Welcome Home Soldier!

Welcome Home Soldier!

It started January 3rd of this year or kind of on New Year's Eve.  I met Hunter at Abby's house for a little New Year's get together of playing Dance Central.  He was there but I didn't really notice him because he didn't speak at all the whole time I was there.  

So January 3rd rolled around and I went for my normal CrossFit workout at what was then SOF WODs.  Hunter, Abby and I all ended up doing the workout together and Hunter and I hung out for a little bit after at the gym and talked for a little while and then he found me on fb and we talked later that night. He was leaving the next day for basic training for the Air Force, with a goal of being a pararescue.

We kept in contact through letters while he was in basic training, and then talking on fb and text messages when he finally got his phone and computer.  So we have gotten to know each other for the past 6 months through mostly letters and text messages.

Long Awaited Leave...

He decided to stop training for pararescue because he realized he would rather be a Navy Seal and have a little more action in his life.  After deciding that he was given a desk job and working on getting some leave during the transition process.  He was a long process just for him to get leave.  The whole discussion between me and him about his leave started toward the end of June and he was hoping to come home on the 29th and be able to come on the camping trip with us from CrossFit.    Unfortunately that didn't happen and he was also hoping to be home for the 4th, no luck there either.  He had to get a lot of paperwork processed and things with his mom's paperwork(I think) squared away.  So we kept in contact just about every day to talk and I always asked about his leave.  His leave was finally set for July 6th - 14th.

As far as I knew when he first started the pararescue program he would have been a whole lot longer before we would have been able to come home.  I was honestly scared I wouldn't recognize him when I saw him.  I was excited he was coming home because I'd been talking to him since he left and hadn't seen his face or anything for 6 months.  I texted him the day he got home to wish him Welcome Home.  I was actually going to be out in his direction Saturday since he lives close to Lake Tillery and my sister's aunt has a house out there.  I was going to spend some time at the lake, so we planned to try and hang out at the lake for a little while together.

He ended up having errands to run and wouldn't be able to get out there before I was leaving to head back home for a lacrosse game.  He was actually heading back into town while I was on my way out and happen to spot me going down the road.  He sent me and text to see if he had passed me and sure enough it was me.  I wanted to stop and get gas since it was so cheap in Albemarle, so I told him where I was stopping and for him to turn around and meet me.  Well he did and we talked for a little bit and he wanted to make plans for the next day.

*Sunday Fun Day*

I had a full weekend planned - Saturday was the lake and my first lacrosse game; Sunday was a pool party with the college ministry that I am in at church.  I wasn't going to stay too late because Hunter wanted to do something that night.  I talked to him right as the pool party was started and he unfortunately let me know that his dad had made plans for a big dinner that he didn't know about until that morning.

So our up in the air plans were cancelled and he felt bad.  And I'm not going to lie I was a little disappointed that he wasn't going to be able to come hang out.  But because those plans didn't work he promised to be at the pool on Monday to swim with me.  We had bad plans to swim even before he came home and plans for Wednesday since it my closest thing to a day off!

Monday Adventures, Well Sort of?

We made our plans for Monday - swimming once I got off from my shift at the pool I was covering, lunch at the park(the original plan), and who knew from there.  

We swam for 45min and then I wanted to drop off my things at the club since I had to be up there later and it just would have been easier that way instead of me driving back and forth.  So we dropped off my stuff and headed for lunch.   The one good thing about dropping off my things is that there is plenty of food to grab from the Epicentre.  He was looking as all the places and telling me how he hadn't had them since leaving for training.  And I love how they always refer to themselves as "since I was a civilian."  So instead of the original plan of eating lunch in the park we ate lunch at Jason's Deli(which I've never had before) and then headed out to Freedom Park.  We sat around the pond under one of the trees on a picnic table.  We talked and laughed and played retarded games that only you play when your little - question games and truth or dare.  

Truth or Dare didn't last too long only because I skipped my turn because I couldn't think of anything and when I chose truth he couldn't think of anything and he's bad at the question game so I went back and chose dare.  Well my dare turned into a double dare.  Part 1: sit on the bench of the picnic table since I was on the table part.  Part 2: take off my hat since we were both wearing one.  Then he kissed me.  I had been wanting him to kiss me since Sunday when I found out he couldn't hang out.  I thought about making that his dare when it was his turn before it was his turn but I didn't have the guts to because I didn't want to make things awkward!

I was happy he did it because it was what I wanted but know all I think about is how hard it is to watch him leave.  

We left the park because he was getting hot and went over to Carolina Sporting Arms where my Uncle Scott used to be the manager.  He apparently used to go out there a lot, and was surprised when I told him how I knew about the place and that my uncle worked there.  We still had no idea what to do so we kept running errand that he wanted to do while in town.  Next stop a dive shop to get goggles since he can't keep track of his.  Goggles check and then we headed out to the greenway by CPCC for about an hour since we didn't have time to really do anything else.  We walked to the other side of 4th Street on the greenway and just hung out in the grass talking.

Adventures Await>>>

So the future plans for the rest of his time here are:

Wednesday I will work until 1pm at the club and spend the rest of the day with him on the lake, with hopefully no rain and then out to dinner for what was suppose to be our first date I guess? And who knows after that

Saturday we have talked about me taking him to the airport and his dad going ahead and getting started on driving his truck down to San Antonio since he isn't allowed to drive it back himself.  Plans for that are still up in the air for that!  It's going to be hard doing that though!