The Boyce's: August 2011

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Army Retirement...

This past weekend I was reminded of how proud I am to have a dad like mine. My heart was filled with so much happiness and appreciation as my dad retired from the Army!!

For all those who don't know my dad served in the U.S. Army Reserves for the last 30 years. It was definitely a long time coming, but he finally retired this past Saturday. My dad joined the Army as a senior in High School at the age of 17. Over the years my dad as proudly served in many missions including: the NATO mission to the Sinai Peninsula, Grenada, and the current war in the Middle East; and received many different awards for his service.

You can't imagine what it's like to say goodbye to a loved one who's leaving for war. The fear of not knowing whether or not he would make it back was the worst part of it all. Luckily my dad was in the safest part (or so he says) and was able to call us every Sunday night. I can remember the day my dad told me he was leaving for Afghanistan like it was yesterday.

It was the beginning of my junior year in High School when I came home one day and my dad sat the family down. He began to tell my siblings and myself that he got called to Afghanistan to serve in the war. When he told us this news my heart just dropped. I felt every emotion a human could possibly feel all at once. At that time I felt sad, angry, worried, proud, hopeless, and alone. I was so upset that the military could just come in and make someone leave their family without a choice, yet I was so proud at the same time that my dad was ready and willing to serve and protect his country. Well the time finally came for him to leave. It was super early in the morning he came into my room, sat on my bed and gave me a kiss on my cheek as he said goodbye. I tried my hardest to keep my tears back, but I couldn't help it. I immediately woke up and just cried as hard as I could. I gave him the biggest hug then he grabbed his bags and left. I wasn't able able to go to the airport because of school and it would have been too hard on me anyways. Well time went on and like I said we were lucky enough to talk to him almost every Sunday night. It was right after Christmas that he came home for a holiday break. We got to pick him up from the airport and it was one of the happiest days of my life!!! He only got to stay home for a couple of weeks before he had to go back. But little did I know I was about to have the best surprise of my life a couple of months later. April 2005, just a couple weeks before my birthday, it started off just like any other day. I got up and went to school just like I did every other day of my life. However, when I walked through my front door I was more surprised than ever before. There was my dad sitting at my kitchen table with my mom. It took a couple minutes for met to realize I wasn't dreaming and that it was real. Once it all registered in my brain we got talking and I guess my dad was supposed to come home on my birthday and surprise me then, but he was able to come home sooner.

Looking back on this I realize just how much my dad missed out on...birthdays, a wedding anniversary, baseball games etc. and as hard as it was on my family and I I'm sure it was 10 times harder on him. Its times like this that make me realize just how blessed I am to have him in my life. and I couldn't be more proud. I love my dad so much and I am so grateful for all the sacrifices he made for our family. I love you dad and I'm so happy you never have to go back!!!

Cousin Night...

Growing up I absolutely loved having 5 girl cousins all my age. We were all extremely close and spent pretty much every single weekend sleeping over at each other's houses. Now that we're all older, super busy, and have our own family's it's very difficult to find time to spend with each other. So it's been kind of nice being able to see a lot of them over the last couple weeks. Kenzie is getting married here in few weeks and I'm so sad because right after her wedding she is moving to Philadelphia for a while. We decided at one of her showers that because we wont see her for a while that we would have one of our "cousin nights" before she left. Well we had it last night and I had so much fun. I have never laughed so hard in my life...when we get together we are super crazy and I love it. I was bummed that Angela couldn't make it, but I'm sure we'll have more.

When everyone got to my house we walked over and got a snow cone at the best place ever. When we got back we made some brownies and spent the rest of the night talking about anything and everything. We didn't get to bed until about 4, but it was so worth it to catch up.
I love my cousins so much they are my best friends in the whole wide world!!!