Reunion

Matt got a special R & R to see his grandfather who was undergoing surgery and we took advantage of his visit as well. It was pretty last minute, but I booked flights to Dallas so we could all meet up. Of course, I had to take off the first week of school (again), but it was worth it. Makaela has been having some issues with Matt's absence. She really misses him and doesn't understand why he needs to work so much. She has been seeing a counselor on base about this, so when we found out about the R & R, we thought it was just what Makaela needed. We didn't tell Makaela that Matt was going to be in Dallas (just in case something happened last minute and he couldn't get away from Iraq) and she thought we were just going to see the grandparents. The counselor did warn me that some kids shy away at seeing the deployed parent again, so on the last leg of our trip, I told her that Grammy was bringing her a surprise. When she guessed a Barbie movie, I thought I needed to narrow down the guessing, so I told her it was a person. At first she said, "Is it you?" and then realized that was silly since I was sitting right next to her. Then she said, "Is it my daddy?" I thought, "Damn, this girl is good". I just told her that we would have to wait and see. When she did see Matt, she said, "I knew it was going to be you"- melt my heart! I apologize for shooting the video from behind but between carrying Mia, a backpack, a Dora backpack and walking down steps while holding a camera, I'm lucky I got this. Notice the group of young ladies at the foot of the stairs. Matt had a mini fan club. When we finally got downstairs, they all started applauding.