R&R

I've been meaning to tell you all about how the rest of the R&R time was having Gunnar home.  For starters, R&R is short for The United States Rest and Recuperation Leave Program.  I have to disagree with calling it "leave".  They are coming home, we called it leaving when he left his home, family and life.  Anyway, semantics aside, R&R is granted to soldiers that are "in theater" aka deployed for 1 year.  I think soldiers with shorter deployments (6 months, 9 months) are not granted R&R. 

All that said, there wasn't a heck of a lot of rest actually going on while he was home.  Gunnar had a week of traveling just getting to Ohio, and when he finally did he was pretty jet lagged.  Right smack in the middle of the 15 days of R&R my sister got married and the preparations took up a good amount of my time.  We tried to get to all of his favorite restaurants and do lots of things with the kids, and also try to do some things just the two of us.  Heck, Gunnar probably wanted to do a few things on his own too but I feel like the time just flew by so fast, I'm sure we didn't get to check everything off the list that we wanted to.

There were a few things that were really fantastic about the time we had together.  Just some things that made me fall in love with him all over again, things I had desperately missed since he's been in Afghanistan.  Here's a few examples:

It was really nice to get dressed up and have an actual date.  A date involving red lipstick, a dress, dinner downtown and a hotel room with an amazing view.  It had been way too long since I'd had a romantic night out!

Seeing Gunnar sitting across the table from me = heaven.  Seriously, I didn't need to order food, I was totally just eating up the view.

To me this is priceless.  The kids are pawing all over someone besides me for two weeks!  It was so great to have them interact with their Daddy and he with them, like they've never even been apart.  They absolutely couldn't get enough attention from him.

Fun times paddle boating.

Please note that he again has both kids with him.  They really didn't want much to do with me once they got used to having Daddy around again.  And after 7 months mostly alone with them, I was totally okay with that.

Precious Father/son moments like this.  Could it get any sweeter?

He's laughing his butt off watching me trying to figure out the new camera.  (The old one was damaged when he jumped over a city wall in Afghanistan).

Gunnar seriously fed the kids brownies and Capri-Suns for breakfast the day of the wedding.  Please believe me when I say this would never happen on my watch.  He spoiled those kids rotten while he was home.

While I was on wedding duty, Gunnar was in charge of dressing the kids and getting them to the ceremony.  I'd say he did a pretty fantastic job.  The kids looked adorable!  He even did their hair.

Did I mention I got busy with wedding details?  Yeah just little details like making and assembling a cake to feed 150 people!! A collaborative effort between me and my mom of course.

I love this photo.  Just Gunnar and his buddies enjoying cigars at the wedding.  Finally a little Rest and Recuperation for the man.

I love this man.  I am so very impatiently awaiting his safe return.