Welcome home, Dirk! He arrived safely at 5:45 a.m. I found out the reason the flight was so early is that Southwest is the only airline that wanted the charter contract the military put out, and Southwest said when they would fly. *yawn* The Army also insists soldiers be at the airport at least four hours before the boarding, so Dirk was at the base airport at 11:00 p.m. last night to arrive in Utah at oh dark hundred this morning. We only had to get up at 4:00. I didn't get much sleep either, though, because I woke up every 10 minutes to look at the clock: "what do you mean, it's only 1:10 a.m.?!!"
Dirk's flight actually got there early, so no one was there to watch him walk off the plane. Well, other people were there, but none of Dirk's relatives. The second plane, due in at 6:45 a.m., also arrived early, so all of us who were there for the 5:45 plane got to cheer for the second half of the soldiers. I tried to take pictures of the flags they had lining their arrival, but it was too dark. Here are dark pictures.
Shawn and Ethan, and then Kecia, Glenn and Emma were there first. Then I arrived with Kelly (glad I ran into Kelly in the parking lot because he carried Ben for me). My parents found us not long after that. Mauri and Ira brought the whole family. Susan was last. Poor Susan! Her alarm didn't go off, and I don't even want to know how she managed to get from Layton to Salt Lake as fast as she did.
I'd told Dirk we'd be carrying St. Patrick's Day balloons so we would stand out from other sets of yellow and patriotic balloons. Turns out there weren't that many balloons there anyway, but Dirk said he spotted my green balloons before he saw me, so they worked. Shortly after that, the balloons made a dash for freedom:
It was wonderful to see Dirk. The big hangar was freezing and crowded, and it was just awesome to see all the soldiers wandering around carrying yellow roses and finding family members. The military rock band was also there (bet you didn't know the military had a rock band). They added to the festive atmosphere, but the sound system in the hangar is so enthusiastic that it made it hard to talk.
Afterwards, we all went for breakfast at IHOP. There were two other big groups of people there with their soldiers.
Yesterday, Susan brought down lots of flags, and put the rebar into the soft dirt in the flowerbeds. The flags looked great when she put them up yesterday! Then we took them all down for the night. The next morning, the wind was so strong that 5 minutes after I'd put them up, several were leaning dangerously, so I pulled a bunch of them out. The ward put another two dozen flags around the perimeter of the yard, and those held up great! Our yard looked festive! Susan made a lot of yellow ribbons too, and those looked wonderful.
After we got home, Simon went right to back to sleep. Then he woke up, and Dirk and Benji are napping now. I get the afternoon nap shift. So if you're wondering how we celebrated Dirk's safe arrival, we all just went back to sleep.
We're so happy he's home!
