. very funny.

he used powder to de-shine my face and burt's bee's lip balm to calm my fly-aways. 

as he was taming the fly-aways, he said,

"oh come here....just one hair...oh, now his friend needs to be fixed....come on. ugh, these guys are trying to get their own show."

too funny. 

while i was sitting on that chair, i was trying to hard not to fidget. 

i kept moving my feet and didn't even notice.

the sound guy from behind me,

"is she moving her feet?"

producer/interviewer,

"yes. she is.

alexandra, can you not move your feet around?"

they were really, really sweet about everything, 

but it was nerve racking. 

they interviewed me for about an hour. then tranique came over, and we made brownies and talked while they were filming us hanging out. that was the best part because tranique has been on camera a lot and totally kept the conversation flowing and made me feel a lot less awkward.

it was such a fun day, the crew was the funniest. 

the next day was jon's homecoming.

ah, i could go on and on.

jon's mom and her family decided to come out for the homecoming, so i invited my sister, amanda, to come with me to ease the tension and keep me occupied. 

i was SO glad she was there. 

we got to camp pendleton, um...a little late. 

the crew was waiting and strapped the microphones onto us quickly.

they filmed us talking about the deployment, the homecoming and everything else for the few minutes before jon got on base. it was so awkward just standing there talking to amanda, we are both very camera shy, but we got through it. 

then the moment came, where i was reunited with my lover. 

you can see the microphone thing on my back in this photo.

to be continued...

the surprise and post interviews...



also, lets celebrate me and the fact that this is my 300th post. 
thank you in advance. 


Double Scoop Photography.

wk 43.

exploring the US Grant during our stay. 

pure luxury. 

sweet, sweet relief.

Double Scoop Photography.