My husband is currently posted to the USS George Washington, which is homeported in Japan. For a number of reasons, it wasn't practical for us to join him in Japan, so he's doing the geo-bachelor thing while we stay in the states.
He'd been gone almost exactly a year, and had saved up enough leave to make it worth coming home (2 weeks), but had to time his leave to end on April 1st. Our daughter's birthday is in early March, so while she was excited he was coming home, she was also pretty bummed that he would miss her birthday (she was turning 8).
Unbeknownst to her, he got approval to go negative on leave by one week so that he could be home for her birthday party (though not her actual birthday). To make it work, I did have to make up a reason to have her party on Sunday rather than Saturday (her actual birthday was on Friday) because that was the earliest we could get him home, and find another way for HER to get to the party while I went to the airport to get him.
Also, he had grown a mustache while in Japan, and she'd never seen him with facial hair of any kind. So when we walked into the party, she didn't even recognize him until he walked up to her and spoke. Then she recognized his voice. The look on her face was priceless.
Surry, VA