the last few months...

the last few months of my life have been a whirlwind of activity - some awesome, some majorly sucky. in the latter category, granger's deployment to afghanistan. in the former category, eric and beth's wedding, which followed close on the heels of a very relaxing week at the beach.

let's start with the sucky... granger left for afghanistan in may... SIGH! in the time that he's been gone, i've realized several things about loving someone who's in the military, about myself, about granger and i, and perhaps even about life in general:

1. i don't care what anyone says, there is not one redeeming quality about deployments. they suck, and you just have to suck it up day by day to make it through them;
2. at the outset, 7 months doesn't seem like that long (especially when compared to army deployments), but at the moment i don't think any other chunk of time has ever moved more slowly;
3. i have an incredible ability to control what i worry about. for example... granger is at war. this, obviously, is dangerous. however, i have somehow managed (for the most part, anyway) to convince myself that no matter how much i worry, none of my worrying will do any good for him while he's over there. actually, me worrying may do him harm, since he will then have to worry how i'm faring at home. because of this, the best thing i can do is continue on with life-as-normal, be positive and happy on the phone with him when he calls, and find little ways to keep him included in my every day life. there's no room for worry in there;
4. despite being able to block my worries, i can do absolutely nothing about missing him incredibly. no matter what you do, you just can't turn that off. this makes it even more important to try to include him in what i do everyday. for example, i wear one of his necklaces all the time. it's not a memorial or a tribute to him, it's just a way that i can tell myself that he's still around all the time, even when he's really far away.
5. granger has been my rock through some hard and stressful times, but now that he's not here, i am relearning that i can be my own rock. also, i'm reminded that my friends are some of the most incredible people in the world! so maybe i was wrong about #1, maybe there is a teeny-tiny redeeming quality about deployments???
6. deployments require trust. a lot of it. i have to trust in his abilities and his training, and he has to trust that even though he is out of sight, he is not out of mind. if you don't have that trust, you don't have anything. if that trust is there, the relationship can only get better as the trust gets stronger and stronger.

ok, on to the happy... first and foremost, eric and beth's wedding! i've got to say, my brother made a fantastic choice for a wife! beth is one of the coolest people i've met, and every time i get to hang out with her i end up laughing a lot, which is a good way to determine the awesome-itude of people. hopefully *fingers crossed* i will be able to visit her and eric up in anchorage sometime this fall!!!

and the wedding... well, i should say the wedding week! my parents and i got there on june 14th (the wedding was june 18th), so we got some extra time to hang out with eric, beth, and beth's family. we were up in kincardine, ontario, a super cute town on the shore of lake huron. we did a little wedding-erranding, but mostly we just hung out and drank good wine/beer! as for the wedding itself, they couldn't have chosen a better day for the ceremony!!! i would guess that it was upper 60s/lower 70s on the 18th, with a clear blue sky. the ceremony was lovely, except for the fact that i had to listen to linsay blubbering behind me the whole time! luckily, faucet-face (as my dad calls her) carried some kleenex in her dress... there was also some excitement when a large bee landed in the maid-of-honor's bouquet. fortunately, the moh handled the situation gracefully, and no one (other than us bridesmaids) noticed anything.

after the ceremony, the newlyweds, the wedding party, and family members took pictures, some on the porch of the wilson house, others on the beach, and still others at the local golf house. after pictures, the reception! the reception was held in a large pavilion in downtown kincardine right on lake huron. there was plenty of food and drinks, and much merriment ensued!

ok, well i think this post has rambled long enough... eric and beth, i had a wonderful time at your wedding, and everything was just perfect. and granger, i love you and i miss you incredibly every single day!