Kelley and I had a really nice experience tonight. We wanted to go do something nice before I headed out, so we decided to go to the Olive Garden up on RT 104 in Greece for dinner (Kelley really likes it there.) About 3/4 of the way through the meal, Kelley started crying out of no where, which is not really surprising to me as she's been spontaneously crying off and on for the last month (poor girl, I really feel for her. This experience has convinced me that a deployment is harder on the families and loved ones of the soldiers than it is on the soldiers themselves!)

Anyway, the waitress happened to come by the table as she was crying, and Kelley explained to her that nothing was wrong, she was just crying because I was heading out for Iraq the next morning. The waitress then came back a couple of minutes later and said the restaurant was going to pay for our entire meal and we could choose one free dessert. How nice of them! It wasn't like it was a cheap meal either, because we both had drinks, we shared an appetizer, plus our meals! Then they threw in the dessert on top of it all.

I wanted to take this space here to tell you about it and encourage you to go eat at that Olive Garden as well. I thought it was very nice of them and I really appreciated it. It means a lot to me when folks who really aren't that involved with the whole Iraq war go out of their way to try to support you and your loved ones. Thank you Olive Garden!