Reception Dinner with Steven

This certainly has been an exciting day. We left Asheville early this cool, crisp morning after scrapping the frost from the windows of the car. Needless to say, getting two sleepy girls to the car in 32 degree weather at 4am was no easy task. But they did really well, we had everything all cozy and got them buckled and set. We actually got on the road by 4:50 am, so we did pretty well. The trip itself was uneventful. We made good time and managed to find a shorter way to our destination without too much difficulty. Our check in time was at 1 pm and we made it into town about 1 hour early. So we drove around a bit to get our bearings straight and then had a quick lunch at Wendy's. Ater check in we decided to just chill in the room and rest up a little. The pool was closed for some reason so there was not too much else we could do anyway.

We headed for the base with what I thought would be enough time to spare, but turns out we were barely right on time. The map they had given us was not very helpful and it took us about an extra 10-15 min just to locate the building we were going to have dinner in. As it turned out, we were there in plenty of time to get seated and chat with a family that had been seated with us. They had driven down from Illinois, the Northern boarder. They were a sweet family and it was nice getting to know them. While we were waiting an announcement was made explaining the direction the soldiers were going to be entering from and that we were to stand and clap the entire time they were entering, in other words...don't stop when your soldier joins you. They do this because there were some soldiers who had no family there and they wanted them to be recognized and appreciated for their accomplishments as well.

I didn't actually get any pictures of Steven entering because I was too busy crying and trying to keep Sara from getting too upset. She cried more than Carmel did. Later, in the bathroom, Carmel asked Sara why she was crying and Sara had to explain to her that "they were tears of joy." She was just so excited to get to see Steven. It has been nearly 5 months since they last saw him. He looked great. He has changed so much. It is really amazing. It was a nice dinner and after we all ate we had the opportunity to visit with each other and to meet some of his battle buddies and their families. Steven even had the chance to call Patrick and give him a quick "hello". So it was almost like the whole family was there.

It wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that Carmel got really upset. She wanted Steven to come with us tonight instead of tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see how she handles things on Sunday, when we have to leave him there for another two weeks. On the way back to the hotel, as we were leaving the base, a deer ran out from the side of the road and ran into the rear drivers side of my car. I could tell in my rear view mirror that it was OK because it got up and ran off to the other side of the road. However, Sara didn't handle the situation very well at all. She was very upset and cried pretty hard. She was so worried that the deer was hurt and suffering all by itself. Jimmy and I tried hard to assure her that the deer was fine, I let her know I had seen it run off and that if it was hurt badly it wouldn't have been able to do that. We had just about gotten her calm, when Carmel decided to try and help her feel better by saying "it's probably just bruised." This actually did not help at all, it just made Sara worry more and the water works started up all over again. At that point, we told Carmel to keep quiet and not to try and help. She did mean well.

We did manage to make it back to the hotel in time for the girls to get in a little swimming. They spent about 30 min at the indoor pool and took about 5 min to fall asleep once we got them in bed. So as you can tell, it was a busy and emotional day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us. Besides graduation I mean. Keep watching for a post about graduation, including more photos.