A welcome home that will never be forgotten...

As you all know, Jake finally made it home from a year in Afghanistan on March 19, 2009 at 4:10 am. I can honestly say that day will be one that I will never forget. We have been in the exact same hangar, doing the same thing, but for some reason this welcome home was so much more special. I believe that part of it was that we know that Jake will not go on another deployment unless he gets called back when he is finishing up his Inactive Ready Reserve time. Also, it was so exciting to know that he was finally going to get to be Katelynn's daddy in person and not over the computer. Many of you know that we were a little nervous about how Katelynn was going to respond to Jake because she is a shy little girl who takes a while to warm up to people. The amazing thing is that she did the exact opposite of what I thought she would do and completely warmed up to him in the first five minutes of seeing her. She took no time in showing daddy "the lay of the land," especially focusing on her toy room upstairs. Sadly, our upstairs room usually was Jake's "man room" and now it just contains his TV and is engulfed by Katelynn's stuff! The two of them are inseparable now and Katelynn still only says dada with no mama in site!

This picture was taken in the hangar right after we first got to hug each other.

Katelynn and I were right after Jake drove up. We never ended up get a picture of all three of us together or of all the decorations at the house.

Jake had only been home one day and Katelynn was already trying to be just like daddy!