Life Lately

Happy Friday, yall! I wanted to do a little life lately post because life lately has just been so darn good. Deployment is not fun, and I am the first to admit that, but man is it wonderful when they come home! It's just been pure bliss ever since. Every day is so much fun having Parker home. 

We are pretty much back to our normal routine, but that's exactly what we both wanted. Normalcy. Even though life is pretty much back to normal, the days are sweeter and the time is just that much more joyful. Deployment is a lot of things, but it does give you a deeper appreciation for each other and for the gift of marriage. So here's life lately...

Parker's first night back, we celebrated with a dinner in our favorite part of the city at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. So yummy! 

We celebrated our Christmas together the morning after Parker came home. I made our favorite cinnamon rolls (call us crazy, but we don't think anything beats Pillsbury in a can), played Christmas music, and we opened our stockings and presents. It was so fun getting to celebrate Christmas together!

The next day, we went to visit the ship Parker was deployed on (USS Eisenhower) to retrieve some things he had left on the ship. Since he flies the C-2, he is one of the few pilots that is land based and does not live on the ship. He spent the night on the ship every so often though. 

We had a nice little New Year's Eve celebration with some of our close friends. We had a lot to celebrate, mainly the fact that all three of our husbands were home to ring in 2017! Parker and I really thought this deployment was going to go until February, so getting to ring in the new year together was such a gift. 

Our husbands weren't the only ones getting kisses at midnight. Lots of kisses for baby too!

Pretty quickly after Parker got back, he started building a changing table for the baby. The project took him longer than he wanted it to, although I think 5 days seems pretty fast to me! He did such a good job. It's exactly what I wanted, and I love that he built it for his son. I helped provide entertainment during the building process and occasionally clamped something/drilled something/used the drill press/etc, but it was really all him, per usual. I love the finished product! We found one on Pottery Barn that we both liked, so Parker modeled the design after that. 

Snowmaggedon hit Virginia that weekend, so we were happily snowed in to binge watch Breaking Bad (we are behind the times), drink hot chocolate, and hang out with our favorite brown dog. She was pretty unimpressed with the snow, but what else is new? Something funny I want to remember: Parker is very protective of the bump and insisted I only be out in the snow for 5-10 minutes so the baby didn't get cold. I told him I was pretty sure the baby is very well insulated in there, but it made me laugh and fall in love with my husband that much more.

We have been doing date nights like they are going out of style (we are about to have a baby... for all intensive purposes, they are going out of style!), and we finally made it back to our favorite sushi restaurant. It's a fun little local place where they know us, so we always love going. We ordered all cooked rolls for me, but it was still so nice to have sushi again! We've decided it will be our first date night post-baby too!

Other than that, we've watched countless episodes of West World and Breaking Bad and seen three movies since he returned: Rogue One (neither of us really liked it, which was disappointing for my Star Wars loving husband), La La Land (we both really liked it), and Passengers (loved it). Tis the season for hot chocolate and TV shows!

That's life lately!