Shari Cupit had grown accustomed to a bit of pampering from her husband, Staff Sgt. Guy Cupit.

But when Guy began a tour with the U.S. Army June 7, 2013, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, she had to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do things on her own — like putting up a mailbox and figuring out where to take her car if it had trouble.

Starting May 2, though, the pampering resumed and the family reunited. After 329 days away from home, Guy returned.

Today, Father’s Day is extra special.

“I didn’t realize until he left how much he babies me,” Shari said. “He fixes everything.”

“I try anyway,” Guy said, quickly responding and laughing.

Guy can’t talk about his time in Cuba; it was a classified mission, and even his wife doesn’t know what he did.

But he can talk about what life was like away from the United States, Shari and his two children.

“It was hard,” Guy said. “Other than my kids, I missed being able to get in a car and go places whenever I wanted.”

He also missed watching the New Orleans Saints and the LSU Tigers during football season.

For Shari, only one thing mattered when they were apart, and it wasn’t details about what Guy was doing.

“As long as I knew he was OK, I didn’t care,” she said.

And Shari tried her best to always stay updated on Guy’s well being — even if his mission made that difficult at times.

“I couldn’t call him, he had to call me,” Shari said. “I was very selfish with the phone card.”

Guy spoke to his wife every day, but his children, Matthew Richardson, 26, and Amanda Richardson, 24, did not get to speak with him as often.

“As long as I knew mom had heard from him, I knew he was OK,” Amanda said.

Every day Guy was gone, the countdown to his return grew shorter, Amanda told her mother.

“I would just keep reminding her that you have to look at the positive, because every day we are getting closer to him getting home,” Amanda said.

Excitement and anticipation led up to Guy’s return, but now, the family is just making up for lost time.

For years, the family had hoped for a snow day. It snowed on Amanda’s birthday, Jan. 30, and Shari saved a bag of snow in their freezer so the family could have a snowball fight when Guy came home.

The May snowball fight was a mess of cold ice crystals being hurled through the warm air into the hair and ears of the family, mainly Guy.

Ultimately, no winner prevailed, but the family enjoyed a brief winter wonderland despite the 80-degree weather.

They took a trip to Baton Rouge to see a movie and spent an afternoon at the bowling alley.

Picking up where they left off, they plan to spend Father’s Day at home in Vidalia and celebrate with a cookout.

They celebrated Father’s Day last year with a cookout as well, and their grill hasn’t seen much activity since.

“The grill hasn’t been touched since he left,” Shari said.

The family is excited to have their father home no matter what day the calendar says.

“Every day with him is special,” Shari said.