Halloween and Unbirthday party

Mike isn't a very sentimental person.  He doesn't let his emotions get too invested in things.  That isn't to say he doesn't show emotion or feel emotion, he just doesn't let most emotions take over.  While I get upset and sad about things and dwell on it, he just feels it and moves on, or maybe even just blocks it out.  I don't know, I don't always understand it.  He is very level in his emotions and doesn't get very excited or upset about anything.  It's kind of nice to have that in a partner even if I think he can't possibly be that unaffected by things all the time.  haha.  Anyway, all that said, as his deployment approached I was trying to think of a way that I could help him share in our holidays.  He is going to miss a lot of them!  I decided that we should just have an early celebration and surprise him.  First, we did Halloween.  I contacted a few of our neighbors and provided candy and asked them if they would hand candy out when we came around to trick-or-treat.  We also planned a fun Halloween themed dinner.  My in-laws came down as well.  Mike had no idea and was really surprised to see his parents and to see our fun dinner but even more surprised when we changed into our costumes and told him we were going trick-or-treating.  The neighbors were amazing.  One neighbor just burst into tears when we showed up.  Another neighbor told me that she wanted to put together her own goodie bags for the kids and another neighbor put up halloween decorations in her yard for us.  It was really touching.  

A week later we surprised him with an unbirthday party.  I bought some white elephant gifts and the boys helped plan dinner.  They know that Mike loves cheese so they wanted fondue and a cheese platter for dinner.  We bought balloons and decorated with a banner on the garage to surprise him when he came home from work.  We did our traditional spank train, burnt sparklers, and each blew out a candle.  Mike is going to miss both girls' birthdays, his own, and Will and Eli's birthdays.  He might even miss mine but I imagine he will be home just before my birthday.  

I think Mike was surprised that our celebrations actually meant a lot to him.  He had told me he didn't think he would even really be that bothered to miss everything but in the end, I think he was really thankful that we put in effort to surprise him and found a way to include him in celebrating even if it was early.