So Hubby's home now. It was a great homecoming. Crazy and I managed to arrive at the squadron five minutes before his bus showed up. It was so adorable watching Crazy run up to Hubby to give him a hug and a kiss. He was so excited to have his Daddy home he powered through his nap time by eating a huge piece of pizza (he's never eaten pizza but as soon as Hubby offers it to him he wants it, I see how it's going to be) and running around the hangar. However, now he's a little cautious when he's first around Hubby. Every evening when I pick up Crazy from daycare he doesn't want Hubby to hold him. I end up making dinner with one hand because Crazy's on my hip. After dinner though he's finally warmed back up to Hubby and he's fine. But day after day he proves that I'm still the favorite. I'm okay with that.
24 September 2007
04 September 2007
Has anyone seen my sanity?
So August was a busy month for me. I finished my summer semester of classes (A's in both) and during my summer "break" I flew to Guam to see Hubby. That trip alone shortened my life span by several years. I've never been so stressed in my life. I'm talking hair falling out kind of stressed. Seriously, my hair was falling out. It's an extrememly long story, which one day will be made into a book and then a movie (Kate Hudson will be playing me), so I'll try to shorten it.
Several of us decided to try to space-A to Guam, for those of you non-military we wanted to catch a free military flight. Everyone on base wanted to do the same. I swear everyday we had a different plan. One day it would be fly out of Atsugi, then it was fly out of Yokota, then it was fly commerical, then Yokota again, it was crazy. We bought refundable one-way tickets to Guam as back-ups and made our way to Yokota to try to catch a flight out. When I say "we" I mean 4 adults and 8 children (the oldest is only 5). That's right, there was 12 of us total. We get seats on the flight without much difficulty. While we're waiting for the flight to be called C and I leave to pick up Burger King for all of us. I should have known we were in for a bad day when C drove the wrong way through the drive-through. It made for a good laugh though. A fifty dollar order later we made it back in time for everyone to eat before we went through security. Just as things seem to calm down, and right before we are bussed to the plane, we are informed that our layover in Okinawa is 20 hours!!! PLUS, we won't be given our bags. No one told us that when we checked in! I swear the guys working at the air terminal were laughing at us. So then we are bussed to the plane and manage to get all the kids up the extremely steep stairs and buckled into their seats. I'm telling you it was quite a sight. After ear plugs are passed around we finally take off. Ten minutes into the flight however they make an announcement that we will be turning around due to a maintenance problem. Twenty minutes later we land back at Yokota and have to sit on the plane in 95 degree heat (no kidding) for 30 minutes while they try to fix the problem. Then they decide to take us off the plane afterall. So we're bussed back to the terminal and have just enough time to eat ice cream from a vending machine before we're bussed back. It's up the stairs again only to find that people have moved seats. Now C and her kids have no where to sit. When she asks if anyone is willing to move so she can sit with her kids (ages 3 & 5) some guy actually tells her that she doesn't need to sit with them! This coming from a guy who's wife is sitting with their kids who were at least 10-12 years old. The air crew finally finds seats together for her and no sooner than we getting buckled in that they make another announcement that we won't be taking off that day due to another maintenance problem. We'll need to come back tomorrow. Yeah right!
The next day we frantically tried to find a ride to the Narita airport so we could take the commerical flight. We managed to get space-A seats on the army's bus and arrived at the airport with two hours to kill. The flight was uneventful except Crazy screamed at the top of his lungs for 30 minutes at the gate and 20 minutes on the plane before falling asleep. I swear everyone at that gate was praying to not sit next to me and my "seasoned" traveler. And I do mean seasoned, the kid's flown to Texas, Hawaii, Malaysia, and Australia. We arrived in Guam at 1am and thankfully my friend who lives there agreed to pick us up. Crazy and I stayed with her on the Air Force base for two nights while waiting for Hubby's ship to arrive. Then we moved to a very ghetto hotel for two more nights. Then Hubby left and we moved back in with my friend for another two. We never went to the beach, it was too hot and there were too many tourists for me. We went window shopping at stores that we can only dream about buying things in and ate at good ol' American restaurants like T.G.I.Friday's. It was nice seeing old friends from Florida and of course seeing Hubby. Crazy loved hanging out with his dad.
We bought another one-way ticket back and frantically tried to figure out a way to get home from the airport. We would be arriving after all the buses had left for the night and it looked like our only option would be to take the train. Don't forget, there are 8 small children with us, as well as luggage and strollers. I hit my breaking point just thinking about how horrible it would be trying to change trains. On top of all of that Crazy wasn't feeling well. I got out my OSC roster and went through looking for girl's without kids. That's when I came across the two most wonderful women in the whole wide world, M and S. I called up M and she quickly agreed to pick us up. If she couldn't rent vans she would use mine and pick me and Crazy up. If her and S could rent vans they would pick all of us up. Luckily for everyone they got vans and crammed us all in. 
We arrived home around 11pm and just as I was getting ready to get in bed my phone rang. It was C saying she had the world's largest spider in her bathroom, could I come over and kill it? So Crazy and I took our pajama-clad selves over to C's house. Armed with a small broom and some paper towels I went into her bathroom looking for this spider that was apparently as big as my head. Every 10 seconds C would poke her head in the bathroom and ask if I'd found it yet. She was scaring the crap out of me. When I finally found it, I had to make her leave the room so she wouldn't freak me out more while I killed it. It was the biggest spider I'd ever seen (aside from those at zoos). It had a large hairy body and had to be related to the tarantula. After beating it's guts out and disposing of the remains, Crazy and I finally went to sleep. The spider incident was a fitting way to end our Guam trip.
Several of us decided to try to space-A to Guam, for those of you non-military we wanted to catch a free military flight. Everyone on base wanted to do the same. I swear everyday we had a different plan. One day it would be fly out of Atsugi, then it was fly out of Yokota, then it was fly commerical, then Yokota again, it was crazy. We bought refundable one-way tickets to Guam as back-ups and made our way to Yokota to try to catch a flight out. When I say "we" I mean 4 adults and 8 children (the oldest is only 5). That's right, there was 12 of us total. We get seats on the flight without much difficulty. While we're waiting for the flight to be called C and I leave to pick up Burger King for all of us. I should have known we were in for a bad day when C drove the wrong way through the drive-through. It made for a good laugh though. A fifty dollar order later we made it back in time for everyone to eat before we went through security. Just as things seem to calm down, and right before we are bussed to the plane, we are informed that our layover in Okinawa is 20 hours!!! PLUS, we won't be given our bags. No one told us that when we checked in! I swear the guys working at the air terminal were laughing at us. So then we are bussed to the plane and manage to get all the kids up the extremely steep stairs and buckled into their seats. I'm telling you it was quite a sight. After ear plugs are passed around we finally take off. Ten minutes into the flight however they make an announcement that we will be turning around due to a maintenance problem. Twenty minutes later we land back at Yokota and have to sit on the plane in 95 degree heat (no kidding) for 30 minutes while they try to fix the problem. Then they decide to take us off the plane afterall. So we're bussed back to the terminal and have just enough time to eat ice cream from a vending machine before we're bussed back. It's up the stairs again only to find that people have moved seats. Now C and her kids have no where to sit. When she asks if anyone is willing to move so she can sit with her kids (ages 3 & 5) some guy actually tells her that she doesn't need to sit with them! This coming from a guy who's wife is sitting with their kids who were at least 10-12 years old. The air crew finally finds seats together for her and no sooner than we getting buckled in that they make another announcement that we won't be taking off that day due to another maintenance problem. We'll need to come back tomorrow. Yeah right!
The next day we frantically tried to find a ride to the Narita airport so we could take the commerical flight. We managed to get space-A seats on the army's bus and arrived at the airport with two hours to kill. The flight was uneventful except Crazy screamed at the top of his lungs for 30 minutes at the gate and 20 minutes on the plane before falling asleep. I swear everyone at that gate was praying to not sit next to me and my "seasoned" traveler. And I do mean seasoned, the kid's flown to Texas, Hawaii, Malaysia, and Australia. We arrived in Guam at 1am and thankfully my friend who lives there agreed to pick us up. Crazy and I stayed with her on the Air Force base for two nights while waiting for Hubby's ship to arrive. Then we moved to a very ghetto hotel for two more nights. Then Hubby left and we moved back in with my friend for another two. We never went to the beach, it was too hot and there were too many tourists for me. We went window shopping at stores that we can only dream about buying things in and ate at good ol' American restaurants like T.G.I.Friday's. It was nice seeing old friends from Florida and of course seeing Hubby. Crazy loved hanging out with his dad.
We bought another one-way ticket back and frantically tried to figure out a way to get home from the airport. We would be arriving after all the buses had left for the night and it looked like our only option would be to take the train. Don't forget, there are 8 small children with us, as well as luggage and strollers. I hit my breaking point just thinking about how horrible it would be trying to change trains. On top of all of that Crazy wasn't feeling well. I got out my OSC roster and went through looking for girl's without kids. That's when I came across the two most wonderful women in the whole wide world, M and S. I called up M and she quickly agreed to pick us up. If she couldn't rent vans she would use mine and pick me and Crazy up. If her and S could rent vans they would pick all of us up. Luckily for everyone they got vans and crammed us all in. We arrived home around 11pm and just as I was getting ready to get in bed my phone rang. It was C saying she had the world's largest spider in her bathroom, could I come over and kill it? So Crazy and I took our pajama-clad selves over to C's house. Armed with a small broom and some paper towels I went into her bathroom looking for this spider that was apparently as big as my head. Every 10 seconds C would poke her head in the bathroom and ask if I'd found it yet. She was scaring the crap out of me. When I finally found it, I had to make her leave the room so she wouldn't freak me out more while I killed it. It was the biggest spider I'd ever seen (aside from those at zoos). It had a large hairy body and had to be related to the tarantula. After beating it's guts out and disposing of the remains, Crazy and I finally went to sleep. The spider incident was a fitting way to end our Guam trip.
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