Daniel is HOME!

 

So back in September, Daniel (finally) came home after two long years!!!
He came home on September 30, 2015
All day long I was so so nervous. I couldn't eat anything and I spent so long deciding on outfits and how to do my hair, I was a wreck.

It's a good thing I had work all day to distract me. We left for the airport as soon as I got home that evening. My whole family came which I am still so grateful for, it meant the world to have them there to support me and calm me down :)

Daniel's flight landed and we were waiting at the bottom of the escalator for what seemed like HOURS. His parents had gone to pick him up so they came down first, then told us Daniel would be down any second. Well we waited and waited and waited and WAITED. It turns out he had found someone upstairs and was speaking to them about the church, paying no mind to allll the people waiting for him at the bottom.. Always the missionary (eye roll) just kidding. Anyway, a good 45 minutes later he finally came down the escalator and by this time I was a mess, my hands were shaking and I felt like I was going to throw up but I was so excited!! I could not believe after all this time I was finally getting to see Daniel again!!

I had missed him so much. I knew he would be weird but I was grateful to see him nonetheless :) We hugged and it felt surreal!!

 

The rest of the night felt like it was a dream.. We went and got ice cream after (just my family) and all my relatives were texting me and calling me to see how it went. I just couldn't believe he was home. I went to bed and the next day I kept checking my phone to see if he would call (I couldn't call him because he got a new phone so I was just waiting all day to hear from him) and finally around 9:00 that night he called. I was with Beth and Mike and Tyler and I went out onto Beth's porch and we just talked on the phone for probably an hour and just kind of caught up. It felt so normal and so good to hear his voice again. We didn't make any plans really to see each other because it still felt so awkward haha. We were sloooowly easing back into things :) I think it was a good 2 or 3 weeks after he got home that we finally went on a date again. We went to the cornmaze and to one of his friends houses that had just returned from his mission. It was a fun night but definitely weird. I was like "should I hold his hand? is he having fun? is he going to kiss me?" it felt like a weird first date all over again. You know those stories you hear about people seeing each other after a long time and just clicking right back into place like no time had passed? Yeah that definitely was NOT us haha. The struggle was real. Anyway he did kiss me for the first time that night, so the ice was broken. After that it was a few more awkward dates of Daniel bringing his Book of Mormon with us and me feeling weird. I honestly didn't know if we had changed too much to make things work. It was hard. I prayed a lot and tried to be as patient as I could. I still felt like I should try and work things out with him so I did try. I would honestly say it took him a good... 5 or 6 months to finally seem like a normal person again and for us to click again. I never gave up on him and I am so thankful because when we finally fell back into place it was SO great. It just felt so right. And things are better than they've ever been. I'm so glad he's home!