We've got him!

 Holy Windchill!  We spent 4 hours in single digit windchills waiting and waiting, but we got him back!


Below, organized Navy wives - the 5 of us followed each other and parked far away for an easy exit, and were able to keep warm in our cars for an hour or so while we waited for our first glimpse of the ship.

There she is!

Getting closer, this is still about 30 minutes from tying up, but it was time to head out of the warm cars and out into the cold!

Slowly, slowly approaching pierside

Finnegan looking cold but very happy!

The boys and I - good thing I didn't spend any time on my hair today, wind was gusting to about 25 -30 knots!

If you look closely, there's Santa under the jet canopy

BFF's boys - all our kids were real troopers out there in the cold today, but BFF is from Iowa, we must have passed on some good cold tolerance genes!  The only thing they complained about was being thirsty, but that's because I was rationing it out so we wouldn't have to leave our good spot to find a porta potty!

Then the P.A. system announced "Liberty Call, Liberty Call, All Hands".... and the flood started!

Classic Navy stuff below.... look closely at his "baggage"... this is "the bull" mascot of the VFA-37 Ragin' Bulls squadron - yep it goes on deployment with them!

 BFF & her hubby

playing with the B & W - I always love black and white for photos of sailors in uniform

Me & Hubby - and we barely got this photo, it all happens so fast. 

Shortly we will be on our way to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas and Homecoming, we have 1200 miles to catch up with each other - as of right now I am not agreeing with his new taste in music!  This too, shall pass... :)

All packed and ready to go!

I will admit that I am a horrible blogger while on vacation, I always envy those of you who can do updates, but I just can't seem to get my act together that much!  This will probably be it until after the New Year when we return.  I usually am able to read them on my iphone but it rarely maintains signal on the road enough for me to comment, but it sure helps pass the 24 hour drive home!

Thank you all for supporting the troops by making sure one particular Navy Wife got through deployment feeling supported and with sanity intact, you DO make a difference!

Wishing all of you Happy Holidays and New Year!

Am I ready?

As much as I can be! Kids were put to bed at 6:30 - I figure it will take them awhile to actually fall asleep tonight! I admit it feels pretty weird to be picking up a husband that you have only talked to via telephone 3 times in 7 months! Kind of like a Match.com hookup with no money back guarantee... "here's a husband for you, you have a 30 minute drive home to figure out this marriage thing again"! It's okay, it happens every time, I guess if nothing else it keeps things exciting!

This was Daddy & Finn saying goodbye 7 months ago...

AND seeing this now is the first time that I noticed that hubby and Finnegan's hair are identical in color! Does that make me a bad mom? :)

So here's how the drill goes tomorrow:

0500 Wake Up!
0615 Get everyone bundled up and in the car and head over to BFF's house
0700 At BFF's house to caravan with 3 other wives and 4 young boys
0815 High Tide, meaning they will be on approach in the Chesapeake Bay and we will be able to see them, OH glad I wrote that I have to pack my binoculars!
unknown time: The ship ties up, this takes HOURS. They have 5 brows to lower, but there are 5500 sailors onboard, so go figure how long this dance will take
1100-1200 Somewhere during that timeframe we will be seeing him!

All in all, we will be standing in the cold on the pier for close to 5 hours. Forecast is for it to be about 25-28º that time of day with gusty winds down at the waterfront. Winter homecomings are hard on kids, but what can you do? They will be bundled up and have lots of snacks and a thermos of hot chocolate if I have time, I also have to keep in mind that there will only be about 20 porta-potties for a crowd of over 10,000 people, so they can't have TOO much hot chocolate! Yep, lotsa fun with whiny kids, they are usually over it after one hour, since they can SEE the ship right in front of them, yet it will be a couple hours before they disembark. Fa, la, la, la, la.....

Tonight - I KNIT! Scarf totally NOT done yet, I spent the day packing for our trip and before I knew it, the day was gone.

I'm not too busy however, to be very upset about not being able to find my Christmas Tree in a Can - my favorite candle! - I wandered around and wasted a good hour looking for it.

Another thought: maybe I should change the way I've been dealing with each new day:

JUST KIDDING! :)

wait for it, wait for it...

 I can guarantee we'll be the only ones in the crowd of over 10,000 people with one of these!

No standard welcome home sign for me, they get lost in the crowd and they guys can't make out what's written on them anyways - the name of the game is for him to actually be able to spot us!  Whaddaya think?  Minnesota, here we come, just as soon as we grab him!

Too excited to sleep these days...

My house is CLEAN!  for now anyways....!  I spent all day getting the house spic & span for hubby's arrival.  I know he won't notice a bit, but I feel better anyways.  It's out on the newswire now so I can go ahead and say it:  he'll be home in 2 days!  With a clean house, I can now spend tomorrow just relaxing a bit and packing for our vacation, and knitting - always with the knitting.  


Yesterday I spent an hour standing in line during the Christmas rush at the post office, for what?

A beautiful beat-up box of dirty laundry from the USS Truman!

 The dogs are getting their first scent of Daddy in 7 months!  And what a bunch of random crap in that box!  Within seconds of opening the darn thing my whole house smelled like the boat, yuck!  I can't describe the smell really, it's a mixture of JP-5 (jet fuel), hydraulic fluid (both from hubby's job), mixed with a horrible "boat stench" LOL.  If any of you know someone in the Navy, they will know what "boat" smells like, it's not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.  Even though I am incredibly happy at this box arriving because it means he's almost here, that box now resides on the front porch until I can deal with it.


We are getting close to y'all not having to hear about this deployment anymore, just a few more days... before I let you off the hook I'd like to share some of the photos I've gotten during the deployment.  Photos are courtesy of VFA-32's photographer and their Facebook album.

The above photo was shot as they transited the Suez Canal a few short weeks ago.  This transit means they are officially out of the combat zone and have turned around for home, and it shows in their faces!  Beautiful shot by photographer.

Below, probably why hubby's hearing is shot!

 Below, Neil Armstrong visited the aircrew while  deployed... very cool!

 Below, not so glamorous... those are chains around his neck that secure the jets to the deck, some of these guys carry them all day, and remember it's about 120º over there and they have to wear all their gear on the burning flight deck, ugh!

definitely more hearing loss going on here!  What???

Below, ordnance dept -"When You Care Enough To Send the Very Best..."

I liked this one, just walking to work looking like an everyday commuter ...

Keeping the hearing aid business "afloat"...

Today, I heard the unmistakeable sound of an entire squadron flying overhead and ran outside and sure enough, one of the squadrons was flying in formation, signifying the return of the aviators!  This is phase 1 of the return, as the jets need to fly off the ship while still out in deep water so there is ample room for takeoff.

Evening news tonight:  this is actually a video, sometimes the play button is small?

Naval aviators return to Hampton Roads: wavy.com

Hubby comes in with the ship and it's 5000 other sailors.  Can you believe 58 babies were born during this deployment?!  Sadly, a young Navy wife here was murdered during this deployment by a stranger who broke into her home and I can't get out of my mind how horrible this homecoming has to be for her husband and family.

And I better stop now before you start throwing things at the computer... can you tell we are proud of him?  One more day of random posting, then homecoming, vacation and then back to the homesteading & gardening & recipes posts!

I actually took a break from sock knitting to knit something for myself - a hat and scarf to wear to homecoming.  I will be closing up the hat right after this but am only about 7 inches into the scarf.  I am thinking of letting the scarf hang around my neck with the needles in it when I go to the pier - I will have about 6 hours of waiting on the cold pier, lots of time to kill so that way I can knit while wearing it LOL.