Me "Keegan, what's for Dinner tonight?"
Keegan "How about Chicken Curry from Coco's, biscuits from Popeyes, and you make corn?"
Me "Umm, how about a PB&J?"
Seriously kid, what a combination.
As if this free ride we had taken wasnt sweet enough already, our last flight only had one layover. In Anchorage, Alaska, where Thomas has been since April. Do I hear a "Yaaaay!!! We get to see Daddy!!!!"
Our flight ended up being delayed, and we didn't land until around 7:30 pm local time, so we were only there for a few hours. But a few is better than none! We never made it off base, but here are some pics I took from the base while we were going to get dinner.
This picture was taken from our room at 11pm, It didn get dark until around 2am and was daylight again at 4:30am.
It was beautiful there, and I do plan to go back for a longer visit sometime soon.
We are now back home in Okinawa. I am too exhausted to tell any stories or write any witty commentary to go along with the few pictures I did take, but here is what I do have.
As you know, we did make the flight from Hawaii to Jackson Mississippi. We landed in Jackson late Monday night, got checked into our hotel room and started making arrangements to get to North Mississippi. Thomas aunt Bobbie was kind enough to come pick us up the next day. Noone knew we were coming home, including Thomas (whom I emailed once we made it to Hawaii). I called Tessia, Thomas sister and she arranged a mini cookout at his Moms house that evening so all the family would be there. In the meantime we went on to my Moms house. It was much fun to surprise everyone. My Mom immediately started crying and was so happy to see us. She had been really missing us lately and wasn't expecting to see us until next summer. Later that evening we arrived at my Mother in law's house. The whole family was there to greet us, and only a few knew we were coming.
What a great late Mothers Day!
Memorial Day weekend my Grandpa had his camper at the river and several family members were up there, so the boys and I drove up to visit. These pictures are of Dayton eating a KoolAid popsicle. He wasn't too happy when it was all gone.
Dayton never did really warm up to anyone, as you can tell in most of the pictures.
My Mom, Jacky, and the boys.
Thomas Mother and the boys.
These are pictures of Thomas Sister, Tessias kids, Kaylee and Karmen and my boys. Notice Dayton was being bribed with a honey bun to get in the photo.
Braden has always been an animal lover. He had so much fun visiting all the family pets. This is Cousin Jennifer's Chameleon, named Izzy I believe. Jennifer also had a kitten, 2 dogs and chickens for him to play with. Grandmas both had dogs, and he even caught a turtle one day and a ladybug another day. He was determined to bring them both home as pets.
We ended up being home about 2 weeks and had a blast. The kids were able to spend time with all the Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. We visited friends and old neighbors. Ate a little American food, which wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it being, and went shopping a time or two or three.....
For our trip home we were able to catch another military flight, this time a KC135 flying form Meridian, MS. Being a guard base, there was no terminal or anything like that. So, we just hung out in an office building until time to take off.
There was a little kitchenette among all the offices, with a built in Budweiser keg.....only in the AF.
Oh well, at least Dayton slept good on the plane....just kidding.
There are some pictures the kids took playing around with the camera, but you can see the type of seats we were in and the retro seatbelts.
Starting this adventure I knew there was a great possibility we would get stranded somewhere. We were pretty much hitch-hiking on cargo planes. Cargo space, or mission changes could have easily ruined our trip and left us stranded somewhere, anywhere.
So here is my fist bit of Space A advice, only fly though terminals where you would be happy with staying for a few days. That way if you do get 'stuck' you can make a minivacation out of it.
Our flight landed in Honolulu 24 hours before the grandprize flight to Mississippi departed. I suppose we could have checked into a hotel and gotten some rest, since it was bed time per our minds and bodies which were still on Tokyo time. But, thinking we may ever get another 24 hours in Hawaii I decided to see all I could in one day. I took our luggage to the hotel and we walked to the bus stop and caught a public transportation bus to Waikiki. 
Being from a small town in the South, I have never used public transportation before. That was quite the experience in itself.
We got off the bus and walked a few miles to Waikiki Beach. The walk there was fun. Aside from carrying a 30lb baby in a sling and pushing Braden asleep in the stroller and trying to keep Keegan within arms reach, I did manage to look up and take in some of my surroundings. This was definately the touristy area with several small souviner shops and a larger department stores such as Neiman Marcus. We eventually made it Waikiki beach. There were so many people therewe couldn't have found an open spot of sand big enough for my bum. So we broke out the map and walked a few more miles to the Hale Koa which is a Military resort in Waikiki. 
The beach was just as beautiful and not nearly as crowded. We got there around 3pm and stopped at the restaurant for lunch, dinner whatever you would call a meal that time of day. The quesadillas were delish..but warning, dont get the mango salad dressing, it tasted like nyquil..yuck. After eating it was time to hit the beach. We stayed and played until sunset and it was gorgeous. I can't think of a better way to spend Mothers Day, well of course, unless Thomas or my Mom had been with us.
We finally made it back to our room about 10pm, after ordering pizza we were all ready to call it a night, 4:30a.m. was coming all too soon.
With a phone call. A good friend called Tuesday night to let me know there was a flight going from Okinawa all the way home to Jackson, Mississippi. My initial answer was no, I am not flying by myself with these kids. Noone will be here to look after the house, there was a typhoon brewing out in the Pacific, no way. I get off the phone, give the boys a bath, and the wheels in my head start turning. So I called him back anbd got all the info I could (Sorry Rob for asking so many questions :) After talking to Thomas the next day I decided we would go ahead with plans to go, and if everything kept working out, we would go. If not, we would stay in Okinawa, having lost nothing for trying.
I woke up early the next morning to go to the orderly room and get EML orders (for non-military folks out there, it bumped us up a category and gave us a better chance of being able to mae the flights). Took all of our paperwork, passports to the terminal signed up and then began the game of planning and waiting....
We had a busy week planned already with playgroups, poetry night at Keegans school. We were to leave Saturday night around Midnight. Saturday afternoon the wonderful Brown Family came over again to loan me luggage(Thomas had took our good set), help me finish packing, get everything outside inside in case there was a typhoon, an help secure my sanity for the duration of the trip.
Then, about 8pm, as I was preparing hte boys to sleep for a few hours, I glanced over to the flight screen, and our flight had been cancelled!!
Darn It!
The flight had been diverted to carry aid to Myanmar (which was promptly refused). Oh well, like I said, we tried. I wasnt disappointed, and was relieved aid was going to those in need. So, we all went to bed and saved unpacking for the next day. Everyobe slept until around 9am, which is always nice.
When we woke at 9am I, for whatever reason, decided I wasnt through trying and decided to try and get to Hawaii and go from there. I called Hawaii and they had a flight coming in from Tokyo the next morning. I called Tokyo and they had a flight coming in from Kadena later that afternoon, but it was scheduled to land about 15 minutes AFTER the flight to Honolulu left. Didn't sound real promising, but I decided to give it a go. We were mostly already packed. Everyone was still in there pjs, I just grabbed our bags, blankets, and sweatshirts for everyone and we bolted to the airport. Showtime was 10:05am. Remember we woke up at 9am. From the time I decided to give it a go, we had 20 minutes to get to the terminal.
We made it to the terminal in time. Only then did I realize I had forgotten diapers! Oops! Thanks Katie for saving the day and bringing me a pack, and thanks Rosie for bringing us food. 
Can you tell I would have never made it had it not been for awesome friends :) We get checked in for the flight to Tokyo and guess what! They decided to leave early, so we made it to Tokyo in plenty of time to catch the flight to Honolulu.
The terminal at Yokota had a family room for hte kids to play in and we ordered pizza. Then it was time to board for Honolulu. 
We left Tokyo at 6pm Sunday and landed at Honolulu at 5am Sunday Honolulu time (do the math, I got 2 Mothers Days!!)
Flying Space A was a big step into the unknown for me, and I was initially very scared, but that wore off fast. The terminal workers, the flight crews, and the other families were so very helpful and friendly. We flew on C17 cargo planes, and I think I may prefer it to flying commercial. The kids could lay in the floor and sleep. They could scream all they wanted and noone could hear them. Oh, and did I mention it was FREE?
The boys and I are home in Mississippi! I think I have emailed everyone my cell phone number, but if I havent just comment and I will. We should be here a week or so. We took a very last minute, exciting trip here. I will tell the story and post some pictures later when we return to Okinawa. For now I am enjoying hanging with the family, and indulging myself with all things American.
How bad is it, when your child does something embarrassing, the first thing out of their mouth is, "Mama, it's not funny, and PLEASE don't blog about it!!!"
In the picture over to the right? Thats my awesome husband and I. And the picture was taken my awesome friend Katherine :) Thanks Kat, I owe you...in what I don't know cause I ain't near that talented in anything...
I believe there is a picture of at least one of my children on each and every phone in Japan. They are crazy with their cellular picture taking. Friday night at the beach no less than 7 people stopped to take Daytons picture. Nevermind that he chases them down, then starts posing. He is such a social baby, and tries to talk to everyone.
May 5th is known as Kodomo No Hi or boys day. Everywhere you look here you see these colorful, fish streamers. They are hanging from businesses, homes, and over rivers. These pictures were taken at Hiji River. There was a festival earlier in the day that we missed. We couldn't find the parking area, and by the time we made it down there all the vendors were packing up. Thats ok though, 100yen to play 1 silly game isn't my style anyhow.
These streamers
On to the Culture lesson of the day...
Japanese families with sons hang these carp shaped koinobori streamers outside their homes. The traditional set (as the one we have) has three carp. One for the father, one for the mother, and one for the son. The holiday is a day to honor sons, and to pray they grow up healthy.
Most of you know already that Daddy left for a few months. He is in Anchorage, Alaska. He left almost a week ago (at 2am, grr). He says it is beautiful there, and after promising to never put any place where snow is a recurring form of precipitation on his dream sheet, he wants to put Alaska there!? I hear it is beautiful there, the Northern lights are on my 'to see before I die'list and I suppose I could make it work in a snowsuit rather than a swimsuit, but for now I am enjoying the island life.
Yesterday after school the kids and I packed a picnic lunch and headed to sunset beach. It is a beautiful beach, and one of the few here with real sand, not the broken coral that hurts your feet. The waves were crashing, and Dayton would have have nothing to do with the water, he had fun in the sand while Keegan and Braden played in the water.
or nappy? Thomas says if I haven't taken him to the barber shop by the time he returns, he will cut it himself. I say if he shaves my babys head, he better get used to eating corn flakes three meals a day.
