The would-be Father's Day surprise

Today's a pretty special day for our family. Not just because we get to celebrate Joshua and how awesome a Dad he is but today is the first day of his final "mini-leave" stateside before he leaves the country.

First the bad news, he's stationed about 1000 miles from us and isn't allowed to come all the way home...and I'm 35 weeks pregnant so no one will allow me to travel.

The good news is that I have an Aunt who lives near where he's stationed. She's been on vacation with us and we're very close (plus she's retired from 20 years in the Navy so she gets it). The other good news is that when I learned the dates from Joshua about a month ago, my Mom (who rocks), my Aunt (also rocks) and I started plotting. We hatched a grand plan to get the boy out to see Joshua for the mini-leave...the best part? Joshua's leave runs exactly from Father's Day to midnight on the boy's 3rd birthday.

Yup. Sappy, moment.

All was a go and Joshua was absolutely clueless...until the Army once again became a 4-letter word in our home on Friday (aka the day before my mother and the boy were to fly out at 6am). LONG story short, the Army screwed up some paperwork and Joshua's mini-leave and even our scheduled R&R later this fall were in jeopardy. He called to tell me about it...after my step-Dad had picked up the boy who was fully packed and very excited about the trip. I was in the middle of Walmart when Joshua said he would most likely get it resolved sometime the next day...which really didn't work for me considering their flight times and the only way I could explain how important it was that things got sorted out earlier was to let the cat out of the bag.

So, in the middle of Walmart, I was crying and telling Joshua the surprise...meanwhile, he went from being in a pissy mood because his leave was jacked up to "leaking." In fact, his exact words to me were "how am I supposed to be a bad ass out here if you make me leak." It was the moment that was supposed to happen in a parking lot today but instead happened over the phone on Friday. I was glad to know that at least he never suspected anything...surprising considering that pretty much EVERYONE he knew, knew about it.

After all that was said and done, he got his leave sorted and now my two favorite people get to spend a few precious days together. This year's Father's Day will be one we all remember.