Hurry Up & Wait

This morning I got up at 6:00, which was early enough, but to make matters even worse, Autumn did not sleep well last night, which meant I didn’t sleep well either.  But, we managed to get up, get ready, and make it to the hotel lobby at 6:30 to eat breakfast.  I became an even bigger fan of this hotel when I saw their free breakfast.  Usually there’s a few bagels and some juice, if you are lucky, at most hotels.  However, this one had eggs, sausage, biscuits & gravy, cereal, waffles you could make yourself in the shape of Texas, along with all sorts of juice.  I was super impressed.

After we ate, we got in the car and rushed over to Lackland Air Force Base.  The traffic on the freeway wasn’t bad at all, but it took us 20 minutes once we got off the freeway just to get to the base!  We parked and found the place where the airmen were going to run by in formation.  The atmosphere was like one at a parade.  Both sides of the street were lined with people just hoping to get a glimpse of their airman.  Here’s everyone just waiting for all the excitement to begin.

Autumn kept complaining that she couldn’t see, so Papa put her up on his shoulders for a little bit.  I love the expression on her face…maybe she’s in shock about the 5 diamond earrings the guy in the bottom right hand side of the picture is wearing!

After what seemed like forever, we finally saw them coming down the street.  This is the beginning group that was running with the flag.  We knew Nate would be wearing a black t-shirt (different flights wore different colors).  But, when they ran past we couldn’t pick him out.  Then they got to the end of the street and looped around and came back and ran past again and we still couldn’t pick him out.  They all look the same, especially while running by.  Mom was SOOOO disappointed.

Dad just laughed b/c he had told her in the military that it’s a lot of hurry up and wait.  After they ran past, we went over to a big building where we watched a video on what our airmen have been through the past 8 1/2 weeks.  They showed how they get off the bus when they first arrive, how they get their heads shaved, how they get issued their first clothes, gun, how they train, etc.  There was a loud and audible gasp in the auditorium when they showed the part where they have to go into the gas chamber.  Anyways, the movie hat took about 40 minutes and then they gave us all the rules about what the airmen can and can’t do while we’re visiting.

 After that, we went and sat on some bleachers to wait for the coin ceremony.  Thank goodness they were covered and we were able to sit in the shade and that there was a slight breeze.  It was actually fairly bearable.  While we were waiting for an hour for the coin ceremony to begin, Dad took Autumn to go get us some drinks.  I heard some commotion behind the bleachers and looked to see that the airmen were starting to line up.  I grabbed my camera and went for a little walk to see if I could find Nate.  I knew they were lined up by group and that he was in group #331.  I love this picture of all these brave men & women lined up and ready to serve our country, and the fact that this is only a fraction of them.  They stretched the whole length of the street.  It honestly made me tear up (anything patriotic makes me cry).

I found Nate’s group, but could not find him for the life of me.  I walked up and down scrutinizing the faces of each airmen twice, but still could not recognize him.  So, I just took a random picture of his group.  When I was editing my pictures when we got home tonight, I finally found him (and put his name right above him so you can see which one he is).  It’s like the book “Where is Waldo?”

I hadn’t noticed this earlier, but I LOVE the sign right above his group.  It’s so fitting and says, “Through this passage walks the future of the United States Air Force.”  That made me tear up.

After all that waiting, they were finally allowed to march into the area we were all sitting.  They had a little program and then they played the national anthem and lowered the flag.  I loved how uniform everyone was with having their hands behind their backs with the right hand on top of the left, with the American flag waving in the background.

After 45 minutes of all that, it was time for the trainees to get their coins.  Their TI’s (Training Instructors) went around and gave each airmen a coin and then shook their hand.

After that, they said we could go out and find our airman.  It was a crazy mass of humanity, but we found Nate and just hugged him as hard as we could.  They had to stand at attention until their family came and got them.  I felt so bad for some airmen who didn’t have any family come.  They just had to stand there at attention and watch while other airmen got to see their families.

After we hugged and cried (just a little bit), he was on base release, which meant we could take him anywhere on base.  We asked him what he wanted to do and he said he was hungry for some “real” food, so we drove over to Godfather’s pizza.  The place is small as is, and having a bunch of graduating airmen and their families there didn’t help any.  It was PACKED!  So, we put in our order and then went and waited in this little hallway that was adjacent to the restaurant to wait.  It was really really cold in there, which felt so nice after the heat of the morning.  Autumn found a little friend to run off some energy with.

Finally our food was ready and we got a table.  You can’t tell from this picture, but this pizza was HUGE!  There were NO extra chairs anywhere, so Nate and I just shared a chair, which was a little tricky b/c my butt is so big.  But, we made it work.  He kept saying he was so glad we were there but that it was so weird, too.  He said they only get 5 minutes to eat their meals, so it was nice (yet weird) to just sit there and enjoy a meal w/out having to scarf it down.

After we ate, we drove around the post a little bit to see where his dorms were.  We dropped him off so he could get his shirts to have his first stripe sewn on (which he got b/c he was an Eagle Scout).  After we dropped those off, we went over to the BX to look around and do some shopping.  I was worried Autumn was going to be a stinker b/c Nate & Autumn used to be like oil and water.  But, they actually got along really well.  She wanted him to twirl her!  We got some Benadryl for Autumn to take to help w/ her itchy bug bite on her leg and all Nate wanted was some Twix.

After all of that, there really wasn’t much else to do.  We drove around some more and then found the bowling alley and decided to go bowling to kill some time.  There was a waiting list, so we put our names on it and then sat and waited.  I wanted to see the coin Nate got at the ceremony.  He said he had a coin for his training group (the one on the left) and then the airman’s coin he got today is on the right.  I like that it has the Air Force creed on it:

Integrity First
Service Before Self
Excellence In All We Do

Here’s the back of the coins.  They told us in the briefing that if one airman asks another airman to see his coin and he doesn’t have it, then the 2nd airman has to buy the first airman a drink.  But, if the 2nd airman has it, then the one that asked has to buy him a drink.  And, if you drop your coin in a group of people then you have to buy everyone in the group a drink.

It was finally our turn to bowl, so we got our shoes and balls and went to our lane.  Mom didn’t want to bowl, and anytime Nate wasn’t up bowling, she wanted him to sit by her so she could talk to him and ask him questions.

Nate had on some rockin’ BCG’s (birth control glasses), so I asked him if I could wear them.  What do you think…could I start a trend like Twitch on SYTYCD?  LOL!  I asked Nate if he had to wear those kind of glasses or if he got a choice in what type of frames he wanted.  He said there were about 8 different frames to choose from but he wasn’t there to impress anyone so he picked the ugliest ones he could find!

I had given Autumn some Benadryl and she was OUT!  We moved her from the car to the bowling alley to the bowling lane and she stayed asleep (usually she wakes up as soon as you try and move her).  She just curled up on one of the seats and was sleeping soundly.  That Benadryl is some good stuff!

After bowling we still had 2 1/2 hours to kill, so we went back to the BX.  Right when we got out of the car (at 5:00) we heard the National Anthem being blasted all over the base, and Nate stood at attention right away.  If you notice, there is a guy behind him doing the same thing.  Anytime you are on base and hear the National Anthem you are supposed to stop what you are doing and stand still and either salute or put your hand over your heart.  I had forgotten about that from when we used to live at Ft. Lewis, and I think it’s such a neat thing.  We should start doing that in civilian life as a daily reminder about how blessed we are to live in this land of freedom and to remember those who are protecting that freedom.

Anyways, we went and sat in the food court at the BX to kill some time.  Autumn was still sleepy and had laid down on a chair and put her head in Mimi’s lap.  Mom started laughing and I asked her what was so funny.  She said Autumn had somehow snuck the bag of popcorn we had bought off of the table and onto the floor where she was just laying there feeding herself popcorn!  What a kid.

Anyways, Nate had to be back in the dorms no later than 8:00 so he asked us to drop him off at 7:15 just to make sure he was back in time.  We dropped him off and headed back to the hotel.  We were here about 5 minutes when Lexie & Jon & Andrew got here.  I was editing pictures when Mom said to hurry up and come across the hall to their room w/ my camera b/c it was Christmas morning over there.  Dad had gone to Target to get some new shoes b/c his had broken, and he had gotten the kids some little presents.  He got them both a pair of socks (pink leopard print for Autumn & Spiderman for Andrew) and then he got them both a movie (Little Rascals for Autumn & Batman for Andrew).

Then after those, he busted out the big presents.  He got Autumn a little Polly Pocket type tree house with some dolls to go with it, and a Toy Story car thing for Andrew.  He spent about 20 minutes putting it together and another 10 minutes playing with it before handing it over to Andrew.

This was Autumn’s reaction to all of the fun presents.  Both she and Andrew kept clapping their hands and squealing with joy.  Autumn was literally jumping for joy.  The kids played with their new toys for a while and then we finally called it quits at 10:00 b/c we knew we had an early day tomorrow.

Today was really great, and it was wonderful to see Nate and how much he has changed and grown.  My only complaint is that there is not very much to do on base restriction.  You would think they would have more activities or more places for all the airmen and their families to hang out and just talk and be together since they have 50 graduations a year (one a week except for the week of Thanksgiving & Christmas).  I just thought it would have been nice to have some more activities to do.  Also, it was a lot of hurry up and get to the place you need to be, but then just sit and wait for an hour or more for everything to start (that’s why the name of his post is hurry up & wait).  But nonetheless, it was worth all of it just to see Nate again.