Getaway

You know what the worst part about my husband deploying?  

For me, it is not that he will not be there to help with the kids.  It is not that I will have to mow the grass.  It is not that I will not be able to run early in the morning or he will not fix my omelette for breakfast.  It is not that he will be 12 hours apart from me.  The absolute worst part is that he will not be there for me to physically touch and hold.  I will not be able to hold his hand as I fall asleep, give him a hug first thing in the morning, have his arm wrapped around me in church, sit next to me at dinner and just physically have him next to me.  I will miss that.  I am already missing that.  And the talks.  Every night, the hubs and I come together and just talk for a while, just us.  No tv or kids, just us. 

And so, for us, the most important thing for us to do before he left was to take a couple of days to have just with him.  For me to hold his hand non stop for two days without little hands demanding attention.  For us to talk about our fears and the realities of the 7 months before us without interruption.  For me to cry on his shoulder.  Just because my heart hurts that he is leaving.

And we were able to take those couple of days in Napa, California.  We rode the wine train through the vineyards, walked through one of the local wineries, slept in, watched tv and talked and talked.  It was so beautiful and definitely somewhere that we wanted to go to while we lived in the area.  

There is something so important and necessary to every marriage about spending time together.  It does not always have to be a getaway, because that rarely happens for us, or even a date.  But finding quiet time at the end of the day has become so important to us and has greatly deepened our marriage.   Making time to talk about the every day as well as the hard topics has brought us so much closer.  And especially when you have kids, finding that time can be so hard.  We are so thankful that we had time to be together.  

And while we were away, our sweet friends and fellow chaplain family kept our kids for us.  Here are a few pictures that I stole from her blog.  There are not many people that the girls will choose over me.  They usually do not like to leave their mother's side.  However, when we dropped them off at the Goecker's house, Clara Beth asked if I could leave now.  A sure sign that they were in great hands :)