Throwback Thursday

I was wanting to start a Flashback Friday tradition, but since I update the blog on Fridays with the new week of baby growing beginning, I decided to Do Throwback Thursdays instead.  Same idea, different name.

So for the past two weeks I have wanted to walk down memory lane and share events from the past with my 11 loyal blog readers...haha, but things came up or I had already blogged a complete novel...so it didn't happen.  This week's Throwback Thursday will be a recap of April 2010.  So here we go!

April 2010:

The day Brian left

On March 28, 2010 my world (which was only whole for two short months) fell apart again.  My brand-spanking-new husband left for Afghanistan (he had just returned from a year in Korea).  April was rough, I flew to Ft. Lauderdale to move out of my apartment, drove up to Raleigh, and unpacked just to pack again a few days later. I was not the most pleasant person to be around.  I was mean to my mom and to my sister, I couldn't eat without becoming sick to my stomach, and I was just all around sad.  I had just spent an entire year away from Brian and just when I thought it was all over I was presented with this surprise deployment, I couldn't handle it, I didn't have it in me.  I spent our first married holiday at home with my family, but away from my husband and the following Tuesday the movers came to take my life across to country to a place where I knew only one person.
 "Why would you do such a thing, Marianna?  Why would you not stay at home to be around your friends and family during a difficult time in your life?"
The answer is simple...I needed to be around people who knew what I was going through, I needed the comfort of seeing men in uniform and knowing they had experienced the same heartache.  I needed that support system and I needed to thicken my skin by getting through this completely on my own.
Back on track.  When the packers finished I headed over to a good friend's house and we set out on the road for our cross country adventure.  I could not have picked a better person to be with me on this trip.  Franny is the wife of a former Marine (he was still active duty at the time) and she had been through two combat deployments at the time.  She helped me through the year of Korea and now she was helping me though the next five months.  She helped to calm my fears when I didn't hear from Brian and she was able to relate to my feelings.  She was also completely on board to stop at some of the ridiculous places we saw along the way and to drive for 16 hours a day.  Here are a few pictures from our journey:

Buffalo Farm where there were no Buffalo

Mitchell Corn Palace...so not as cool as we thought it would be

Wall Drug where they have "Free Ice Water"

Franny, Brian, and Me at Mt Rushmore

Ok, so these pictures were mainly from South Dakota, but that's where we stopped and saw the the BFE stuff that was there.  It took us three full days of driving plus the couple hours we got in at the start of the trip. Our first night we stopped just outside of Lexington, KY.  Night two was spent in Sioux Falls, SD.  Night three was spent in Rapid City, SD.  Night four was somewhere near Boseman, MT. And finally reached our very empty house on the fifth night!

Upon our arrival I got very sick and threw up all over myself at the PX (awesome) and poor Franny had to deal with me laying around, sleeping, and feverish.  I was able to find the energy to show her some of Seattle just before taking her to the airport though.  From there I was on my own, I spent six days a week playing soccer and working out.  I then met my good friend, Sam, who helped the rest of the deployment fly by.  I don't know what I would have done without her!

The other big thing for April is Chloe's birthday!  This is new this year, not really a throwback, but my furry baby turned 10 years old this year!  I can't believe she is that old, she still seems like a kitten to me.  Oh how time flies!

Well, that's all for now!  Stay tuned for an update tomorrow!