I know I have been MIA for awhile, and it is for good reason. My sweet, wonderful Grandmother passed away on August 24th after living for 86 years. She has been very sick for quite a while, and I am so thankful that she is not in pain anymore.
She was such amazing person and woman. I loved the quirkiness about her, her love for life, her love for her family, and her radiant personality. She always made us laugh, she love Jesus, and she was a HUGE sports fan.
As soon as we found out, we got lucky and found SPACE A military C5 plane leaving Hawaii early Wednesday morning, the 25th. It flew straight to San Antonio, and we arrived around 6:30 PM on Wednesday. We jumped in a cab, rented a car, and drove 8 1/2 hours to Pampa. We arrived around 4:30 in the morning on Thursday, and we were exhausted! Chief returned the rental car in at the Amarillo airport that afternoon. The funeral was scheduled for Saturday, and all of the family started arriving on Friday.
It was great to see cousins that I hadn't seen in 20 years! We shared many stories about Grandmother and laughed until we cried. It was great getting to spend time with them and my Dad. My Dad is coming to visit us in Hawaii in a few weeks, and we cannot wait! It will be his first visit here, and he deserves a vacation after the year he has had.
Anyway, Chief rode back with my brother and his family to Amarillo to pick up ANOTHER rental car on Saturday night, and we left Pampa on Sunday and drove to Stephenville to spend the day with Mookie. She didn't get to attend the funeral because she was moving in to her dorm at Tarleton State University. Her dorm is super cute and very very nice. It is brand new! It hurt my heart to leave her, and it was definitely not enough time spent with her. We miss her so much and cannot wait to have her visit during her Christmas break.
We then drove to Ft Worth and checked in to the Navy Lodging. Chief drove to DFW airport to return the rental car and then my cousin, Ron, and his wife, Kim, picked him up. They brought Chief back to the lodge, and we got caught up on each other's lives. We went to bed hoping to catch a flight on Monday morning in to North Island Navy Air Station/Coronado Island in San Diego. We planned on catching a flight from there to Hickam AFB in Hawaii on Tuesday. We woke up to news that our flight from Ft. Worth had been rescheduled for Tuesday, and the flight to Hawaii from San Diego was rescheduled for Saturday. We stayed one more night in Fort Worth and caught a C40 Navy plane to North Island on Tuesday. We rented another car when we arrived on North Island, (thank you Hertz), and drove to my other cousin's, Schaffer, house in Santee. Him and his wife, Cindy, were gracious enough to let us stay with them until we could catch a flight back to Hawaii. It had been awhile since I had seen Schaffer, and I hadn't even met Cindy yet! Monkey Doodle and Miss Priss LOVED playing with their cousin, Cody, while we stayed with them.
We found out that there was a C20G, Navy gulfstream IV flying out on Friday with 10 seats on it. We were hoping and praying to get on that flight! Since we had a few days to explore San Diego, we decided on going to Sea World and San Diego Zoo. I found a website,
www.herosalute.com , that gave 4 FREE tickets once a year to Sea World for Chief being active duty Army. We took advantage of that and had an amazing time!
Dolphin Show
Shamu Believe Show
Sea Lion Show & feeding exhibit
On Thursday, we went to the San Diego Zoo. We found out that Chief's ticket was free for the zoo as well, and we bought discounted tickets for the rest of us from the Navy Base ITR. We only spent a couple of hours there because we were all still exhausted from Sea World the day before. We still managed to walk 90% of the zoo in those two hours!
After the zoo, we packed up and headed to the air terminal because we heard that our plane may be coming in a day earlier and we did not want to take a chance that we would miss it. We spent about 3 hours talking to the terminal manager while he tried to track the plane. We were told that our flight on Friday would probably be canceled, and the next flight to Hawaii would be Sunday. We were completely devastated and started scrambling on trying to make other plans. We had decided that we would drive 9 1/2 hours to Travis Air Force Base the next morning since they had flights heading to Hawaii on Saturday and Sunday. The next morning we got up and headed to pick up a different rental car, but we decided to stop at the air terminal to make sure nothing had changed. To our surprise, our flight was NOT canceled! Approximately 30 people were waiting to get on that flight, but there were only 10 seats on a 19 seater. We knew we had a good chance on getting on the flight because we were category III, and we had shipped 40 lbs of stuff home from our suitcases because there was a maximum weight limit of 20 lbs per person for the C20G, Gulf Stream IV. When the plane arrived, they only had 5 seats available instead of the 10. Since we had left for an emergency funeral, that put us ahead of 1 other person, and we were chosen for the last 4 seats! One guy was ahead of us, so we were so blessed to get on this flight!
We definitely rode in style on this plane, and it was an amazing 5 hour flight. We had some beautiful scenery while in the air as well!
Look at the USS Arizona from this view
It is so good to be home! Every time we leave Hawaii, I feel the strong pull to get back as soon as possible. I have come to realize that I truly love it here and feel like this is home.
Thank you to everyone that said prayed for us over the past couple of weeks. It was so comforting to know that we were being lifted up in prayer, and I truly know that the prayers and faith got us home. I also know that I have a Grandmother Angel with me at all times now as well.
