As many of you know I went away this week to go see Brad graduate from BCT in Ft. Benning, GA. I imagined this trip to be almost as wonderful as our honeymoon. I planned and dreamed and saved almost from the minute he first left. I had high hopes and high expectations. I packed up my oldest child, a very talkative four year old, and drove to the airport.
I happen to be very paranoid when it comes to navigating around areas that I am not completely familiar with, so I got to the Rochester airport two hours early...that may have been overkill. We got through security and waited another hour and a half to board our plane...oops! Thankfully at this point in the trip Ryan was still high on excitement and didn't seem to mind the wait.
When we finally boarded he was bouncing all over the place. He kept opening and shutting the little window until I finally told him to knock it off and he introduced himself to everybody he came into contact with. A few times he even asked a few oldies how old they were :/...thankfully, they all handled it well. We arrived at our layover in Philadelphia with barely a hiccup in our plans. Philadelphia is actually where the hiccups started. I got a call from a friend, whose fiance was in Brad's platoon, saying that a bunch of guys had lost their day passes for Family Day and Graduation. Brad was one of them. I was livid. To make matters worse I found out that it wasn't even his fault. He was being punished for somebody else's screw up and in turn I was being punished. I sucked it up and forged ahead to Atlanta. I was determined to see Brad even if it wasn't for the amount of time that I had been expecting.
Atlanta didn't have any better news to offer me than Philadelphia did. Atlanta's frustrations were all financial. The rental car place wanted to put a huge hold on my card, making it impossible for me to pay for my hotel room. Thank God, my father in law was more than willing to help out or Ryan and I would have been camping out in that dang car.
We had left for the Rochester airport at 9:15am and by the time we got into the car to make our two hour trip to Columbus it was like 9:15pm. I was tired, stressed and disappointed. We finally made it to Columbus a little before 1am, after stopping for dinner with some friends and cleaning up Ryan's display of car sickness from the back seat of the rental...yuck!
The next (or the same) morning I was up at 5:30am to make myself look good for my man! I hope he liked the bags under my eyes.... By 7:15am we were off to Ft. Benning for the Beret Ceremony. I was nervous and excited about seeing Brad. When I finally saw him walking over to us my first thought was "Finally! Man, he looks sexy!" I gave him a quick hug (darn those rules about PDA while in uniform) and started snapping pics of him and Ryan. He had to leave like 7 minutes later until our spousal meeting at 11am. I sorta just stood around watching everyone else and feeling envious of all the women who got to spend the whole day with their soldier. Finally the pavilion emptied out and it was just me and Ryan sitting there. My friend, who got to spend the day with her husband, called to say that her in laws were coming back over to give me and Ryan a ride to where the meeting was being held. I was so grateful and relieved. Those people were my saving grace on this trip.
At the Rec center I finally got to see Brad again...YEA! The meeting was short and completely pointless and afterwards we met a few of his friends. This is where it gets bad. He asked one of the guys what time they were supposed to go back and received incorrect information. He showed up late to wherever he was supposed to meet and got chewed out by a DS. He was told he would not be graduating and that more than likely he would be sent home for good. That ruined the whole four hours that we got to spend together. We spent the whole time upset and worried about the future and just plain angry. It was hot outside in the GA heat and on top of that we were completely mortified.
Ryan and I went back to our hotel and I just prayed like crazy. I got a bunch of other people to pray too. That night around 11pm I got a phone call from Brad saying that he would be allowed to graduate, but not be a part of the ceremony. He was still in the army and head of to AIT as scheduled...PHEW! I was on cloud nine. Who cares about a stupid ceremony? Brad was still able to continue doing what he set out to do. We decided that I should still attend the ceremony, so that Ryan could see all the soldiers and all the cool stuff that happens during those things.
So, the next morning I followed my friend and her in laws to the ceremony. I thought I would be fine, but as soon as the ceremony ended I felt completely alone. Everyone was hugging and crying and snapping pictures with their soldiers and I was just standing there with Ryan. I lead him quickly to our car and got the heck out of there. We went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and not soon after I got a text from Brad, saying that he was not allowed to see me that day. I wanted to kill somebody. Did I really just spend a thousand bucks to visit my husband for four hot and depressing hours?! I decided that for dinner I was taking Ryan to Chuck E Cheese. We needed to get out of the hotel room and he deserved to have a little fun. So, off we went for two hours of loud obnoxious fun. When we got back to the hotel I got a text from Brad, telling me to get my butt to the airport the next day super early, so that we could hang out. I started packing up all our stuff immediately, so I could leave asap the next morning.
The next morning we met our friends downstairs for breakfast to say goodbye and then we headed out. I made it to the airport without getting lost and met up with Brad. The time we spent at the Atlanta airport was the best time of the whole trip. We just hung out and talked without the threat of "going home" over our heads and plus, it was air conditioned...score! And, I got to kiss him AND hold his hand...woot, woot!!
So, basically I got to see my husband for less than 10 hours the entire trip. Was it what I was expecting? Not even close. Was I disappointed? Extremely. Would I do it all over again? Hmmmm...let me get back to you on that one. Am I happy that I went? YES!!!! Brad is definitely worth me having to jump through hoops to see his handsome face and taste his salty kiss ;-)
