The Man arrived home on Thursday. You may have seen me talking in code on twitter about his impending arrival. I was legally not allowed to say when or where he was coming in. It is a security thing. Once he was on the ground though, I quick snapped a picture and twittered it round the world from my BlackBerry. I was just so happy he was home. Of course it didn't exactly go smoothly. You see I have a tendency to muck up his arrivals.
The last time he was deployed for months he went to Guam. Yeah, GUAM is a deployment in the Air Force. (Any Army guys reading this right now are thinking they really got screwed on the deal they made). Anyhow, The Man was supposed to be home on X day. Well that was delayed and he was supposed to be home on Y day. That was delayed and he was supposed to be home on Z day. Then the one of the aircraft that was deployed with him crashed. Yeah, sucks to be us, more delays.
So in this time of him being delayed all these days you would think that I would go over the top make big huge welcome home signs and decorate the house all patriotic like. You would be wrong. I was spent. I had a three year old and an eighteen month old at the house. My house generally looked as though a tornado hit it most days and I had at this point cleaned my house spotless three days in a row hoping he would miraculously show up. He didn't, for three more days.
By the time he did show up, my house was a disaster, no signs were made and I basically wanted to hand off the kids and sleep for three days. I also got the comment from The Man of "What? No sign?" So, this time when he was coming home from Afghanistan I wanted to make things right. I helped the girls make signs, my house was clean, I was set! He was due in at 2:15 pm on Thursday. It didn't look likely to change and I was stoked out of my mind because I was prepared this time.
At 1:45 I got a text from his mobile that they were on the ground and getting ready to deplane? What? WHAT??? I was still at my house a full twenty minutes away from base!! They weren't supposed to even land until 2:15! I threw shoes on the girls and hauled butt to the base.
When I arrived all the families were there to meet there service members and my husband was lost somewhere in the crowd. My daughters were running around with their lovingly made signs in search of their dad. We finally found him inside the hanger talking to some of his buddies. We were late*, but at least we made an impact. He couldn't have been more thrilled to see us and I couldn't have been more thrilled to see him.
* Plus I am not sure it actually counts as late when the Air Force gives you the wrong time.
