day one.

Well, one of the days I've been dreading has finally arrived. This morning at 4:00am, Eric and I got up, packed the car, and I drove him off to the airport. With a quick kiss and hug, he was off. I drove back in silence, came home to our already-quieter apartment, and recessed back into the depths of our bed to be alone with my thoughts before the sun had even risen. Eric, it never gets easier to be without you; maybe more familiar, but just as hard as all the times before.

If I'm thankful for any part about how this is going, it would be the fact that we're getting "phased in" to this deployment. Eric's time overseas won't actually even start until August. The fact that he's part of the Reserves in the Oregon National Guard means his unit needs more training-up time than an active unit would. So, here's what we're looking at:

Currently, Eric is heading to Fort Hood, TX for a nine-day training. From there, he will go straight to Gowen Field in Idaho for another training period. That wraps up in early June, and he gets a few days to come home and visit (yay!!). Luckily, we've figured out a way to reschedule that surprise party we had been planning to occur on this break. It will be a whirlwind, but I'm so glad we still get the chance to celebrate him, even if it's no longer a surprise, and even if it will be a very busy trip.

His time home wraps up on June 11th, at which point he's really gone for a while. He'll fly back off to Texas for his last period of intensive training. While there, he has a few days of leave, but can't come home. For that, I'll fly down to him for a little reunion in Austin, TX. Then once August rolls around, he'll ship off to Afghanistan and be there until May of 2015. Oy vey.

Of course, all of this above is according to the ever-changing schedule of the army. I'm still crossing my fingers that this deployment somehow gets shortened.

Anyhow, there's a very bright side of our current situation: we still have several days over the next couple months that we will be with each other in person! I am so very thankful and excited for that. Eric also has very good access to his phone in the meantime, which means we'll be able to talk and text regularly for a while.

On the other side, it is hard to believe that our days between Sniper School and deployment trainings have come to a close. In my very first dd&dt post, I wrote about the 81 days that we had, and my wish for those days to pass as slowly as time would allow. Well, after the army stepped in, those 81 days turned out to be more like 67 days. Regardless, we really did accomplish so much in that short amount of time.

First, we got engaged. Although doing this was something we had planned on and talked about for a long time, Eric made this experience such a surprise and so romantic.

Once we were engaged, it was amazing how much wedding planning we got done in a short amount of time. We basically accomplished all the decisions that Eric wanted to be a part of. So, after several venue visits we decided on celebrating our day at Zenith Vineyards in August of 2015. We also got our engagement pictures done, scheduled that photographer for the wedding, and are in-talks with a few caterers right now. Personally, we just can't wait for the tastings ;). We also asked one of my very best friends, Mishaun, to officiate our ceremony. He happily said yes, and we're so thrilled to have someone so close to us contribute to our day in such a special way.

Less than a month after we were engaged, we got married. Talk about a whirlwind! For a reminder as to why the marriage came before the wedding, feel free to read here.

This craziness doesn't sound crazy enough to you? Yeah, us neither. Which is why we decided to wrap up our time together with a couple of ring finger tattoos.

I never thought I'd be the person to get a marriage tattoo, but I absolutely love it, and wouldn't take my decision back for a second. The idea to do this came up when Eric realized he'd rather not take a wedding ring overseas, but wanted to have something to remind him of me and our marriage. As anyone who knows Eric can tell he's pretty enthusiastic about tattoos, so a ring finger tattoo was the natural choice for him. After some thought, I decided I'd join in on this choice as well. So for now, we're saving wedding bands for the wedding ceremony next year.

So, yeah, I'd say our 67 days together were very eventful. In addition to all these milestones, we had so many incredible nights in-between. We've created wonderful memories after all the nights out with friends, dinners with family, watching the Blazers, cuddling with Perry, trips to the beach, Colorado, and Corvallis, hunting, lots of beer, lazy mornings, yurting, Timbers games, and just hanging out. It really was a wonderful time.