At Last: A Homecoming Story in Pictures

On December 10th, we welcomed my husband's unit home from a year~long deployment to The Middle East.

It was such an overwhelmingly emotional day ~ one we'd been counting down and looking forward to for twelve long months. 

Even though I've had plenty of time to collect my thoughts and choose the right words, I'm still finding it next to impossible to express even a handful of the things that went on in my head and heart in those moments, so... I'm going to let the pictures do (most of) the talking, instead.

Photographs, after all, sometimes have a way of telling a story a little better than what words can say ~ don't you think?

Jake's sign for his Daddy ^: "Santa came early this year... he brought my Daddy home!"

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

I think my heart nearly pounded out of my chest when we saw this:

Tears of indescribable JOY and RELIEF!

Jake, on the other hand, didn't know what to think about all of the screaming women ;-)

Pure happiness.

The face of a Mother welcoming her son home from war ^.  I love her.

There are just no words for this ^ photograph.  No words.

  I will never, ever, ever forget this moment:

 Ever.

 Off to check in his weapon so he could come home with us.  

  Balloons for Daddy.

  My Mom~in~Law and Father~in~Law, patiently waiting for the Homecoming Ceremony to begin.

  Me waiting, too ~ although, not so patiently. 

  Then, just like that, it was all over.

  Jake RAN into his Daddy's arms, just like I'd dreamed he would.

  More happy tears.

 And, one very happy little boy. 

  After twelve long, painful months...

 He's HOME. 

 At long last.