This really started stressing me out because as I mentioned before, my scholarship was on the line. I had already pretty much given up hope that I would be able to keep it, as I had gotten a 3.11 GPA fall semester (stupid Calculus... stupid ME for never going to class...) and I would need a 3.91 GPA to bring it up to the required 3.5 GPA. With taking a week off, and then with driving back and forth from Lehi to see BK several times a week--this was pretty much an impossibility.
The day before they were to go to Colorado, they were allowed to leave for an entire night. Finally, I would get to spend an entire night again with my own husband! Unfortunately, we were both EXTREMELY sick--and so we spent the entire night coughing all over each other and chugging Nyquil--quite romantic, right? I drove him back to Camp Williams the next morning and said goodbye, not knowing when the next time I would see him again would be.
I cried all the way back to my dorm room in Provo to study for finals.
After finished the semester, I had decided to move into BK's old apartment complex for a couple of months until our apartment was available for me to move in. It was actually a lot of fun. I lived next door to his old roommates and had plenty of friends. But I once again grew tired of the "single" scene, and longed for the day that BK and I could live together.
BK and I were able to talk on the phone several times a week while they were training at Ft. Carson, Colorado. But finally the week approached that they were to ship out to the Middle East for an undetermined amount of time.
One day in May I got an interesting phonecall from BK.
"I have some news. We're not going to Iraq."
"WHAT."
"Apparently they don't need us anymore, so they're sending us to Ft. Lewis, Washington to train ROTC cadets. I'll be home in September."
Of course my initial-intial reaction was a happy one. He would be home in 4 months! However, my secondary-intial reaction was actually upset. All that work for nothing? I had rushed my wedding, had everyone fly in on 6 days notice, etc--only to find out that we could've had it in July all along? (It was super-easy for him to get days off when he lived in Washington.) I was completely confused about this. But I could not deny the answer we had gotten that day when we prayed about it, so I figured there must be some sort of reason for it.
A couple of weeks after the semester ended, it was time to face the music about my scholarship. I braced myself, logged on the computer and pulled up my grades. I couldn't believe it. I had gotten exactly a 3.91--bringing my GPA to 3.51. It was the Lord's way of letting me know I had done the right thing.
I bought a bus ticket to go visit him in Colorado. Yes. A bus ticket. I will never do it again. It was the scariest trip of my entire life. (Bus people have got to be the weirdest people on the face of the earth. But that is a different blog post for a different day.) But we had a wonderful weekend together and looked forward to living with each other again sooner than we had previously planned.
We had decided that I would stay in Provo, instead of moving to Tacoma. I already had a job and an apartment and everything, and BK could come to visit once a month. We splurged and got cell phones so we could talk more.
It was an interesting first 6 months of marriage to say the least.
In an email BK wrote:
"I just got here to the library a couple of minutes ago. It was sad eating my pizza without you. I really miss just doing the simplest things with you; like fixing food and eating together, walking around campus, watching TV, etc. I just really love being around you no matter what we are doing. I feel so close to you all the time, even though we are far away from each other. Just being sealed to you, I feel this amazing connection in so many different ways. That being the case, it makes it tremendously difficult to be away from you, because we got sealed to be together, not apart. But I know that The Lord will bless us a lot for being patient through this and I know that it will help prepare us for future trials in our lives."
Time passed quickly, and in my journal on August 22, 2003, I wrote:
"BK comes home on the 28th!! I'm driving down to Cedar City to get him. We start school on Sept 2. I'm excited to have classes again, although I know BK and I both will be very busy. I guess that's just what we get for getting married early in college. I can't believe the summer is almost over! When BK left in March, he gave me a blessing that said that the time would pass by quickly, and it certainly has. I still sometimes wish we could've had those first 6 months to ourselves. Life is so hard to keep going back and forth. It will certainly be a transition to living with him on a daily basis. BK takes good care of me. But I always knew he would."
The day that I finally got to drive to Cedar City to pick him up was a wonderful day! We drove back up to Provo to our apartment and started fall semester 2003 four days later.
We found out at a later time that it was BK's artillery unit that was supposed to go in and take Baghdad, but when it fell earlier than planned, they weren't needed. We were really grateful that he had dodged a pretty dangerous combat mission.
The next year was filled with visits to family, college classes, moving to St. George for a summer, going to San Diego with BK's family, buying our first washer and dryer (best day ever), moving to a bigger apartment, both of us working for BYU Intramurals, and basically just enjoying finally getting to live with each other and finally getting USED TO living with each other.
And that's when his National Guard unit got put on "alert." Again.
We went up to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving 2004. While we were there BK received a phonecall on his cell phone. He went upstairs to take the call. But I knew who it was from. I went upstairs a few minutes later to find BK laying pensively on a bed looking out the window.
I didn't even need to ask.
The all-too-familiar tears started to flow down my cheeks before he even got a word in.
