Peter's Uncle Paul passed away on February 15th. He was a high chief of the family and the funeral process is a very big thing when the family member has a title like that. Peter and his brother Pat were the only ones who were able to go down with their mother to represent their side of the family. For a little while, we thought it would be only Pete. But, because it was an uncle, and not his mother, the Army would only get Pete there, not the whole family. So we had a decision to make, very quickly, about what we were going to do. Pete would be using his R&R time to go to the funeral. He might have had 3 or 4 days at the end of it, to come up to Alaska and see us. This would have been a lot more fiscally sound, but it also meant that we would see him for 4 days max and then he'd leave again for Iraq. Or we could just not see him at all until the end of the deployment.
For me, that wasn't an option. Just a few days would be too confusing for the little ones--having Dad around just for a couple days and then have him leave again. We were struggling with how we were going to finance this trip, and I told Pete, "I have an idea but you are NOT going to like it." He asked what and I said, "You know that truck you were planning on when you get home???" I was very surprised when he said simply, "Do it." So we decided to have me and the boys go down to meet Pete in Samoa. Such a simple sentence to set in motion a huge undertaking. The hardest part about it was that I only had a couple days to plan it. The flights in/out of Samoa only fly on Sunday and Thursday. I had just a small window to get us on the Sunday flight. Then I had to decide whether or not to take all the boys or just the little ones. Matt and Connor would miss two weeks of school. Luckily it was Parent-Teacher Conference time and after talking with teachers and counselors, we decided to withdraw Connor from classes for the two weeks and get Matt an extended excused absence. I don't think either one of them were really thrilled with the idea of going, and for just a bit, I was going to fly one sister up to take care of Matt and Connor and take another sister down with me to help with the little ones. But in the end...we all went and I am very glad we did, even though there were some really rough times.
We ended up flying down to San Jose to pick up Pete's Mom and
all the stuff she needed to take down with her for the funeral. Hundreds of fine mats--the traditional form of currency in Samoa. Luckily, by the time we got there, Pat was there and Pete had managed to get his ticket changed to meet us there instead of Samoa. For once he actually picked us up at the airport instead of the other way around. We had a real quick meet and greet with Pete's brother Junior and his family, crashed at the hotel and then packed up the truck and the van very early in the morning and headed out to San Francisco airport.It took forever to check in...with all of us there were 10 people and 18 bags to check! (And that's not counting carry-ons and carseats.) Another thing that took a long time was that I didn't have passports for any of us. My brother-in-law, Pat, has stressed every day since we got to San Jose that I MUST get passports for all the kids. All you people out there who think you'll never need them, yeah. GET YOUR PASSPORTS! You really just never know. It is top of my list to do even if it is only one at a time, here and there.
Sooo, back to the trip. Almost 20 hours later, we made it to Samoa and got our first taste of the tropics. No air conditioning in the airport customs and baggage claim area. Ugh. I was too tired to appreciate where I was besides which, as I was standing there waiting for Pete to pick up all the baggage that we had, Cole peed out of his diaper and all down the front of my shirt! There's nothing like being sweaty, hot, tired, and smelling like pee to make a good impression on your husband's family and homeland! LOL So now we are in Samoa and the next post will be a bit more of what we did there and more pictures. Promise lots of pictures.
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