LDHQ: Up & Go

It's not always easy keeping up with the spontaneity of the military but we also can't help but appreciate the freedom we have to just "up and go" at any moment, plus have the support we need from friends and family to maintain sanity through the whole process. It sure makes life exciting for all of us! By now many of you know, Danno's temporary assignment for the next 6 months brought all of us to visit CA sooner than we expected. With only one week's notice, we hustled our way out of Okinawa so he could catch a few days of leave back home, at the same time Leyna and I could begin a nice CA vacation.

The flight was Leyna's 2nd time to fly, but of course severely longer than her first trip to Tokyo at 5 months old. Anticipating the difficulty to take such a long flight alone with her, I was thrilled Danno was able to get the same commercial flight as us. Actually, I was relieved that he even made it on the flight, considering he left base with his orders in hand just 50 minutes prior to departure (and still had to pick up his luggage at home and get to the airport)! I stepped into the check-in line still not knowing for sure if he'd make it on time. Yes, it couldn't have gotten any closer...we were those people you see running to the gate while they make the final call for passengers!

That adventurous start made anything following seem not so bad...even the 3 hr delay of our connecting flight in Tokyo equaling 5 hrs layover really didn't bother us. Leyna practically slept the entire flight to CA and only woke up once to throw up all over me and go back to sleep (thank goodness I brought extra clothes for the both of us!) Nothing could overshadow that fact that we were able to be with each other!

Killin time in the airport mall, Leyna-Chan can't get enough of Sato-Chan, famous mascot of Japan's Sato Pharmaceutical company.