First of all, our little Rafe turned 2! My last day of work was the 25th, and I was going to try to start flying to the US that day as well, so I admit that I had not thought too much about birthday celebrations. But on the 23rd when I picked them up from school, Vivien was very put out that we were not having a party for Rafe. So, we threw one together really fast.
We invited our next door neighbors on both sides. Dakota is between Vivi and Rafe, but she and Rafe play really well so he was happy to have her. Caden goes to daycare with Rafe. We ordered pizza and picked up an ice cream cake from Baskin Robins. Rafe was a big fan. We opened presents and the first thing he opened was a truck, so he had eyes for absolutely nothing else the entire night. We thanked our friends for coming, and everyone was out the door and headed to bed by 6:45! It was a great party.
I had to wait until 8:30 to call the Iwakuni Space A Terminal to see what flights were on the schedule for the next day (because they don't know until then). They said there were two--one with a roll call of 11:30 and one with a roll call of 4:00, but the 4:00 flight was a small plane and there were already 7 Space-Required passengers manifested on it, so my best chance was the earlier flight. I was supposed to work a half day for my last day so I knew I'd have to leave straight from work. I packed up the bags and had them all ready to load, then found a babysitter for the kids. Drew had to be in to work early the next day, so the next morning I had to get everything loaded and the kids dropped off and the last minute supplies purchased and the money taken out by myself. I walked in to our 7:30 morning meeting at work about 2 minutes late. Usually only the people seeing patients that day are there (so, three doctors, 4-5 corpsmen), but that morning EVERYONE was there. I couldn't figure out why for a minute, and then they called me to the front.
There were speeches given by my supervisor (LT TJ) and the OIC (CDR Allen) of the clinic and our Senior Medical Officer (LT Oehrlein), then they presented me with a plaque that had all the emblems of the flight squadrons we take care of in MilMed on it, and there were flowers, and many, many smiling people, and then they asked me to give a speech, and I just started crying instead (I was very tired and stressed and pregnant!). I did manage to eek out a few words, probably reminiscent of my one high school soccer interview. Then there were hugs and goodbyes and lovely breakfast casseroles and FLOWERS and then I had 3 very short hours to dot all my i's and cross all my t's before I signed off. I do have to write down my two favorite things that were said:
The SMO dubbed me "Queen of the Little Things" and thanked me for noticing and taking care of small details that made our clinic into a good place to work.
-and-
HM3 Wheeler said "I'm so glad I met you! I haven't liked a Mormon in 4 years!" Not sure what to make of that one, but I chose to feel loved :)
All in all, it was a lovely last day of work. I'm glad I had the opportunity to work there. It was good to take care of patients again; I had kind of forgotten that I really am a nurse and know lots of awesome things! I feel like I was a valuable member of the team because the officers and the enlisted could both say things to me, a civilian, that they couldn't say to each other, so I was able to act as a sort of mediator when we had problems to solve as a clinic. And, I knew every hour I was at work was an hour I was not spending with my children, so I made VERY good use of my time. I will miss it!
So, after that roller coaster of a day Drew dropped us off at the terminal so we could be marked "present" to compete for the flight. Drew brought us lunch and we ate together, then he headed back to work. About half an hour later the lady at the desk came and told us that the flight was full and we would not be able to get on it that day. I was only slightly disappointed (it was pretty optimistic to assume we'd make the very first flight we ever competed for!), so I started packing up all our stuff to head out when a group of pilots walked by. I smiled at them (feeling nostalgic because I talk to a lot of pilots at work), so they came over and asked me where I was headed. I said "Nowhere now--apparently there is not room for me." They exchanged looks with each other and said, "We can take you." I said, "Thank you!" feeling just a little bit smug, but mostly grateful and relieved.
So, we all squished onto this little tiny plane. There was one other couple on the flight and then 3 crew members.
I am sitting in the very back of this plane!
Vivi pretended to be tired for about 15 minutes.
But then the kids spent the rest of the time playing with dinosaurs. These were very good toys for the plane.
Rafe made sure to fall asleep during the last 10 minutes of the flight. My kids are really good at this. "I will need to be entertained the whole flight, and then I will need to be hand carried off like a floppy piece of fragile baggage without handles." So helpful . . .
Here is our little C-12 again. The C-5 behind it is actually the plane we ended up taking for the rest of the journey, but we didn't know it yet!
I knew there was a mission leaving the next morning that went to Korea, Tokyo, Hawaii, then California that had a lot of seats available, but when we got into the terminal at about 2pm, I noticed on their departures board that there was a flight going to Hawaii at 6pm. I decided we might as well try to get on it, so we hung out at the terminal for a few hours. At 5pm I went to go ask a question and noticed that the Hawaii flight was no longer on the board. They informed me that the mission had changed within the last 10 minutes and it wouldn't be leaving until the next morning. Awesome. So, I had them call me a cab and we went outside to wait in the rain for it.
The kids were loving this grass slope outside the terminal. Mom was not loving the 4 ft drop onto concrete on the other side. After I just barely caught Rafe from falling to his serious injury or death, I got out some toys.
We checked into one of the military lodges on a different base in Okinawa (the one in Kadena was full) and ate dinner at the Macaroni Grill (American food that is not Burger King, Subway, or KFC!!) next door.
That night was a little rough--everyone's patience was wearing thin (ok, my patience was wearing thin and the kids are kids) and the water at the hotel was cold, but we did get everyone in bed and sleeping. I think I got 2 solid hours in. The rest of the time I dozed fitfully, dreaming I had missed the flight or it had been changed or they were making us fly over Africa to get to California instead . . I got up at 4 that morning, took a shower, loaded the bags onto a cart, called a cab, then got the kids dressed. The hotel people gave us bananas for breakfast when we checked out. We got to the terminal no problem and were at the top of the list to get on the flight. So at this point, as long as nothing happened to the plane (which was uncomfortably likely; no one can mention C-5's without getting this look on their face like they're talking about a lovable piece of junk) or the mission didn't change unexpectedly, we were manifested through to Travis AFB in CA!
We had a little trouble getting on the flight.
It hadn't really been a "good night's sleep" and there was a lot of strife over who would pull the carry-on suitcase (that was much to heavy for either of them . . . oh toddlers).
But we did finally get onto the shuttle bus that would take us to the plane. Vivien thinks all shuttle buses are the "Wiki-Wiki Shuttle Bus" which is what they're called at the Honolulu Airport. I love what her mind remembers.
The C-5's are so big . . . I never could get a good picture to give you a good idea of the scale.
But they reminded me of this guy in How to Train Your Dragon:
When we got to the plane they were having some issues with the ramp up to the passenger area, so after waiting in the very hot shuttle bus for an hour (we were not popular on that shuttle bus--my kids did not enjoy the confinement) they finally just fork-lifted us into the cargo area, which is big enough to hold a semi truck . . .
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| Image stolen from google |
. . . and then they had us climb a death ladder suspended in the middle of the cargo area to the upper level. I stole this picture off someone else's blog--I was much too preoccupied with getting my suitcase and two toddlers up without falling 30 feet to snap my own picture. Vivi was amazing and climbed the whole thing by herself. I carried Rafe up (and had very shaky legs by the end--I'm out of shape!) and the airmen were kind enough to carry my suitcase up for me.
After our harrowing climb, the flight was smooth sailing (I don't know if I'm allowed to mix air and sea colloquialisms, but I did it anyway). It was about 2 hours to Korea from Okinawa. The C-5 passenger seats face backwards and there are no windows, so it was nice and dark and Vivi slept for pretty much the whole flight. I watched Big Hero Six with Rafe on the iPad. In Korea we were not allowed to take any pictures on the flight line. They quickly ushered us into a poorly lit, windowless room with rows of chairs all facing one direction and we stayed there for about 4 hours. I set up the play tent and the kids played in it for awhile, then they spent the rest of the time running laps around the room with the 2 other toddlers that were in our travel group and some very kind pre-teens who were headed to Yokota. They loaded us back on the plane and we headed back to Japan (this time Rafe slept the whole flight . . .
. . . and I watched Big Hero Six with Vivien).
When we landed in Yokota my friend Annie (Groberg) Otte was waiting for us. We were stand partners at BYU my first year and had a blast together, but hadn't really kept up after orchestra. I got a facebook message from her after I went to girls camp this summer though--she and her husband are stationed in Yokota and she had recognized me in one of her friends' pictures from camp. So, I told her we might be headed her way and she invited us to stay at her house. It was so wonderful. My kids played all evening with her little boys, we had a home cooked meal, and I got to visit with an old friend!
Our roll call time was supposed to be at 0930, but after another night of patchy stress-sleeping, I happened to call the terminal at 0500 and they had changed our roll call time to 0700. So I hurried and took a shower (they have a really cool shower curtain) . . .
And we headed to the terminal. Here's beautiful Annie saying goodbye to us.
It turned out that we could have waited until 9:30 to get there since the flight didn't end up leaving till 1200, but the kids enjoyed themselves in the family waiting area, so it was ok.
The flight to Hawaii was pretty uneventful. At Annie's house the night before I had gotten on the internet and found a place to stay on airbnb.com. We got in at about midnight (several hours before we had left; time travel!), called a taxi, and arrived at "Ally and Andrew's" apartment at about 2am. They are a military couple who rent out their extra bedrooms to visitors. They had 2 futons made up for us and made sure we were all settled, then went to bed, telling us Ally would be leaving for work around 5 and the other family staying in the bedroom upstairs would be walking out around 7, but to just ignore them when they walked out. Ok, sure. I hurried and got everything set up to leave the next morning, tucked the kids in and was asleep pretty much as my head hit the pillow. I woke up 2 hours later (around 5ish) and wanted to see where the kids had ended up (I knew they had not fallen asleep right away, but had been too tired to wait until they'd settled before falling asleep myself). With horror, I realized I could not see Vivien. I started searching frantically for her with my cell phone flashlight and had just concluded that she had been kidnapped and I'd never see her again when I happened to check under the bed. She was asleep on the carpet.
I let the kids sleep until about 9:45. We had to be out by 10 because they had another family coming to stay at 10:30.
Here was the place in the light. We had a kitchen AND a laundry room at our disposal. Sadly, not the time to use either!
We loaded up ALL the luggage and walked across the street to buy some doughnuts and strawberries and yogurt at the Safeway. It was fun to shop in a Safeway again! We ate breakfast outside while we waited for another taxi to take us to the beach.
I did not have the foresight to bring beach toys or sun screen, so we bummed what we could off the other families at the beach (the beach was on Hickham AFB, so everyone there was military and they were very understanding of our situation!).
The kids had a great time. The water was warm and the waves were small, and the flight line was right next to the beach, so we got to watch planes take off all day.
We finished off our strawberries and doughnuts for snack time and took advantage of our play tent for some shade. I was exceedingly foolish and did not put any sunscreen on my legs. I paid for it the rest of the trip.
At about 3 pm we headed to a restaurant nearby for some dinner, then we called another taxi to take us back to the terminal. The kids were exhausted after our time zone switcheroo and a day at the beach. They took a good long nap in the stroller.
I got to chat with some fellow travelers while they snoozed. And I also took a risk and booked my tickets from SFO to SLC while we waited, since it was our last leg and I was pretty sure we would make it to Travis.
Someone randomly brought by slices of pumpkin pie for people who were waiting.
We were delayed about 2 hours in Hawaii because the agriculture people got held up, so when we finally got on the plane at about 10pm everyone was feeling pretty disenchanted with the Space A experience. They took us through their safety brief and had finally closed the door of the airplane when one of the airmen made an announcement over the PA system. "We ran into a small problem during our takeoff checklist, so we are going to go ahead and deplane for 2 hours." I kept waiting for him to come on again and say "April Fools!" but he did not. So, Vivi and I started praying hard. The nice man that had helped me with my suitcase since Okinawa came over and asked if I wanted him to just take it now, and I told him I was sort of hoping they would change their minds . . . and they did! It was going to take so long to get us all off the plane and then back on again, they decided to just have us hang out for 2 hours on the plane and go from there. One of the airmen came by and I asked what was up. He said there was some nasty weather in the way and the migratory birds in Travis were too numerous to allow us to land safely at the moment. So, Vivi and I prayed some more, and after 2 hours, we took off! We were so relieved; I was sure I had jinxed us by buying plane tickets before we arrived in California . . . We got to Travis and Paula's friends had given us the name of a woman who could get on base. She came to pick us up and I had a nice visit with her about military family life on the way to Aunt Carol's. When we got there she made us pancakes, I gave the kids a bath and took a shower, then we slept til it was time to head to SFO.
We got through the airport without a problem then got on a little plane to LAX (the rows had 2 seats each). The kids wanted to sit next to each other, so I sat across the isle by a man from Sydney and had good chat with him about kids and traveling and all the places we need to go see in Australia. He informed me that the Great Barrier Reef is a great place to SCUBA dive, and that if I hear about horrible sharks there, it's a ruse by the Australians to keep people away. I was honored to be let in on the secret. We transferred planes in LAX and endured our last leg watching Song of the Sea on the iPad (I bought a headphone jack splitter so both kids could listen to the movie at the same time. It was a good purchase). Everyone was waiting for us at baggage claim, which made me cry, and we were loaded effortlessly into the big van and then to Nana's house at last! 7 flights, 5 days, 3 countries. It was heaven to sit on the lazy couch and put my swollen ankles up. I am glad we have a month here. I will need it if I'm going to be ready to try that again!
