The Long Seven Months

So I will be the first to tell you that deployments are the worst. But for Shane and I, we just tried to make the best of the situation. The first big thing to happen while Shane was gone was that he was promoted to Second Class Petty Officer.




Then Shane got to go and visit the Vatican when the ship made a port call in Naples, Italy.

While Shane was off having a wonderful time seeing the world, I was back here working very hard to graduate....which I did, on May 10, 2008.

Shane was due home 3 weeks after graduation so the cap was wonderful for him to try and find me when he was watching the ceremony on the internet from the ship.

I was so lucky that even though Shane couldn't be there for my big day I had great friends who made the trip to see me. Mandy and Paul (right) came down from Richmond and Ben and Heather (left) came all the way from Hagerstown, Maryland. I still owe them for sitting through that ceremony. Of course, my parents and younger brother came down for the weekend as well.
So once all the graduation festivities are over I settled in for what was the longest three weeks of my life and Shane made one final stop in Marsailles, Frace before heading back across the Atlantic.