A snowstorm dumped about 10'' of snow on the Twin Cities the weekend before I returned and then another storm hit the weekend after I came back adding another 12''. That was a rude awakening after spending the last 2-1/2 months in warm weather that never dropped below 65 degrees and averaged 75 degrees. As you can imagine, all my Minnesota friends were very sympathetic towards me.
I was only home for 11 days and I worked at MSP the whole time, but I was still able to see some friends and family. My parents drove all the way from Hector (about 85 miles) to pick me up from the airport. We went straight to my sister's house and spent the evening catching up. As usual, Jess's son Joey was the center of attention. He's 7 months now and growing up fast. At the time, he was on the verge of crawling. One week later, on March 8th, he crawled for the 1st time. We were all very excited for him. He is such a good boy. Usually very quiet, but always kicking. Joey also recently attended his 1st swimming lesson, a gift from Grandma Lynn. With kicks like that, I think he's destined to break a couple Olympic swimming records.
While at work on Friday, March 9th, I got an email that was titled "Stewart deployment". For some reason, I was not able to open it so I didn't know what was going on. When I got home, I tried again and found out that I was scheduled to leave for San Juan, Puerto Rico the very next day. That was pretty shocking. I was planning on going to Yankton, SD Saturday after work with my mom. We were going to spend my days off there and help my brother Jeff celebrate his 24th birthday, which is today March 11th. Obviously, I was unable to go and my mom decided to wait to make the long trip until my dad was able to go with her.
I got about 3 hours of sleep Friday night after going to play volleyball with the Madsens. I would have slept longer, but fortunately Katie woke me up after oversleeping my alarm. I had it set for 1:00 am and shut it off without even knowing it. Katie woke me up at 2:00 am to start packing for my 7:00 am flight. Except for the fact that I had to do some laundry, it wasn't too hard because I still had not unpacked my bags from Key West. My flights down here all went smoothly. I was a selectee so I got the full bag search and pat-down, probably because my tickets were purchased last minute. I had just one connection at Chicago O'Hare and surprisingly enough my flight was only delayed 20 minutes.
I arrived at about 3:45 pm and was pretty wiped out so I crashed around 8:00 pm and didn't wake up until 6:00 am. Today, we had a 2 hour meeting then Yesenia (another NDF whose home airport is SJU) gave us a tour of the island. I met Yesenia while in Las Vegas and I'm very glad for that now. She was very nice, driving us to some major sites including Old San Juan, a beach, and her home. I included some pictures below.
I'm working the overnight shift for the next 4 days from 8:00 pm to 5:00 am. Then, I'm not sure what will happen. I'm hoping to have a day off so I can do some tourist things while I'm in Puerto Rico. We will all be sent somewhere later this week. We just don't know when or where. I think that I'll probably be sent back to Minnesota, but who knows. I'll write another post when I find out (probably Wednesday).
It really looks beautiful there - I hope you get to see the Island before being shipped off to Minnesota (or wherever) again. Not that I don't want you home, but it would be a shame to not even get time to look around. Talked to Jeff on Sunday - he was spending his birthday with his cat! I told him that was pretty pathetic and he agreed. He called again yesterday (Monday) in the afternoon. He said that he and a co-worker were leaving the store and going out to the golf course. It was 73 degrees in Yankton! Maybe if you come back here and we try the trip again, you'll have to bring your clubs along!
ReplyDeleteHave fun, hope to see you soon. It doesn't sound like you'll be there long enough to entertain any visitors. Love, Mom