"Welcome Home!" - Oak Harbor, Washington Family Photographer

     Thank you Sarah for allowing me to experience a 'welcome home'!  What an emotional day!  No one understands what a military wife goes through except for us.  It's something that helps us relate to each other and through that we are able to lean on one another.  Whether our husbands deploy for three months, six, or a year, nothing makes it any easier, especially with kids.  I will soon be walking into a six month deployment and I don't even know where to begin with preparing my kids and myself.  These ladies will have to do at least two six month deployments in three years.  It really does take someone very strong to take on this role.  As we wait patiently for our husbands, we play the role as both mother and father to our kids while still maintaining our home.  Oh how I regret not journaling all my 'adventures' while my husband was deployed.  It seems like everything just falls apart: your dog gets sick, your kid gets sick, you get sick, something in the house breaks, you put too much oil in the mower and it wont start, you kill the weed eater, the car tire has a slow leak, his car battery dies, the pilot light in your water heater went out, you forgot to pay a bill!  The list is endless, but boy has it made us all stronger women!  I don't doubt our husbands jobs are hard, but the spouses definitely have the harder role.  My hat goes off to all these women, especially Sarah, a mother of four, Mary Kay Consultant, leader of Officers' Christian Fellowship, and part of several other organizations; she is a phenomenal woman.  

     Knowing I will soon be experiencing this for myself in a few months has made this day much harder.  A lady Sarah introduced me to had her baby while her husband was on deployment.  I had the privilege of witnessing the moment he got to hold his son for the very first time!  What a moment!  

     A special welcome to all the spouses who came home yesterday!  I am so thankful everyone made it back safe.