My Hero, My Love, My World
Scott is back on U.S. soil! He left this wonderful land last October and hasn't been back until Saturday. While we are both overjoyed that he is much closer to home, his accommodations are less than fantastic. He calls it "Prison Westbrook". If you've ever seen the show "Hogan's Heroes", you'll understand what he means. :) He refers regularly to the show when describing his current situation, ha ha.
As they rode on the bus to the airport, watching their LAST sunset in the Middle East, Scott sent a message to our family group text: "Goodbye devil sun. You did not get me."
Scott with Garwood on the bus ride out to "Prison Westbrook."
When he sent me a text saying that he was all settled into his new place, I said, "Prove it with a picture". :) So he sent me this. I responded, "Can you try a wider view?" He wrote back, "This is my entire space."
This is the "transfer station", where they receive their food. It is dropped off just outside their perimeter. I asked about the perimeter and he told me that they are all staying in small quonset huts within a roped off area. They are not supposed to leave the area under any circumstances. (Thus the feel of a prison camp) The only time they can leave the perimeter is to use the Port-a-John, which is just outside the perimeter (so the trucks can come to clean them or move them when needed). If anyone breaks that perimeter rule, then the quarantine clock starts back at zero. Nobody wants that.
This is his quonset hut, with just enough space for 10 soldiers. There are approximately 20 of these huts within the perimeter.
This is the inside of his living quarters for the next 2 weeks.
There is a designated server guy who will serve your meal up for you in the "food area". You can then take it back to your hut to eat indoors if you prefer.
The huts are all pretty close together.
Scott said that yesterday as they were getting settled in, the soldiers were getting frustrated because they didn't feel like they had enough information as to how everything would work. The personnel sensed this and told them to calm down, and that everything would be okay. Today, there is a deeper understanding of how things work and everyone is much more relaxed.
When we arrived at the dump, I saw a man helping to unload a lady's trailer next to me. I overheard her thanking him repeatedly and I thought, what a nice man! As soon as I opened up the tailgate to start tossing branches into the pile, he was over in a flash, offering to help me too! He said he works there and that his favorite thing to do is to see if he can grab the branches on the bottom and try to pull out the entire blob in one big tug. So I let him give it a whirl. He did it! My truck bed was empty in all of 5 seconds. What a guy! It was all over so fast, but as I saw him moving over to the next truck, I hurried and grabbed a picture. (He's the blonde shown below)
Abby had a lot of fun playing with the Bishop's daughter, Lindsey, who is a year older. (not shown here)
The bishop spoke to the girls about qualities and characteristics that super heroes have. We listed them all on our "white board" (the sliding glass door).
After the bishop was done with the spirited fireside discussion, the girls all roasted s'mores and popped Jiffy Pop popcorn over the campfire. They loved every minute of it!
(Don't be fooled by these blue skies - this is not Kuwait. It's El Paso, Texas on Sunday evening)
It took a long time, per the usual Army speed, to get everyone's gear loaded up and all the soldiers loaded up and headed to the airport back in Kuwait. Scott sent me photos periodically while he waited in the heat. They had to skip both breakfast and lunch while they worked in the sun and then waited some more.
First they flew 5 hours to Frankfurt, Germany and had a 2 hour layover in the middle of the night. Then they were lucky enough to fly nonstop from Frankfurt to El Paso, Texas (11.5 hours). I say lucky enough because I looked up the flight time on Google and it said anywhere from 15-18 hours, but they chartered a direct flight and got there much faster.
This is Scott after they landed in Texas and while he was still on the plane. He was at the very back for that long flight. He reported that he was comfortable and got some good sleep, even though it was sleep while sitting up. He did get some swollen feet from sitting so long, but I looked up some remedies for the issue and he is doing much better by today (Sunday).
They get 2 meals a day, with the possibility of eating an MRE if anyone gets hungry in between those meals. I talked to him tonight (Sunday) and took a few more pictures during our conversation. He helped me to understand a few more details.
Food is dropped off 2x a day right here, just outside their hut. Designated couriers within the perimeter carry the boxes and large food bags a few paces over to the food distribution area for the 20 huts.
The weather is much more temperate in El Paso than it was in Kuwait. 90 degrees feels WAY better than 120 degrees!! Scott is in good spirits tonight and feels like it's a pretty decent arrangement. He is happy and content with where he is. That makes me feel better, since I would be a lot more anxious if I knew he was unhappy and antsy.
In other news:
I've gotten a few more videos and pictures of the Italian puppies, Mocha and Koda. This is one of my favorite photos of all time: (Mocha with the Italian Dolamites behind her)
Here is a video of Benson playing soccer with the puppies:
And a couple other cute puppy videos:
And one last photo of the bunny, Pippin, hanging out with the sleepy puppies.
Monday: I trimmed all the rest of the trees around the yard and hauled off the branches to the dump. Abby was my truck buddy again, one of my favorite things to do with her!!
When I got home, I saw that Lee Brundage, our neighbor who built the beautiful new front porch for us, had fixed the one raw edge that needed some finishing up. So here are the new and improved porch steps:
Tuesday: I did a lot of prep work for the girls camp activity on Wednesday. I pulled weeds, cleaned up the yard, cleaned inside the house, ran errands, etc.
That evening, we set up the tent for Amber and the girls so they could make sure everything worked for their upcoming camping trip with the Whitworths. The girls LOVED being in the tent!
Wednesday: First thing in the morning, we tie-dyed some t-shirts for the girls. They loved choosing which colors to use!
Later that evening was our big girls camp activity. First, they had dinner over at Sister Cunningham's house out in her backyard. Then they all walked over to my house where we had a nice fire going in the firepit. We had about 20 girls, plus a handful of adults.
After everyone listed what they felt were all the characteristics of a super hero, the bishop then reversed it back on them. Turns out we have those same characteristics, generally speaking. So, in essence, we are all super heroes, too! He wanted the girls to feel powerful and awesome, in spite of Satan's attempts to make us feel like we are weak, powerless, and that we don't measure up.
Then they walked over to the Vance's house for some night games with glow bracelets and necklaces, they helped each other do Jedi braids on their hair, and had even more snacks.
The evening ended at 11 p.m. with a short Snipe Hunt, led by the older girls. They had to put toothpaste on their noses to aid them in hunting the snipe, a very tiny bird. Everyone got a kick out of it!
By the time I helped clean up and get home to unwind and go to sleep, it was 1:00 a.m. That meant that Thursday, I was pretty trashed.
Thursday: After sleeping in until 8:00 a.m., I got up to help Amber and girls get ready to head out camping. They drove up to Box Canyon campground up in Island Park, and met up with several of the Whitworth family members. They had a wonderful time, visiting Big Springs and feeding the HUGE fish (trout?), making s'mores, playing with cousins, and going on a hike to the nearby dam the next morning. They only stayed one night, and it was just as well because Gwen didn't go to sleep until 11 p.m., which meant that nobody else in their tent did either!
Meanwhile, I took it REALLY slow that whole day. Yes, I washed about 7 loads of laundry and put it all away. Yes, I washed all the roasting sticks and cleaned up the whole kitchen from the night before. Yes, I tidied up leftover clutter and swept and went to the store. I even caught up on a few long overdue phone calls with friends. :)
But, interspersed with those chores, I binge-watched several episodes of When Calls the Heart, my favorite show currently, on Netflix. It's sort of like a newer version of Little House on the Prairie. I just love those small town, frontier-living type of shows. And with a hint of romance, well, let's just say I was very happy to settle down and put my feet up. Uninterrupted. :)
Friday: Amber and the girls got home just after lunch time, tired but happy.
I also went over to Hobby Lobby to find some finishing touches for my bedroom wall. First, I saw this and couldn't resist sharing it in our family group text.
Weston responded by telling Amber they need to get (or make) one of these, ha ha.
But here is what I DID find for our bedroom. Amber helped me to put it all up Saturday night, so here it is:
The candles in the sconces are battery-operated, but they have a nice flicker to them. The ambiance is just incredible. Abby was begging Amber to let her sleep in my room last night, ha ha.
Saturday: I didn't do a whole lot, but instead, just did some smaller tasks that needed to get done. One of which was to unpack Scott's two big suitcases that he had mailed home. I did a load of laundry for him, and then invited the girls to help me hang up Papi's shirts in the closet. They happily did so!
It doesn't get more precious than that.
While Abby was hanging shirts up, she noticed a couple of things in the back section of my clothes. She convinced me to try on my old dress from the military ball that I attended with Scott years ago. Amazingly, it still fit!
This led to me also trying on my beautiful yellow Samoan dress that Scott's sister, Vernetta, gave me years ago. She is from Samoa, and joined the family before Scott was even born. We have had many, MANY Samoan parties and dinners over the years. I decided to look up some videos to share with Abby and Gwen so that they could learn a little more about the Samoan and Polynesian culture. We watched videos about how to dance the Hukilau (pronounced hoo-kee-low), the Haka, and the slap dance. We even watched Hawaiian videos about how to do the Hula dance.
And of course the girls had to try to dance along as they watched. I couldn't get a video because we were using my phone to watch the videos! :) It was a really fun way to spend the afternoon together.
And that's about it. That was my week.
This coming week my plans are to paint over the stairs (yikes) and to paint white trims and baseboards. I'll let you know in a week if I survived.
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