The Ultimate Deployment Bucket List

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On August 27, 2015, I posted to Facebook:

“Sooo….Heff was FINALLY given an assignment & I know that this is the Army & plans can change at the drop of a hat, BUT I am wayyy too excited for next February when we should leave for HAWAII 🌴👙🐬☀🌊 “

By October 6, 2015, my Facebook status read:

“Heff’s orders came in. Honduras is NOT the same thing as Hawaii 😡 Saying goodbye to my husband in March for 12 months 😫”

Though I seemed to have a healthy amount of skepticism in the first post, I was SURE that we were headed to Hawaii. I had researched (and even stressed about) the high cost of living on the island, sought out things to do/places to go, and looked up the cost of plane tickets for trips home. In my mind, I was already living the island life.

Deployment bucket list item to make a trip to Roatan, Honduras — *(The beautiful island of Roatan, Honduras.)*

I was crushed when my imagined island life was ripped away by stupid Army paperwork. The ‘orders in hand’ said Honduras. It started with an ‘H’ but it was NOT the same thing.

As an official hardship tour, we couldn’t even go with him. That meant that the kids and I were going to be left behind

I was depressed.

Yet, being a {little} honest here; I was also jealous

He was off to live in a foreign country for a whole year! A whole, child-free, year to roam across Central America and explore Honduras in his free time. A whole year in front of him to see places that we’d only seen on TV or travel blogs. My husband doesn’t even LIKE to travel! I, on the other hand, LOVE it!

This was the epitome of unfair.

Man spear fishing off the coast of Belize. — *(My husband spear fishing in Belize.)*

I stewed on this news for a couple of days. I whined and I cried.

Then, I put my big girl britches on and decided that I wasn’t going to let this year pass me by, being a mopey, jealous little baby. Just because I was moving back to my familiar small town didn’t mean that I was going to sit around bored.

Thus, the Deployment Bucket List was born!

Creating the Deployment Bucket List

(Side note: I am aware that my husband wasn’t technically ‘deployed’, but Hardship Tour Bucket List just didn’t have the same ring to it or have a hashtag on Instagram.)

This 100-item-list consisted of places I hadn’t been to before, things that I’d been meaning to do but never got around to, and things to develop personal growth. There were items on the list that could be completed in one day and items that would take extended amounts of time. There were also some ‘freebie’ bucket list items. (These were mostly holiday traditions and small luxuries.)

The Bible study I did as part of my deployment bucket list. — *(Bucket List Item #46: Do a Bible Study)*

Was the Deployment Bucket List a Success?

Did I finish the entire list? Nope.

Did I finish most of it? Heck yes!

Am I glad that I did it? Most definitely. (And I plan to do one each time he leaves in the future.)

The Deployment Bucket List was a HUGE success! It was fun and motivating, not just for me, but for the kids too!

I posted a picture of the list on Facebook, in addition to printing it out and putting it on our deployment wall. Every time we were bored or had free time, I stared at it until I found something on the list that we could do. After each item was complete, I posted a picture on my Instagram and Facebook and crossed it off the list.

The Ultimate Deployment Bucket List

So, here it is! It’s not organized in any way, whatsoever. It’s random and a little quirky, but it’s me to a T. I hope it inspires you to create your own deployment bucket list.