Day 5 and ICE!

Day 5: Post a Photo of a Favorite Memory

This was when Paul came home for his R&R in August 2007. This day, plus when he got home from Iraq are two of my most treasured memories. The day he got back from Iraq - I still remember that like it was yesterday (and it was almost five years ago!). It was a cool night and we were all standing around down at the bottom of the hill with all the work buildings all around, the parade ground behind us, the big bleachers facing the opposite way. We saw the white bus go up the hill to the armory and a few minutes later when all the guns had been checked in, I heard Gunny Gress (soon to be Master Sgt Gress) calling cadence in the distance, as the battery marched down the hill, leaving spaces for those who had returned early due to injury and the two  who would not be returning at all  ... I was good friends with Gunny Gress' wife and I told her not to be weirded out that her husband's voice was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. On the day pictured - it was just such a relief! Paul had been extended and I'd gone through such a yucky and stressful spring/summer. My friend Kalyn was there to document everything and I'm SO glad she was.

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So, it's an ice day! Carly's school follows Prince William County schools when it comes to closures. It seems silly to close for ice, but PW County is really big and there are some bus routes and hills that just wouldn't be safe for all the kids. We actually live at the top of a giant hill, and I'm pretty happy not to be driving down it today. Carly's sitting here asking machine-gun questions and chewing a banana in my ear, which are maybe not in my top ten favorite things to experience first thing in the morning, but it is what it is. I'm planning some very excitng and glamorous activities for us today, namely organizing the GIANT MOUNTAIN of stained or outgrown clothes that lives in Bree's closet. Whooee!