and our soldier is off...

We found out that John was up for a deployment a couple of months ago.  This has happened before and someone has always ended up going in his place for one reason or another.  This time, it was meant to be and he left on Monday to travel across the world to his destination, and will return home in January.  We took some picture with him before he left.  (Man, I should have gotten a picture with him!)

 

 

Two things to note about these pictures.  John isn't clean shaven.  His scruff wouldn't be allowed at work, but he had been on leave for a few days.  Also, this uniform he is wearing is for Afghanistan, where he is not going.  They gave him the wrong one, and had to give him a different set. 

Here is one of John smiling (my fave).....he was laughing because the man can hardly sit still and take a normal picture! 

He was constantly doing things like this:

The next four pictures are being put on pillows for the kids to be able to give their daddy a hug every night. 

It was interesting going through the pre-deployment process.  The Air Force gets you all set up with things like gas masks, cold weather gear, boots, etc. 

We dropped the kids off at school with a big hug from dad, and headed straight for the airport.  It was much harder than I thought it was going to be to say that last goodbye, and I am really hoping that we don't have to go through this many more times before his career in the military is over.   I've got a big long list of projects to accomplish and stay busy, and the kids have school and activities to keep them busy, so we are all going to do great.  We love our soldier...stay safe!