Freedom Friday, April 16, 2010

WARNING - Grab your tissues! (If you don't, don't say I didn't warn you!) For the video, not my words below, haha.

When a friend shared this video last week, I KNEW I had to post it for Freedom Friday. It reminded me of when we surprised our boys for Kevin's R&R in 2006. We decided not to tell the boys when he was coming home on leave. What is so funny when I think back to that time is that my kids are so unsuspecting and trusting of their mama. I had them dressed with all matching shirts. Of course, at that time I often had them dress up the same for many patriotic events, so I can see why they didn't think anything of it. I had told them that we were picking up a Soldier that needed a ride home from the airport..someone named Joe (you know like G.I. Joe, haha). They were clueless. They probably figured it was yet another thing mom was doing to help someone else out...again.

I had hoped that I could contain myself and not ruin the surprise. It had been a very rough deployment so far and my emotions were running pretty high but I kept myself together. When the plane arrived, I stood by the window to see if I could spot him while the boys were waiting by the security (if you have been in Killeen, you know the airport is small).

There were a lot of Soldiers on that flight so I went and stood by the boys and told them to watch for a Soldier. They rolled their eyes at me because Soldier after Soldier came through security. Finally I spotted Kevin and I said to them, oh I see my friend! They weren't really too excited until Kevin walked through. I will never in my life forget watching all 3 of their jaws drop. In fact, as I type this I want to cry remembering their reaction. I thought they would rush him or something but they froze with jaws wide open.

Here are a few pictures from that day. (oh my, they were so little *sob*)

Watching daddy come through security.

I love how Neil is looking at me like he's not sure this is happening.

Daniel was not sure his daddy was really there, he had to keep touching him.
After watching the boys with their daddy, all the emotions flooded. Nothing like having the ugly cry captured on film forever but this is real emotion folks.
Even though I knew all along he was coming home, I still couldn't believe he was in my arms again. And the boys just kept on staring.
This picture was taken about an hour later and they still just stared, lol.

And the video...don't forget...I told you to grab the tissues!