The Day We (Almost) Missed Chester...

Last Friday Chester arrived back in the Mitten State safe and sound. We (almost) missed him. Allow me to take you back to the moment of his arrival from his first deployment. He arrived in the middle of the night, it is an hour drive to the airport from our home. Needless to say, waking up a two year old (at the time), gathering all of our welcome home signs, etc and heading out to begin the drive to the airport was extremely hectic. His plane arrived a few minutes early so he called us from the Tarmac where I proceeded to shout at him "don't you dare walk down that hall until we get into the airport!" After 3-4 additional phone calls I felt comfortable that everyone was in the perfect Kodak position and allowed him to get off of the plane.

Fast forward to his arrival last Friday. We learned our lesson from the first time oh yes we did. We arrived at the airport a full 30 minutes before his plane was scheduled to land. We were so early that I decided I could bop on over to the Star*bucks on the other side of the airport to grab us some coffee. At the same time Aunt Genious took Dreamsicle to the bathroom. Imagine my surprise when 20 minutes later I come back to McGyver looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. I noticed strange people hanging around the table we had commandeered but thought they must be the family from the other Marine that was flying in with Chester. One of them seemed to be reading one of the signs we had made and he was holding it awfully close to his face. Imagine my surprise when the sign was put down and sitting in the chair was Chester!

His plane had arrived right when we were pulling in to the airport. Early again! This time he thought he would be smart and wait up near the jetway until his scheduled arrival time to keep his mom from having a heart attack again. The only problem with that plan was that he thought the time he was supposed to arrive was earlier than he had told us. So, he got off the plane, walked down the hall and entered the airport to be greeted by....McGyver.

So glad that he is getting out of the Marine Corps in August-I don't think my heart could take it.