I've kept you waiting long enough

So you know K got here on a Friday morning. For his first meal back home, we went out to lunch for a cheeseburger, where K enjoyed his first beer in 9 months. Then, he enjoyed his second beer. We stuffed ourselves with cheese fries and yummy cheeseburgers -- a nice, healthy first meal, but it was just what he wanted.

That night, I figured he might want to go out for Italian food for dinner, but he wasn't quite ready to share me with other people, so he wanted to order pizza and stay in. Not the healthiest first two meals back in the states, but they were nice.

The next few days, we relaxed and just enjoyed spending time together. K spent a lot of time spoiling Piper.






















We went to the gym a couple times and went running, we met up with a friend or two for dinner, and we went to several home stores to get ideas for our registry. His birthday was a few days before he arrived back home, so I took him to the spa where he'd gotten my gift certificate last Christmas. We got a couple's massage, and it was amazing! It was K's first professional massage. He loved it. (Duh!)

In the middle of the week, we headed to Pennsylvania to see K's family. His dad actually had a TV crew there to meet us when we arrived at the airport. They interviewed K and asked me a couple questions. Nothing like spending half a day traveling to find a camera being shoved in your face as soon as you land!

In addition to the TV crew, K's dad had quite a few of K's family and friends there to greet him. That was a really nice surprise. We all headed back to K's house, and his dad had sandwiches, buffalo wings and pizzas waiting for us -- in addition to Yuengl!ng, a really good lager that we always look forward to getting in PA (Yunegl!ng's breweries are in PA and Florida, and you can't get the beer in very many states).

It was neat to see so many of K's friends that first night. We drank beer, stuffed our faces and caught up on what everyone had been doing over the last year since K had last seen them. The next night, we went out to a bar with one of K's closest friends and my brother-in-law.

We went out with a larger group of friends to this interesting Co.yote Ugly-like bar that had just opened up. People could order a shot, and they were brought up onto the bar and taken to one end, where they were told to sit in a chair so the bartender of their choice would pour the shot into their mouth. Then, the person would have to stand up and brace themselves against the chair while the bartender actually beat the crap out of them with a belt. Definitely an interesting bar. (No, none of us did one of those shots.)

I didn't have to worry about driving, so I had plenty of lager and was ALL over that dance floor! I had a blast.





















































The next day, K, the same friend and I went to tour the Yuengl!ng brewery, since I'd never been before. It's America's oldest brewery. We got to go inside the caves where they stored the beer before refrigeration was invented. Even in the summer, it was actually really cool in the caves.





















































































That Friday night, I volunteered to be the DD. A big group of us went out to one really quiet bar, but we eventually found ourselves back at the Co.yote Ugly-like bar. Go figure, the place was even more fun that night. They had a lot more crazy things on a packed Friday night than they had the night before. They had silly string and balloons all over the place. Everyone in our group managed to drink quite a bit -- except for me. It was a fun night, but by the time everyone else was obnoxiously plastered, I was definitely glad to see it coming to an end.
















































































That Saturday, there was an event going on that was dedicated to K's cousin. K's dad had two more reporters there to interview him. Needless to say, he was getting a little annoyed by that point.

That afternoon, there was a surprise welcome home party for K at the rec hall of the private campground where he spent his summers (and then some) with his family growing up. It was K's dad who planned it, and it was him who wanted it to be a surprise. But it was K's dad who really sucks at keeping surprises and basically told K there would be a party. Still, though, K had no idea of the extent of it.

He'd gotten the party catered for 100 or 150 people, and there were kegs of K's two favorite beers. There was a projection screen set up so we avid college football fans could enjoy the party without worrying about missing our games.

Every once in a while, K sends me pictures of him or him and the guys together that I forward on to his family and our friends so they can see for themselves that he's doing OK and is still being his goofy self. Well, my FIL had taken all those pictures and had them blown up to probably 18x24 mini-posters. They were lining the walls of the room.

Also along the walls and ceiling were tons of red, white & blue decorations. FIL had gotten a couple beer banners (M!ller Light and Yuengl!ng, which are K's faves) made that said "Welcome home [K's rank, first name, middle initial, last name]." (I thought it was funny that it had all that info -- including the middle initial -- rather than just his first name or something.)

We were able to get several of K's friends Army friends to come in. Two were friends from K's previous base, and two were from Louisiana. All four have gotten out of the Army, and they happen to live within driving distance of PA. Two of the guys had deployed and come home since we had seen them. We hadn't seen one of the guys since Thanksgiving of 2005. And one of the couples had become parents since we'd last seen them. All that definitely made for a pretty neat reunion.

The whole thing was pretty spectacular, and K was overwhelmed by the level of the surprise. What's funny is K and I hadn't seen a lot of the people there since early in the summer of 2007, which is just before we knew we were going to have to plan the quick September wedding before K deployed. Many people congratulated us but immediately said, "You didn't tell us you were getting married!" Each time, we explained that it was because we didn't know.

We were surprised to see people keep handing K cards. Some were "Welcome home" cards (they really do have cards for everything), but most of them were wedding cards. People kept saying to us, "This is like your wedding reception!" K and I exchanged confused glances and kept telling people how that's coming later, but card after card after card was given to us.

K and I kept trying to make it over to the food line so we could eat, but we kept getting stopped by different people who wanted to hug us, congratulate us and catch up with us. It really did wind up feeling like a wedding reception! Everyone else had finished dessert before we were finally able even to fix our dinner plates -- only to get briefly interrupted again.

It was fun, though, and it was great to see so many people. There was lots of drinking that night, so it was good none of us had to drive anywhere.


































































The next day, we spent a little more time with everyone before they had to head home. We hung out at the campground and rode jet skis for a bit, and then we headed back to K's house.

















We spent the rest of our time in PA relaxing and visiting with a few more people. What's funny is we're always both very ready to come home when it's time to leave PA. K's dad is a sweetheart, but he's just so ... old. He's barely older than my grandparents, but I never realized how "with it" they still are. Sure, they forget things from time to time like anyone, but with K's dad, it's a completely different story.

We spent our last day just trying to have a good sense of humor about all of it. We laughed about K's dad's insistence on constantly feeding us (It's K's mom's family who is Italian, but his dad definitely fits in well on that part). He has this habit of naming off almost everything in the refrigerator to try to find something for us to eat:

"Want some shrimp?"

"No thanks, I'm still full from lunch."

"Do you like tomatoes? I just bought some fresh ones the other day."

"No, I don't like them."

"You don't like tomatoes? Do you think K will want some?"

"Probably not. He doesn't like them either." (We'd just told him that the day before.) "Thanks, though."

"How about olives? You want some olives?"

"No thanks, really. I'm still full."

"OK. Are you sure?"

GAH!

It was definitely good to get back to Dallas and have some time to rest and be alone -- for just a few hours.

So that's the first 10 days of R&R. I'll post about the rest soon. We managed to cram even more into those last 10 than we did into the first 10.

No wonder it went so fast.