Nostalgic Illuminations

When I miss Ryan I tend to get really nostalgic... looking at old pictures and doing silly things like that. So I instantly knew what song I wanted to do for this week's link up, Illuminations - Reflections of Earth. It is the soundtrack to the fireworks show at EPCOT.

Newer readers to my blog may not know this but I worked at Walt Disney World as a college program intern for about six months after I graduated college. Ryan was in Iraq for most of it and it was my ultimate distraction. At the time, my blog was actually named Disney and Deployed... if you cannot tell I have a thing for alliteration! I fell in love with Disney (again) and I absolutely loved working there. I would tell Ryan all the time how much I loved it, I worked in EPCOT as a presenter at Innoventions and part of my night duties was crowd control for Illuminations. So I got to be in front of the rope (awesome on the nights it was not windy and you came away with ash all over you) and talk to people from all over the world. Plus the people I worked with were so fun and unbelievably awesome.





All of these factors and my unhealthy love of fireworks all added to the story of why Ryan decided to pop the question during Illuminations!

If you ever want to read the story of our proposal (it is actually kinda funny and very typical of my husband and I), feel free, but just know I will always love this music. My friend Jenny got me the CD for Christmas and during the cocktail hour of our wedding this song played over the loudspeakers from my ipod... and my friends from Disney who came to the wedding may or may not have made fun of me for it! Ryan came home early from Iraq and decided to visit me with my family for some Disney fun. He proposed the day after he arrived.







Around the 9:00 minute mark is when Ryan got down on one knee (:

Oh what a weekend...

My brain is fried right now. Work was super busy yesterday and the weekend was jam packed with happenings and today the phones went down at work so blogging definitely hopped into the backseat! I don't even know where to begin. The only think keeping me sane right now is that I am listening to Josh Groban's new album Illuminations and it is of course fabulous (and has the same name as the EPCOT fireworks show, which I love!).

Where to begin?

Let's start with this:


That is my car. Remember my car accident a few weeks ago? Well Saturday I go to Geico to get an estimate done. Well Ryan decides to meet me there because we are going to go to Great Falls after. Long story short we decide to leave my car there and come back for it later, but my husband apparently does not know how to back out of a garage and my driver's side is now banged up. I have no door handle. To get in my car I have to open my back door or passenger door!

And what is his reaction?

He laughs. It is soooo ironic. The door I am claiming damages on gets more damages... at the claims place! Needless to say I punched him. In the arm. Hard. I was so mad at him! More so that he kept laughing at it, he eventually apologized, but this is my car! If it had been his I doubt he would have laughed. He keeps saying this is why I need to learn how to drive stick (NO) so I can use his car. UGH.


We had a blast at Great Falls with Russell and Lauren. I will post pictures later as I have something else important to mention.



The D-Word has arisen.

Deployment. It is still something he is looking in to, but he wants to go. Again. 8th and I is a nondeployable unit. The way to deploy from there is on a Security Task Force, which is what Ryan did last year when he went to Iraq. It is not a fleet deployment (with him being infantry I SO do not want) but a security task force. Basically they stand post on the FOBs and Bases and do relocations and maneuvers outside the wire in MRAPPS.

When Ryan was on duty and I visited him his friend Randy was there. He was like, "Hey did you hear about the task force starting to train up?" I turned around with my massiva bag of laundry and looked Ryan dead in the eye and said, "No. No. No No No."

"But I didn't even get to talk to you about it yet!"

Ugh.

So we've talked. It is a good time for him to go. No kids. No pets even. We're in an area that is close to family (ish) and I wouldn't have to move. We love the area we are in. I have a good, steady job. His re-enlistment bonus could be tax free if he does it in Afghanistan. He can pick up Sgt quickly. He has done this Security Task Force before. He knows the protocols and what to do and when to do it. We would help out our savings quite a bit. He wouldn't be fighting with a fleet unit right up front.

All the positives.

The negative?

He will be gone seven ish months and I will miss him and don't want him to go.

Can't compare right? I am a military wife. This is what I agreed to. It is almost petty to try and talk him out of this, that is not what we do. I just didn't think it would be happening again so soon. He was going to re-enlist, go to CID (six months on the job training then five months at school) .. then maybe deploy. I had over a year just to be with him and start our lives. By the time he deployed, in my mind, we'd have been married nearly two years. Now it may not even be a year. Or just barely.

Nothing is definite yet. He is still looking into it, investigating. Then there will be a work up for however many months then he could go.

Gosh, even the possibility just makes my stomach hurt.

Ugh.

See why the brain has been fried? I will keep you all posted, as per usual.


On a brighter note, we watched all six Harry Potter movies and are all caught up for Friday. I am bummed being a working adult means I cannot go to a midnight showing, but we are all going right after work Friday. Have tickets already too! SO excited!

Hmm...

*pokes*

Is thing still on? Are people out there? Is there an echo?

Ah well I'll just keep going.

Last night and today was the first round of goodbyes. Patrick, Don, and Karli are all gone. Needless to say I bawled my eyes out saying goodbye to them. I never expected the people I would meet here would have such an impact on my life... to the point where one of them is going to be a bridesmaid in my wedding! So much has changed since August it is enough to make my head spin.

So, now it is time for another inside scoop. The subject... New Year's Eve at Disney.


My honest advice. NEVER EVER COME TO EPCOT OR MAGIC KINGDOM FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE EVER!!!!!

Unless you want to stand shoulder to shoulder with 83,999 other people and wait in a five hour line for Soarin' do not do it. Magic Kingdom was at capacity by 10am. At 6pm they let in 500 more people as some had left. EPCOT reached 84,000 people.

I was on fireworks duty which is like Illuminations on crack/speed/heroin all together at once. SO many people. We had to keep the walkways moving and once the front was full we kept people out. If you had to use the restroom you got a red ticket to come back to your spot. I had a red lightsaber to move people along and too many times I was tempted to hit people on the head with it. I was cursed at in 3 languages (English, Spanish, and Portuguese), called a bitch a slut and a whore, told to fuck off or fuck you.... I have never imagined people could be like that. I was in NYC last year for NYE and it was fun! Pleasant even! This was HELL.

I had one woman from Brazil I would not let in to the front area since it was FULL and he called me those names and proceeded to mock me every time I spoke. I threatened to call security and she was like, "I don't understand." And I snapped, "SECURIDAD. POLIZIA. You understand. Shut up and move away!"

She didn't.

Jenny (who I have become a lot closer with) and I decided we were not Jenny and Allie. We were Jennifer and Allison after the first fireworks show. The gloves came on and the bitch came out! The 7:30 fireworks was regular Illuminations and it was the most hellish. By 11:40, the NYE show, we had a system and it was a little bit better. The finale at midnight was awesome though. I literally felt the shockwave of the fireworks nearly knock me down! And each country around the world show case let off a different set of fireworks and said Happy New Year in their language.



I found this on youtube if you all want to watch! I had my camera and tried to film the finale, I took lots of pictures, but my battery died halfway through the finale! I was mad as hell. Especially when it came back on to take pictures later when we all danced on the fountain and led a couple thousand people in the Cupid Shuffle. Hey, the DJ told us to!

Pictures will follow. Happy New Year readers!