Care Packages

So deployment is coming to an end and the only thing I'm sad about is that means no more creating care packages! So, this post will be dedicated to the ones I made :) This deployment, my husband traveled to may different countries & when he finally settled in Afghanistan, he had a PX he could go to unlike last deployment, so I didn't send him many, only for special occasions, or if he just wanted some extra monster.  P.S. you're not supposed to send liquids in USPS but I always do. I take the monster out of the boxes and put them into ziplock bags just incase they were to explode (but they never did) & do not write that you have it in there on the customs form!

The first one that I sent him was literally RIGHT after he left so the decorating was minimal, but I took effort into what was actually included in the package. It was for Thanksgiving. Inside was Turkey Jerky for turkey, canned yams with marshmallows, cranberry sauce, green beans, corn, potato chips for potatoes, sweet tea mix, stuffing, oatmeal pies & pudding for desert, dip because they don't sell it in Europe, and a letter. Then I found some cool looking tape for the outside so it would set it apart from the other boxes.

Next, I sent out a Christmas package.  I decorated the inside of the box with wrapping paper and some tinsel.  I included inside some monster, a stocking, candy canes, chocolates, gum, reindeer ears, nuts, a Christmas card, and a hickory farms sausage and cheese package (which they LOVED). I put what I could into the stocking and I wrapped everything else like presents with tissue paper.

The next one I sent him was baseball themed with a lot of snacks in it for patrols.  I found a box full of individually packaged peanuts that would fit in his pockets for patrols, a lot of beef jerky, and some quick foods like mac & cheese, tuna fish w/ crackers, and pop tarts for when he was on watch or just hungry late at night and nothing was open.  I decorated the box with his favorite team, St Louis Cardinals, put a little banner that he could hang in his room, and included a few photos of us at all of the baseball games we have been to.

I was able to fit more than this in the box.

This next package, he never received and it was just a randomly decorated one that I actually found on Pinterest.  They changed their mailing address after I sent this out so it got returned to me and it was beat up, this package took too much time to make so I told him I would send him this picture of it because I wasn't spending my time doing it again lol.

I sent out this package for our 1 year wedding anniversary, which is paper!  He wasn't supposed to come home anytime soon after our anniversary, so I sent him a slice of our wedding cake in a mason jar. I also sent a cookie cake in a jar (instead of cake in a jar) because he LOVES cookies and not cake.  Since it was June in Afghanistan, once the cake got there, the icing had melted and made the cake very sweet, but we were still able to eat it together over Skype (which is in another one of my blog posts) Anyways, I sealed both of the mason jars, put labels on them, and wrapped them in a lot of bubble wrap. On one flap of the box I included photos of our first year of marriage, which wasn't a lot since we only got to spend 4.5 months of it together.  As for paper gifts, I got him a book, and shutter fly desk calendar with photos of us to help him count down the days, and some NICE toilet paper haha. I gave two things that weren't paper, some headphones that he's been asking for this whole deployment and a USB that had a ton of music and some more photos on it. I wrapped everything up and put some random pieces of paper in the box just to fill it up and be funny.

The last package I made was for 4th of July, and I'm pretty crazy about this holiday.  Everything I put in this package had red, white, and blue on it.  I put some small flags and I found red, white, and blue glow sticks and put a few in there.

 

The care packages during my husband's first deployment weren't as good as this go around but here is one that I liked and didn't send him one like it this time since we had R&R during St. Patrick's Day. I'm Irish and also LOVE St. Patty's Day.  I covered monster cans with bud light stickers which I took right off of bud light bottles that were used the night before lol but I used the lime ones because they are green. I also tried out candy sushi since he loves sushi (& yes I know it has nothing to do with St. Patty's Day). 

*Jessi*