Kwaj Memorial Service

They held a good Memorial Day service today on Kwajalein. Thank you to all past and present men and women who have served in the military. Your service is greatly appreciated. God Bless you all.

Landed

For those who are family and friends of our daughter and her family, Gina and Damon, they made it to Germany in one piece. It takes a while to get your barrings in a foreign country. Gina said she tried to make a comment on my blog and an error message came back in German. Oops! It may take her a few days to figure out the German Internet. Good news was that they were in a very nice temporary facility with a washer, dryer and dishwasher. It's always good to get more than you expected.

Honolulu, Hawaii

We traveled more miles on the longest vacation we have ever taken in our nearly 37 years of marriage. Tornadoes were spawning less than a quarter mile away all around us in Shreveport. We met our new grandson in Edmond. Laughed until our sides hurt in Austin and watched incompetent movers moving our youngest daughter and her family to Germany back in Shreveport. Unfortunately we did not get to see everyone we wanted to see. There just wasn't enough time and I just don't travel that well. These are pics of the Honolulu Airport which is largely open. Before this trip we had always landed at night and we did not know how beautiful it was during the daylight. We arrived at 2:30 in the afternoon (Hawaii time) but our bodies were still working on Central time. We were too tired to do anything. We forced ourselves to go eat dinner and crashed after dinner. Of coarse our sleep pattern was still on Central time and we woke up at 3 am. We have finally gotten all our parts working on Kwaj time. Lee is going for a week of training in Hawaii on a new machine they are buying for Kwaj the first week of June. Since we have seen very little of Hawaii yet, I must tag along. My legs and feet do not allow me to shop nearly as much as I want to, but even if I only get to look at more than one store, I'll be thrilled.

Trip

We flew in this puddle hopper , better known as a prop plane, three times. That is all that goes to Shreveport. There are about 32 seats on the plane. On one of those trips the plane we came in on was late and we ran from one end of the Houston airport to the other to catch the puddle hopper. Thank goodness, they were running late too. Another time they were holding the plane up waiting for us. This is the back 1/3 of the 757 we rode from Honolulu to Houston and back again. Big plane. Holds over 300 people. It has the individual entertainment units on the back of the chair in front of you. You can watch your choice of movies, play games, watch cartoons, etc. It was an eight hour plus ride. We are just now half way getting over our jet lag. I think I could have gotten over a twelve hour day on planes in my youth but my youth ran away many years ago. This old gray mare ain't what she used to be.

We're Back

This is Julianna and Asher, our new grandson. We took the longest vacation we have ever taken, travelled the most miles and enjoyed seeing everyone. We could have used another month to see everyone we wanted to see. There just wasn't enough time. I caught a virus and I stayed in my room for a couple days to try to keep from spreading it around. Courtney (our granddaughter)ended up with it anyway. That wasn't on our agenda, but that was the way it was. We had a great time. Grandpa always enjoys the grandkids. Our bodies think we are still living on central time. It was good to get back into our own beds. You young people may not understand that, but you will when you get older. We went to church yesterday and it was great to see everyone again. The trip back to Kwaj seemed longer than usual. It wasn't, but we were sure wishing they had super sonic engines on that ferry. We pretty much crashed the rest of Sunday afternoon. We should be able to get rid of the jet lag and get back into the swing of things next week.