Extreme Home Makeover: Fire Department Style

Something really wonderful happened to one of the families in our unit.  As I've said before, we are a reserve unit so the soldiers all have civilian jobs. We live away from military bases, each other, and the Army lifestyle.  One of my husband's battle buddies ("M") is a firefighter and his wife ("J") is a teacher.  They are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.  She is now 7 months pregnant with their first child and will be giving birth while he is overseas.  We are all hoping they can arrange leave so that he can be home for the birth.  If not, they have it arranged with the hospital to Skype the birth.  This couple had big plans for much-needed home renovations before their little boy arrives.   Unfortunately, they did not have time to do everything they wanted before M left.

Thursday morning, J woke up to pouring rain.  She left her house and went to her job teaching 6th grade.  When she returned in the afternoon, she drove up to 30 firefighters surrounding her house.  Fortunately, there was no fire....they were stripping all the siding off her house!  The city firefighters had taken it upon themselves to get together on their time off and renovate M and J's house.  Dominoes Pizza and Home Depot showed up with donations and there were news crews everywhere!  The goal is to give M and J an entirely new house exterior in 10 days.  I believe they are even putting on a new roof.

 

It couldn't have happened to two more deserving people.  M probably won't be able to recognize his house when he comes back and that little baby boy is going to be living in style!

A Random Act of Kindness

During the first night of our honeymoon, we experienced a wonderful act of unprovoked kindness.

It was nearly 4 pm when we got to the hotel.  We enjoyed our delicious complimentary drinks (fresh fruit blended with vodka) and quickly changed into our bathing suits to hit the pool.  Now if you've ever seen my husband with his shirt off, you would know that not only is he a outstanding male specimen, but he also has several tattoos that reflect his military career.  This, combined with his short haircut, make it pretty obvious that he's a veteran.  Even though we didn't really socialize with any of the fellow guests at the pool that night, some of them took notice of this fact.

We enjoyed our short pool adventure and left to get ready for dinner.  When we returned for our first surprise 4 course meal, we were told by the staff that the gentleman in Villa 4 was paying for our dinner.

Wait, what?

This was quite unexpected since the only words exchanged with this man had been "The pool is chilly but you get used to it."  In fact, the staff had to describe him to us because we weren't even clear who he was in the first place.  He apparently had realized that my husband was in the military and wanted to thank him for his service.

We were definitely taken aback by this wonderful gesture and weren't even sure how to respond to it.  A simple thank you was all that we could do, but I think I'll have to figure out a way to pay it forward.

Another random honeymoon picture. Just because.