Preparing to Return Home

As the day of our return gets closer and closer, we both continue to get more and more excited! Chris and I had an awesome date last night! We went to our favorite restaurant here, Mama Marias Italian Restaurant. We just love the guy that owns the place! While there, we played a little game we call "I am excited about". We take turns saying what we are excited about. Our game lasted a long time since they were so busy. As crazy as it sounds, our trip we are about to take was not even mentioned. We were more excited about things related to going home and things we will do when we get home. Oh - I am sure that we will have a great time - but the thoughts of returning home are just so more exciting! I am anxious to see my mom again - even though my time in WV will be very short. I am excited to see my sweet TaiChi dog again too. I am hoping that she will not be mad at us and that she will be happy to see us again. Just in case, we will stop and get her a nice bone to give her when we return.
Its hard to believe that a room in the Army Lodging Hotel has been "home" for 4 months. We are checking out of here today and when we return from our trip, we will be staying off base instead of on base. We have to turn our IDs in, so we would have to move off base any way for the last couple of days.
Shortly after we returned from Iraq, Chris received a nice bonus check for referring an employee to SAIC. When he got it, I decided to let him do whatever he wanted with it without complaining. Well, he decided he wanted a big screen TV. Now... let me just say that when we left to go to Iraq - I had a nice BIG craft room. When we returned, our house sitters had moved our couch in there and I decided I liked the way it looked, so I decided I wanted to leave it there. So now, I was sharing my craft room with the couch and a pretty small TV. Well, Chris decided the best place for the grandfather clock we purchased in Italy would be - where? The bonus room - which is supposed to be my craft room! So we removed the drawing board that had belonged to my daddy and put it in storage temporarily. So, now, he was saying he wanted to move a bigscreen TV in it. I told him that it was not the most responsible thing to do with the money but I would not complain - no matter what he decided to do with the money. But soon, he had me excited about it as well - so that is what he purchased. Luckily his brother (Steve) and Steve's wife (Dana) showed him on the internet a site that told you what size of TV is best for your size of room. Thanks to them, Chris agreed not to buy an oversized one. {{huge thank you to you Steve and Dana!}} Because of the other additions to MY craft room -my craft area was reduced and moved to the corner of the room... Anyway, we got the TV and Chris brought it home and set it up - added his gaming systems, a laptop computer and dvd player to it. He was like a kid in a candy store. HOWEVER, I deflated his enthusiam when I announced that he could have the bigscreen TV, but we would not be getting cable until he went back to work. So much for his summer of fun with the bigscreen - lol. Even though I informed him that he was not to get cable yet, I never complained - and luckily he abided by my wishes. We have not had cable for YEARS. So, yesterday guess what I did? I contacted the cable company and made an appointment for them to install cable. I have to admit, I am a little excited about the thoughts of curling up on the couch and watching TV and movies in High Definition. It doesn't always take much to make me happy.