It all started...

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?