Twisters, travel, and taking Maryland by storm

In the days before our highly anticipated trip home, Eric and I were looking forward to a shortened work week and to having time to get our belongings packed and our house in order before leaving it again. On the Monday before we left, Altus was preparing to be the epicenter of some potentially serious twisters and I was shopping for earrings to wear to Laura and Dan's wedding. As the skies darkened and the winds picked up, the sales person from whom I purchased my earrings informed me that the Storm Chasers crew had just driven into town. With this news in mind, I made one more stop before heading home to get friendly with our local weather station.

When I got home, I called Eric to warn him of impending doom. Being the loving husband he is, he spoke with his boss who graciously invited me to ride out the storm in the JAG storm shelter (office). Instead of going to base, I modeled my new earrings,took pictures, and texted them to Eric and Sarah (who had braved much of the Altus fashion district with me in search of the perfect accessory). My priorities may be questionable, but check out these earrings! I had only been searching for months...

Rest assured, I'm not a total dope when it comes to tornado safety. I cleared out the bottom of our linen closet, which is the only room in the house that does not share a wall with outside. This place is only steps from our couch and TV, so I perched myself on the couch to watch the radar and listen for the warning to go into hiding. Much to my delight, that warning never came and the most dangerous storms touched down about 20 miles from our house. At about the same time that Altus was getting the "all clear," Eric arrived home from work and said, "I got orders to go to Vance AFB (three point five hours from Altus) today to prepare for a court martial on Wednesday, want to come with me?"

You can only imagine the panic that went through my brain. I hadn't packed a thing for our trip home to Maryland, the house still needed to be cleaned, my dress for the wedding was at the tailors and needed to be picked up. Trial on Wednesday? We are supposed to fly out on Thursday! And let me remind you, flying is never easy! It's always a trip just to get to the trip. Oh yeah, and there were dangerous storms moving across the state of Oklahoma. All this in mind, my response to Eric was, "Sure, definitely!"

Like two chickens with our heads cut off, we flapped around the house, throwing things into a bag and praying that the court proceedings would wrap up in enough time for us to make our flight. 40 minutes after Eric had announced the impromptu road trip, we were in the car and on our way to Enid, OK, home of Vance AFB. Our route to Enid essentially allowed us to track the path of the storms. The radio stations were announcing warnings for the towns we were approaching and passing. The most frightening part was that the sky was completely dark, which prevented either of us from being able to scan for funnel clouds. Arriving safely at Vance required constant vigilance, and on one occasion, four hands on the steering wheel. We both agreed that driving in that weather was the stupidest thing we'd ever done.

Playing thumb war with myself @ Callahan's Pub & Grille

Much to our delight, the court proceedings ended (and favorably for Eric) on Wednesday afternoon. I wanted to leave right away, but Eric reminded me that we had already paid for Wednesday night in base lodging. We opted instead to enjoy a date night and mini-vacay in Enid. As you may have heard, "seeing the world" is one of the perks of Air Force life. For dinner, we went to Callahan's Pub & Grille, which was right off of the main square in historic downtown Enid. Their menu was really interesting and offered surprising variety. Eric loved the fish and chips and I was totally impressed by their mastery of chicken madras. It would have been nice to stroll on the square, but the weather was cold and icky that night. Knowing we had a long day ahead, we returned to the hotel after dinner and hit the hay early.

A pensive Eric en route to MD

On Thursday morning, we woke up super early, stopped at the Starbucks (a requirement every time we pass one these days since the closest one to us is 52.9 miles away from home), and got on the road to Altus. Our itinerary for the day was as follows: Enid > Altus > Lawton > Dallas > Baltimore. While in Altus, Eric had to go into work and I had to run around like a crazy person, picking up my dress, setting up the soaker hose and timer for our now-beautiful gardens, cleaning, and packing. We checked off all the boxes on our "to do" list and made it to Lawton just in time for our flight. For the first time in the history of our travels through the Lawton airport, our flight took off on time and without a hitch! We had a long layover in Dallas, which we enjoyed at Champps where we ate, drank, and were merry! When we arrived in Baltimore, it was close to 1 am, which means that we traveled from 6am to 1am to get home to Maryland. Phew! My parents picked us up at the airport and brought us home to crash.

On Friday 11.11.11, we celebrated Laura and Dan's marriage, which was deserving of a completely separate post. See To Maryland for Love.

Lou Lou and Pop Pop

After breakfast on Saturday morning, Eric and I spent much of the day lounging and recovering at his mom & dad's. Smells of the early Thanksgiving dinner his parents were preparing were wafting through the house and we couldn't have been happier. We had decided to celebrate Thanksgiving early this year because Eric and I were not going to be able to make it back to Maryland for the holiday. On Saturday night, Eric's sister Jacqueline, his niece Caitlin, mom mom H, and my parents came over for Thanksgiving dinner. Being that six months had passed since I'd last seen Caitlin, she had doubled in size and seeing her for the first time brought tears to my eyes.

I'm quite certain that she is the happiest, most laid-back baby I've ever met and I've met a lot of babies! Eric and I couldn't get enough of Caitlin (no one could). She loves monitoring the room and the crowd. She wants to know what you're up to and if you happen to have diverted your attention, she likes to remind you that she's there and in charge! She is curious, friendly, and wonderful. I swear, I have the cutest nieces and nephew! It was a fabulous night. The meal was delicious and the company even better! It was so good to all be together again. Just like old times! Catching up with Jacqueline made for another late night as we stayed up far past bedtime solving the problems of the world, but I enjoyed every minute of it!

She loves her uncle Square Bear

On Sunday we had a practically perfect morning! We got up, snuggled Caitlin one more time before she and Jacq had to leave, and made Thanksgiving sandwiches for breakfast. Thanksgiving sandwiches are the best part of Thanksgiving leftovers. If you haven't done it, try it. After waiting the mandatory 20 minutes for digestion before exercise, I went shopping with Lourdes at my favorite store on Earth, Target (92.9 miles from Altus). I think I experienced a type of culture shock walking around the beautiful and clean isles. How I love that place! On the way out of the store, we passed a Starbucks so, of course, I stopped. I think by the end of our trip I had sampled all of the holiday flavors. I am feeling a little less depraved.

After we returned from Target, Eric and I threw our bags in the car and went back to my parent's house. Gila and Clint had driven through the night to get there and were napping when we arrived. While they slept, we watched a disturbing Redskins game. After they woke up, we watched a disturbing Ravens game. Then, we nursed our football wounds with my mom's famous spaghetti. All in all, it was a great night! Gila and I got in some heated rounds of Backgammon and did that thing where we giggle uncontrollably and no one besides us can understand why...

On Monday, Eric and I got up and went for a long walk with my mom while Gila and Clint, who are nocturnal, continued to catch up on their sleep. Well, my mom and I walked and Eric ran circles around us.  After our walk, Eric and I packed up our things again and got ready to head to Jacq and Tim's house where we had been invited for dinner and to stay the night. The plan was for me to drop Eric at their house (where he was going to use the key he has to get in) and go pay a visit to my family at Boys Hope. Before we left my parent's house, Eric says to me, "Hey, do you have my keys?" and without thinking too much I respond, "Yup!"

We left the house and were halfway to our destination when I realized that I did not in fact have the keys. Eric was temporarily (and understandably) pretty frustrated with me. In an attempt to make it up to him, I delayed my visit to the Hope to help kill some time by having lunch at Chipotle (142 miles from home; thus, another favorite we go without these days). Luckily, the day was beautiful and after lunch, Eric was completely fine with the idea of sitting on Jacq and Tim's porch and enjoying nature (a beverage, and a cigar) until they got home. Since I am always waiting for him at the door when he gets home from work with the need to talk, talk, talk, he gets very little quiet or alone time these days. He actually really enjoyed it.

I had a great time catching up with all my buddies and was able to jump in on the afternoon pick up & drop off schedule. It was just like old times! I ended up taking Durrell to work, because despite our best efforts to coordinate my visit with his day off, something got lost in translation...The best part was being able to surprise Charles. He had no idea that I was coming to town, so when he saw me waiting in the car, his reaction was priceless. My friend Tony came by that night to visit, too. We share some great and funny memories of our time at the house. It is always fun to catch up and there are few people in the world with whom I can laugh like I laugh with Tony and Georg (who was there working that night). I also had the privilege of meeting some of the new faces of Boys Hope.

After I left BHGH, I went back to Jacq & Tim's house where they had prepared a delicious Monday Night Football feast! Eric and I did a great job of tiring Caitlin out with our incessant chatter and attempts at baby humor so she went to be pretty shortly after dinner. We spent the rest of the evening talking a lot about what life has been like for Eric and me since our move and what it has been like for Jacq and Tim as new parents. We are so happy that we were able to share that time with them. It felt like no time had passed.

Early on Tuesday morning, Eric and I got up and went back to Boys Hope to pick up Donte and Durrell. They are now high school seniors, but were new to the program around the same time that I was. I am so proud of them and wanted to something special to celebrate them and all that they have accomplished. We took them to breakfast before dropping them off at school and got to hear all about the colleges they are interested in and how they feel about being seniors. Eric and I both really enjoyed it and we hope they did too. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures (apologies for the pictureless midsection)!

After breakfast, Eric and I stopped at Terry's new house. He and Danielle now live on the same block as the Boys Hope Girls Hope houses, which means a lot of my favorite people are all on one street! Terry had just come home from an overnight shift at work so needless to say, we were all pretty tired and goofy. It was fun to squeeze in one more visit with him and to see where he lives now. We even got to say a quick hello/goodbye to Danielle as she headed out the door on her way to work. Terry had another night shift ahead and needed the day to sleep, so we kept the visit pretty short.

Our mantra for our trip home was quickly becoming, "We can sleep in Altus," but we were also quickly becoming pretty exhausted. We went from Baltimore back to the Herg house to squeeze in a quick nap before our next meal. For lunch, Big Jer, Eric, and I met Lourdes during her break. We ate at a nice little Italian restaurant near the bank where she works. After lunch, Eric and I popped into Dunkin' Donuts (141 miles from home) to fuel up on the coffee we hoped would be the antidote to our food comas. Coffee in hand, we brought Lourdes back to work, saw her office, and met her coworkers.

We rode our caffeine fumes all the way back to Clarksville to the Dodge dealership so Eric could test drive his new dream-car, the Challenger R/T. He had driven one in Altus, but it was an automatic, not the six-speed and he wanted to drive "the real thing." He also wanted to make sure I liked it. And liked it I did. It was such a fun car that I was ready to buy it and drive it back to Altus! Luckily, Eric is more practical. Well, that and he needed to do more research. How he loves his research!

When we made it back to my parent's house, Gila and Clint were in the middle of watching a movie. Eric took a nap in bed and I took over a couch. With one eye, I watched the movie and with the other, I slept. We ate a nice dinner together after movie/naptime had ended and before some of our friends dropped by that evening. If for some reason Eric and I didn't already know how incredible our friends are, this night was a great reminder. Katie, George, Ryan, Amber, Teri,  and Dave all ignored distance, fatigue, and pending early alarms to come over on a weeknight to hang out. We sat around chatting and visiting for a while and then decided it would be fun to play a game. Unfortunately, I had stolen all of the fun games and brought them with me to Altus (where they have truly come in handy). Ryan ran home and grabbed one for us and we retreated to our old party spot: my parent's basement (yeah, we're pretty cool). There, we spent hours playing a really fun game that was a combination between Pictionary and Telephone, which made us all laugh till we cried. It's hard to beat that kind of a night!

We woke up on Wednesday with the realization that, as always, time had gone by too fast and somehow it was already our last full day. Eric had made plans to spend the day with Dave, so he went off and did "man things" (i.e. shoot wall street zombies in the face with Dave and Ryan). I didn't hear from Eric all day and then I received this picture...

I suppose all the hours of zombie movie watching have paid off...

I spent the day running last minute errands with my mom in preparation for our dinner party that night. On Wednesday night, we had a huge Persian-version Thanksgiving feast. Mr. & Mrs. H, Jacq, Tim, Caitlin, and a colleague of my dad's all joined in on the fun. My parent's had cooked all of everyone's favorite dishes and we enjoyed being able to spend one last evening together before Eric and I had to leave again. We are so fortunate that our families truly consider one another friends. After all the guests left and the cleanup effort ended, Eric, Clint, Gila, and I spent one last evening together hanging out and talking as late into the night as we could manage to stay up.

Thursday morning came, Eric and I ate one final Persian breakfast (but this time it was leftover dinner food, not breakfast food), and my dad took us to the airport. The flight from Baltimore to Dallas was, well, interesting. I sat in the middle seat between Eric at the window and a guy on the aisle. About an hour into the flight, the man next to me reached down into his bag and pulled out a book (standard airplane behavior). Then, he proceeded to practice his lines aloud for an apparent role in an upcoming play (not-so-standard airplane behavior). He spent the next two hours shouting lines in an old-English and with a British accent. His performance was punctuated with dramatic hand gestures, head shakes, and guffaws! After he was satisfied that he had completed the requisite practice for the day, he put his script away and sang out loud until we landed safely at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. In all my years of airplane travel, I'm not sure I've ever encountered such an interesting (read: annoying and self-involved) seat mate.

The rest of the trip was unremarkable and we arrived in Lawton safely and on-time. We welcomed the feeling of homeiness upon crossing into the Altus city limits. It's always nice to unpack your suitcase and sleep in your own bed. It's also nice to go to sleep feeling thankful; our happiness cups runneth over with love! Until next time, Maryland!