Scrapbooking Memories

This is the first of many scrapbook pages for Brandon's Deployement. It's going to be a bigger project than I anticipated, but it should be fun. I'll try to post my progress so everyone can see.

One Day Closer to "Welcome Home"

This weekend has been a roller coaster of emotions, one that we have been dreading since Brandon received his orders to deploy to Kuwait. We started out with a ceremony here in Worland on Saturday. After the ceremony Brandon and I decided to make the trip to Casper a day early. Mostly to get away from the lingering stress at home.
We were joined Sunday morning by my parents for lunch before yet another ceremony. After we ate we made our way to the Casper Events Center where we met up with Brandon's family. Once again we sat through an emotional ceremony barely being able to keep our composure.
After we were finished with the ceremony we wen to the hotel that the guard had arranged for us to stay. We were a little skeptical when we entered the lobby and saw wild floral patterns, a pink metal staircase, and an odd smell. We brushed it off and got the key to our room and made our way upstairs. Once we got to our room we opened the door to find one of the scariest rooms either of us has ever seen. There were two tiny beds with old dusty comforters, yellowed headboards, (I'm assuming they were probably white when the hotel first opened like a hundred years ago) and a tiny yellowed sink surrounded by dark rock. We put our bag on the bed and rested our leg on the edge, the mattress almost flipped on top of us. So needless to say we made a phone call and got a different hotel room in a more comfortable hotel. We really weren't looking to catch any disease.

After we got our lodging situation under control we met up with both of our parents for a delicious dinner at Outback.

We all met up bright and early this morning (before 7:00) at the hotel we were supposed to stay the night at, and got Brandon ready to leave. We decided to say our goodbyes at the hotel instead of trying to find each other at the airport and have the possibility of not getting to say goodbye. It was really tough to say goodbye to each other for another year. For me the second time was a little easier because we know what to expect, but Brandon told me it was harder the second time around.

So I guess it's time to use our blog for it's original intended use, to keep all of you updated on Brandon and what he's doing. Thanks everyone for all of your love and support, it has really been a blessing to us as we have prepared for this huge adjustment in our lives!

One Last Hurrah

Last Wednesday I finally pulled it off. I had been planning a surprise birthday/going away party for Brandon for over a month and it went over pretty good.
I had been stressing over all the details for quite a while like how many people will actually show up, how much food am I going to need, is anyone going to blow it. Needless to say, I was glad when it was all over.

My biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to get Brandon to the party. I decided to hold it at the fire hall since that is Brandon's home-away-from -home and I would be able to set up the party without him really knowing about it. I had everything all planned out when I got a phone call from one of his good friends who is also on the fire department. He told me there was a huge tanker spill in Manderson (which is 20 miles away) and Brandon went on the call (which was only 2 hours before the party was supposed to start). So I started to panic trying to figure out what to do now. Do I cancel the party or do I still have it and not know when the guest of honor will arrive.

Needless to say, I went with the latter. Everyone showed up and were really understanding about the situation. (It really helped that the majority of the guests were fellow fire fighters and their families). We cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs to feed everyone while they waited.

Finally, over an hour and a half after everyone had shown up Brandon drove up to the fire hall with tons of people waiting outside to wish him a happy birthday and good luck.

Needless to say he was super surprised. It was a real challenge for me to keep everything a secret from him. We tell eachother everying, Christmas is almost non-existant in our house because we can't keep anything a secret. But everyone pulled together and we had a good time in the end.








Brandon when he arrived at the fire hall. Still in shock














The cake that the store decorated for Brandon. It turned out GREAT!