Jason's Graduation

It finally came time for us to go and spend some time with Jason this last week. It was 10 weeks in the making and it seemed like it was taking forever for it to finally get here. We left last Wednesday and got home last night. It was so nice to see Jason. Thursday was Family day and we had to arrive on base around 7:00 in the morning. So. Carolina is 2 hours ahead of us and so it was 5:00 our time. We didn't arrive into So. Carlina until after midnight the night before, thanks to delays at the airport so we were really tired, but so excited to finally see Jason. We got on base around 7:30 and waited and waited until after 9:00. Then they finally started. His Srgt talked for a few minutes and then finally had the soldiers come out. They played "American Soldier" by Toby Keith and from the woods in front of us you could see smoke and then they were throwing sticks of dynamite to make explosions. All of the sudden here comes our soldiers running out from the woods. It was so amazing. I was bawling and I couldn't wait to run off the bleachers and find my hubby. They finally let us go out onto the field and find them. It took us a few minutes because their were so many people there, and Jason couldn't leave formation until we found him. So I was looking all over and then all of the sudden I heard my name, I turned around and there he was, still in formation of coarse, but I had found him. I ran as fast as I could to him and hugged him for as long as I could. He was crying and so was I. It was the most amazing feeling to finally see my husband who I haven't seen in over 10 weeks. The kids and my mother-in-law found us and Keana was so over joyed to see Jason. Both of them were crying so hard when they saw each other, it made my heart melt.
After our reunion we were able to spend the day together on base. We went and saw where he had been sleeping for the last 10 weeks and then we drove around base and saw all the different places he had done his training. We took the kids bowling and did a little shopping. We then headed over to where he had been going to church and met his Branch President and the ward missionaries. We then had to drop Jason off and head back to our hotel for the night. The next morning was Graduation. We again had to get up at 5:00 to be able to get there by 7:00. Graduation wasn't until 9:00, but there were hundreds of people there so we wanted to get there early. We got to sit in the V.I.P. section because Jason was an honored grad. He was top 12 out of 619 soldiers. He was number one in his unit for Marksmanship. I was so proud of him. They recognized him at graduation and after wards the families of the honor grads got to go to a special section and meet with one of the main leaders and they gave him a special award for being an honor grad. Then they were released for the rest of the day and were able to leave base. Jason's mom was so sweet and took the kids swimming so that Jason and I could spend some time together. We went to Arby's and got him a Jamocha shake (his favorite) and talked for over 3 hours about everything. We had a lot to talk about. We also found the So. Carolina temple and took a couple of picts together in front of it. It was a beautiful temple. We had to take Jason back that night, and we weren't sure if we were going to see him again, so we had to say our goodbyes, just in case. The next day we were getting ready to leave and head back to the airport when Jason called and said he was released until the next day at 5:00. We drove back to base and talked for sometime about what we could do to make it work. After a few phone calls were able to stay until Monday. Jason was thrilled. We checked back into our hotel and took the kids swimming and spent some quality family time together. The next day we went to the movies and then we had to make our journey back to base to say our final goodbye. It was the hardest thing I have had to do so far. I didn't think it would be hard, but the thought of leaving him there for 8 more weeks and me coming home and being a single mom again was killing me. We both cried a lot. I walked around like a zombie the rest of the day. I was so depressed. Yesterday we spent the entire day flying home. We got home around 7:00 last night. I hated leaving Jason behind, but I was so grateful for the time we had to spend together. We had the most amazing time and it is something I will never forget. Sorry this post is so long, if you get through to the very end I am amazed.