On day 3, we decided to wake up at 5-something in the morning to get outside early enough to get some pictures of the sunrise. It wasn't as pretty as many of the ones hubby has seen during his time there since there were no clouds in the sky for the sun to illuminate, but I think the view was still pretty gorgeous and worth the early wake-up. We had a quick breakfast with his mother at IHOP that morning before she left to head back home, and then found ourselves waiting in a small line outside of Best Buy to pick up the new iPad that was being released that morning. At first we were just planning on getting one for hubby to take with him on his deployment, but I managed to come away from the shopping trip with my own as well! Then after running a few more errands around town & base, we headed out on the hour drive to the casino we were staying at for the next few days.
We fell in love with the place as soon as we arrived. The hotel itself was gorgeous in all aspects! From the lobby, the bars/restaurants, and room to the pool and spa areas -- all wonderfully designed and decorated.
I found the "mini-bar" assortment of drinks and snacks they had arranged on the coffee table rather amusing. Needless to say, we didn't touch any of these items and just enjoyed the free chocolates and complimentary bottles of cheaper water we received each night with turn-down.
Our stay included some gambling at their blackjack tables, eating, relaxing, and enjoying some drinks at their bars. We also took some time to pamper ourselves a bit and got a couples massage while there.
For signing up for the casino's free club card, we each received a voucher for a free meal at the buffet restaurant there and decided to use them for our lunch on day 4 of my trip. After having one glass of wine too many the night before, I had said I didn't want anything other than water with my meal that day, even though one of the selections on the drink menu sounded good.
I should have known that hubby would have gone behind my back and order this for me when I stepped away from the table for a couple minutes to get another plate of food. Thankfully it wasn't too strong!
Overall we really enjoyed our time there and were not the happiest when it came time to check out and head back towards base on the next-to-last day of my trip. After checking back into our original hotel for that last evening, we decided to go to the movies and saw Act of Valor. As would be expected, hubby was glued to the screen during all of the action sequences. And I spent the very beginning and very end of the movie, the parts with the pre- and post-deployment scenes with the families, wiping tears from my eyes. We both liked the movie though, so I have a feeling it will eventually find its way into our DVD collection.
When Monday morning rolled around, I definitely did not care to get up because that meant saying goodbye yet again in the matter of several hours time. For this last morning, we decided to get up early again to try and capture some more early morning pictures as some freakish winter weather conditions had rolled into town and we were looking at snow-filled clouds and mountain tops dusted with white (it was 80 degrees just two days prior).
There were definitely some pretty views to be had out there, which is why I ended up letting hubby keep the DSLR camera with him for his final week there, in hopes that he'll be able to capture a few more good pictures (all but this last pic with the flag were actually taken with my phone -- the flag picture is one of many hubby took with our real camera, but the only one I had on me at the time of writing this post).
Goodbyes are still awful, and I didn't want to let go of him when it came time for me to leave. I'm just thankful that I'll get to see him again at the end of next week. I will have to say that one thing I love about our relationship is the fact that even after all of these separations we've had to endure thus far, every time we're reunited it feels as though nothing has changed and we fall right back into our usual routine and habits with each other. I'm sure that will change to an extent when he returns from this deployment, but for the time being I'm loving the fact that we still maintain a sense of normalcy when we're back together, even though we did have a good conversation and laugh about how surreal it feels at times with him being in the military now and how different things actually are with our lives compared to this time a year ago.
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