Birthday recap and a mini freak-out

I have good news to report- my donut bribery worked! Steve got to come home at five! (FIVE!) That just hasn't happened in a while so we were very excited. Apparently this commander has a weakness for the sweets. Mm-hmm. Noted.

Steve had a good birthday evening. Even though I stuck too many candles in his cake. "YOU'RE 25. Not me. I'm 24." Riiiiiiight. I just wanted to see how it would look with an extra candle hole in there.
Speaking of cake, well, I don't think I would recommend the ice cream cake recipe that I pinned and followed. It was good, but boy it looked NOTHING like the cake I pinned (mine was so ugly), and it just tasted so-so. Probably the equivalent of just eating some ice cream cakes, but without the hassle or mess. He did seem pretty surprised that I "made" an ice cream cake for him though, so there's that.

the Pinterest ice-cream cake

my ice-cream cake (sad)

He received some gratuitous gag gifts from me: a Screaming Eagles flag for our garage, another challenge coin (Ft Campbell-specific, of course), and a card that he thought was raunchy but turned out to be the complete opposite. (Heh.) Sam gave him a helmet so that he can legally ride his bike around post and pull him along behind. I also wrapped up some ink pens for him because I knew we were running low, and thought I may as well give him something else to open. And get this: he truly seemed HAPPY about those pens. "Ah Jenn! We've been needing some of these at work! This is great! How did you know?"
And I was just sitting there smiling through my teeth because that? That was not really a gift. It would be the equivalent of Steve gift-wrapping dish soap for me for my birthday. But nevertheless! A good birthday.

For clarification purposes, our walls are not green. They are white. Between our bad lighting and my lack of photography skills, we get colorful walls in pictures.

While we were lying in bed last night, he was telling me about what they've been doing at work and what sorts of missions they're training to run over in Afghanistan. It suddenly hit me that he really is going. Nothing is going to just "come up" and prevent this from happening (like I keep hoping). Nothing I can do or say will stop him from boarding that plane. How can he be talking about ammo and guns and killing people that will be attacking him when we were JUST lying in bed talking about how hard his biology class was? Wasn't that just yesterday? Weren't we still complaining about how the stupid transit buses at Auburn never run on time? Weren't we missing each other like crazy when we had to be separated for TWO DAYS for those Guard training weekends once a month? Didn't he just catch a fly in the house and "let it out" instead of killing it like I asked him to? How is he talking about possibly having to kill people to protect himself and his soldiers?! Why doesn't he have one of those jobs where he never has to leave the FOB? Is there any amount of donuts or sweets that I can bring that commander to get him one of those jobs?? You're not even scared? Well this isn't about you, is it?!

Oh wait.

Yes it is.

It's your birthday. Happy birthday. I love you. Good night.