They moved us to 1st priority on the flight to Atsugi meant to leave an hour later. It would board at 4:10pm.
So we waited and waited. I am going crazy by spending all day every day with my kids and trying to keep them from fighting and trying to keep them happy and entertained! It's making me lose my sanity!
At 3pm we were suppose to move through the gate and await being lead onto the plane. At 3:30pm we still hadn't gotten through the gate. Someone approached me and I knew...as I always know when they approach me...I am not getting on the flight.
The flight was cancelled and the plane wasn't coming here. I was told to leave and try another day.
Luke and I had been so hopeful about today. It being day 3 of being at the terminal trying. And it being gate 3 we were trying to get through each time. 3rd time is the charm?
Nope!
I was defeated. I didn't want to call a cab. I didn't want to move. I didn't want to remain at the terminal though. So I sat a few minutes before getting going.
I paid 700 yen for the ride back, again. Unpack the things we need, again.
Tiberias cried again. I cried again. We are living stuck in a nightmare. The time goes so slowly these days! I feel like December is passing me by and I'm stuck here. But really today is only December 3rd.
I get angrier and angrier every day.
I needed a break from my kids and we had no food at the apartment so I needed to go shopping. But Sterling was still working/schooling so I couldn't get rid of the kids. We don't have a car so I had to walk and take the kids with me so we wouldn't be walking in the dark later.
We stopped to play at the community center for half an hour. Then we went and picked up a few groceries. In line to check out I realized I didn't have my military ID to check out with. You have to have it to check out!!!
I had put it with my passports at the terminal and left them together in my backpack! I was not going to walk with my hungry kids all the way back without any food!
So, I pleaded to the person in front of me in line. She used her ID at the self checkout and saved my butt!
Walking home it was getting dark and the kids had to all carry a bag of groceries.
Luckily, a woman stopped and picked us up. She took us half the way home, since we had already walked halfway. That was nice though.
Wednesday there were no flights to the mainland so we didn't go to the terminal that day. Sterling took the kids to the park to play late that afternoon so I could have some alone time. I enjoyed that.
I had asked the Mary Poppins team if there was a way I could attend the callbacks via Skype but they said it wouldn't work.
I was hoping to be on that call during my alone time.
Thursday at the passenger terminal we arrived at 8:15am and found out the flight had moved up by half an hour so we had barely made it in time to check in before roll call. It was for a cargo plane and we were the only passengers aside from the crew.
As we went to the desk for our boarding passes the Japanese man said that Luke's crocs were not safe to wear on the plane. Even though they protected his toes they not protect his heels enough. I disagreed but couldn't say that.
I told the workers that we did not have any other shoes to put on him and we didn't have a car and my husband is in school where he can't leave to help us. But the Japanese man insisted that it wasn't an option. So the American workers helped me out. They found a worker who had a little time to drive us in a van to the store to buy shoes and hopefully make it back in time to board the cargo plane.
We rushed. I spent $40 on a pair of shoes for Luke. I had considered buying him shoes a week or more ago as we were doing a lot of walking but I decided against it when I saw that the BX only offers boy shoes around $40. That's too much.
We rushed back and didn't wait long before they moved us straight out to the cargo plane. We boarded and buckled up. It was a medium size cargo plane with a crew of about five, not including the pilots.
We sat on red seats with thick netting behind us. We could kind of see out the small round windows that hid behind more red netting.
We taxied to the runway but I knew that we were home free until we were halfway to our destination. Things can still happen to stop this flight from taking us to Yokota.
Then, someone approached me and said "The cargo door latch is broken. We can't get the door to close. So we have to taxi back and let you off."
"Of course!" I responded. What bad luck! Our sixth flight attempt failed! I had told Sterling and Misty (my friend who wants to help get me home by picking us up when we get to Yokota) we were on our way...having taxied to the runway. But it was a joke.
I wasn't even angry at that point. I just laughed. Only to us this week, this horrible jinxed week, would the latch suddenly break as we are about to take off.
We went back into the terminal and waited three hours to get on the next flight. We were only suppose to wait one hour but the flight got delayed.
The workers were aghast to see us back! They said our situation was unusual that we have had such bad luck. It shouldn't take this long to get us on a flight, they said.
One worker thought we had left the other day, on a flight, and must have flown back already. Nope. We weren't lucky like that.
Sitting in the terminal waiting for the late flight... we were approached...
The plane was not going to accept any passengers.
I was back to being angry!
There wouldn't be any flights Friday. And only one to Yokota on Saturday. A full week of trying to get out of this place!
I have been depressed and stressed and eating junk all week. Because we've been stuck at the terminal with just vending machines and free junk provided by the USO. And because when we leave the terminal each time I have to come up what we are going to eat. Having no car to get the groceries it makes it hard. Fast food and ordering in are the best, even if the worst, option.
So, Sterling gave up on Space A. He bought commercial tickets to go from the Okinawa airport to one in Tokyo. We will probably spend almost five hundred dollars to get home between taxi ride , flight, bus ride to Yokota. It's a good thing we chose to have a small Christmas this year. Spend half as much as usual. Because this travel expense is unplanned.
If we had known a week ago that we would end up spending the money we could have just bought regular plane tickets to begin with. But then we would not have learned our lesson about how difficult Space A can be. And now we know never to try it again. Free flights are not worth it.
We thought maybe we'd have three stressful days of trying to get a flight home but never imagined it would take more than a whole week !! I wonder how many more horrible days it would take to get home if we continued on this way. But you couldn't pay me to keep trying.
Our last night at Kadena we stayed in. It was raining. It had been raining all day. I had reached out to friends online to find church members here to help me out in ways such as giving me a ride to the grocery store in the rain. I was also done paying for rides to the terminal. So, I was looking for people to help us out the next time we would go do that.
But then I found out Sterling was done making us try Space A. So, I didn't need help after all.
We ordered in Chili's and enjoyed our meal watching Elf. Sterling does not like Elf. That's so sad to me because I looove it! And I feel it's so much part of me that I can't imagine him not loving it. He watched with us while we ate but then he went to the bedroom because he couldn't handle it anymore. lol.
We are suckers for the hot lava cake. So we ordered dessert as well. Only, it was too much dessert and we were all atleast a little sick that night. Ster and I, being the adults, ate the most and got sick the most. Although, Athena can hold her own! The little sugar addict! She ate all her dessert and didn't get sick, unless it happened in the night without my knowledge.
The boys didn't finish theirs. It was too much sugar!
Today I will call a taxi to take me all the way to the airport. Then face a Japanese airport for the first time, and alone as the only adult. Once we get to Tokyo I will find the buses and get seats on the military bus that goes to Yokota, although I don't know where exactly it will drop me off at. It could be down the street from my house or the opposite side of the base. I may need my friend to come pick us up.
Written two weeks later:
Later that day...we had a safe flight to Tokyo with very little turbulence. Oh, I hate turbulence. But we were lucky. And I wasn't afraid to fly at all because I was so ready to fly "home"! So tired of trying to catch a flight and it not working out.
Once at the airport in Tokyo I took my kids to try and catch the military bus to Yokota. We only had like twenty minutes from when we landed to when the bus would leave the airport and I had no idea where to go for it.
I rushed my children to the help desk and asked. They told me a direction to go to find the Dod help desk. We ran! I couldn't find the Dod desk though. We had passed it.
On our backtrack to try and find it we did. But we were too late. The woman at the desk said that the bus would be leaving right then. She said that we have to sign up an hour before the bus ride anyway and the next bus was in two hours. And it would take two and a half hours to ride to Yokota but if we were driving our own car it would take about half that time.
I had a meltdown. I started bawling. I did not want to wait two hours at the airport before going to Yokota. We were so close and yet so far from "home!"
Tiberias bawled too. He was so sick of being away from home and not having luck.
Athena hugged me and told me it was going to be okay. Strangers, Americans, asked me if I was okay. The Dod help desk lady felt so bad.
I tried to find food for dinner but all I found was a sad selection at a little booth. I bought some really expensive chips, and a dry muffin to share.
We went to play at a Super Mario Brothers U Deluxe station setup to promote the new game. It had the game for trying and some awesome photo opps.
Tiberias was too upset to participate at first. But eventually he did a photo for me before we left the area of the airport.
We had to go find the military bus. I gave us an hour to to find it, pay and get settled on the bus. We walked and found the parkinglot where workers of the lot lead us directly to the bus. I let the kids each choose a fun drink out of a vending machine, to make things less horrible for them.
We sat on the bus for half an hour. There were only a handful of others on the bus. It was dark by the time we left the lot...it was 6pm.
Luke and Ty sat together. Athena and I sat together. The kids took turns playing on the tablet. None of them slept despite my promptings.
When we arrived at Yokota it was after 9pm. It was cold outside! So cold! And we had to wait while the bus made a couple stops to drop off passengers before it took us to our neighborhood.
Because it was so cold and we were so tired I had my next door neighbor/best friend pick us up with her car. She also had a delicious dinner ready for us!
Misty dropped us off with a hot dinner at our house. The kids happily ate then went to bed.
There was a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my doorstep from Charisse Kartchner in my ward. She knew we were coming home that day. She also knew how difficult things had been for us.
She is so sweet.
When you leave your house for two weeks and you come back sometimes you don't recognize it. My kitchen seemed unfamiliar to me and I could hardly remember where I kept my dishes.
I was so happy to be home. We all were. Sterling was still in Okinawa but I was glad for that. I wanted another break to miss him. I wanted to have the whole house under my control too. It's nice to be the sole master for a little while. Do everything my way. Spend my time my way. Etc.
Sunday I was so happy to be back to my primary class. Try to get the kids to be reverent again. Kids tend to back track on their behavior and progress when they have substitutes.
Sadly, Monday my luck had gone back to bad. I became sick. I became very sick. I had a deep chest cough, exhaustion and misery. It lasted...all week!
I could hardly get my daughter to and from school each day and do the shopping when needed. I rested in bed and took vitamins. I drank orange juice. I ate chicken noodle soup. But it lasted all week.
Saturday was our ward Christmas party. I was still too sick to be out of bed. But I had responsibilities.
Sunday I was still sick but I had to go teach my primary class.
Monday I finally started to feel better! A whole week of physical misery.
Thursday I had a headache. It turned into a migraine and then I was puking and miserable again. Athena had complained of a headache before school that morning and I was hoping she wasn't sick. That it was just a headache.
Sickness was spreading across the school and the neighborhood like a wildfire!
The school called me, as I feared they would, saying Athena was sick and should go home. I went to pick her up and she was laying down, burning up.
I got her home and then she puked. She was very sick. So, my migraine wasn't just a migraine after all. It had to be some kind of virus.
Friday Athena had a head cold and was still very sick. She stayed home from school. Tiberias and Luke were healthy and happy, thankfully.
The kids worked together to decorate a gingerbread house:
Because I made quilts for the boys Athena wanted one too! I didn't have special old tshirts of hers or anything to make the quilt out of though. So I went to the Airman's Attic to find a pink sheet and maybe clothes with cats and dogs on them. I didn't have luck with the cats and dogs though.
Online it is expensive to buy dog fabric. But Athena insisted her blanket had to have cats and dogs. So, I went to the BX looking. I found pjs with puppies. So I bought them...to cut up.
I set up the quilt squares in a couple different cute ways and took pics. I gave Athena the options of how I could sew it. She didn't like them. She said the puppies had to be on the top of the blanket and the cats on the bottom. I wanted to say she had to choose one of the designs I came up with. But, I wanted her to love it. After all, it was supposed to be her special quilt. So, I moved the squares around and sewed them to her liking.
Sterling's train came into Fussa Japan just before 4:30pm. Athena and I drove down to pick him up. We were so happy to have him back! Athena missed him the most! She was also the most excited to greet him. But I was a close second!
I dropped Ster off at the house then went to Domino's to pick up some pizza for dinner. It was a wonderful evening!
Saturday Tiberias woke up with a headache!! Oh, no!
He puked more that day than Athena and I had during our time. Poor Ty. He was miserable and sick all day long. We were going to leave Athena at a friends' house and take the boys with us to see the new Star Wars movie at the theater. But with Ty being sick we decided to wait until next weekend.
Hopefully Ster and Luke don't wake up with headaches tomorrow(Sunday)!
Tomorrow is the Sunday before Christmas. We plan to go to church, dress up and act out the nativity story and sing Christmas carols as a family tomorrow.
Sterling wants to walk to church, just him, tomorrow morning. It's a fifteen minute drive! So, I'm not sure how long it would take to walk!
Sterling walked a lot in Okinawa. I mean, a lot! One day he walked 16 miles!
So now that he's back he says we should walk more. He says that tomorrow he should walk to church and I should walk home afterward. I would drive the kids to church and he would drive the kids home afterward. lol.
I'm going with it so far but I'm not confident about it. I will have to take some pants and walking shoes for after church, I think.
Athena has been finding these beautiful rose shaped pinecones in our neighborhood. She asked me to paint them! I love them! I want to keep them as mementos of our time in Yokota.
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