The Big "E" Is Back!

As unbelievable as it seems, after 201 days, the USS Enterprise, aka, the Big E is BACK!

And I'm sure it's no surprise, I am so flippin' happy about it!

So, I'll give a quick overview of the events of Friday night and Saturday along with some pictures:

First of all, for the first time ever, I went to the night before party that the support group puts on. I wanted to see the 8 foot long cake decorated like a carrier. The cake was pretty cool, the ice sculpture was pretty cool, the rest was not so great! Besides the fact that the food was fair and they didn't have very much of it considering the number of people that were there, there wasn't enough places to sit! After about 30-40 minutes Vance wasn't feeling very good and I sat with him at one of the tables outside while my friend stood inside to see if we won any door prizes. And we actually did! Can you believe that! We won an hour long massage and a chocolate fondue for 2. We split it and if you know me, you know that I took the massage! (chocolate is icky!) Vance did manage to get an autographed hat from The Gravedigger, which was pretty cool for him. So, that was Friday's events! I spent the rest of my evening wondering whether I wanted to take Vance to the pier the next morning if he was going to be sick........... He decided around 8AM the next morning that he'd go.

We were told that the ship would be pierside at 10AM, so we planned on being on the base around 9AM so that we could watch it come through the bay. I got everybody ready, waited for Candy, aka, the camera-lady and another friend whose husband is also on the enterprise. We got to the base as planned and we were sitting at a traffic light, looking at the water and I thought, "huh, we really should be able to see the ship by now" and as I thought that I looked to the piers and there it was, the Big E, already pierside! They came in early and we missed it, but it was ok, because that ment Chad would be off that much sooner! It looked soooo good sitting there! It's always a thrill to see that ship after a deployment!

We parked, a little further away than I had planned, walked over to the ship and waited! It was cold, but nobody seemed to be complaining much. I felt so bad for the people manning the rails, they had to have been freezing up there. Chad called me from his office and told me that he was waiting to excort a guy from customs off the ship. (customs has to come and inspect the ship to make sure that they got rid of all their forgein foods. They can't bring them back into the US and after he was done he needs to have an escort off the ship)

Now, normaly I wouldn't be happy about this, because it would mean that I would have to wait even longer for Chad to get off, however, that was not the case here. In fact, the customs guy and Chad's officers were a wonderful blessing that day!

Because he had to escort this guy, Chad was one of the first ones off the ship. He got off even before the officers did! Yeehaw! In fact, by the time that all the other 2nd classes were getting off the ship, we were already home! You've got to love that!

Chad and the kids ripped up the deployment chart, Chad passed out all his "goodies" he'd brought us and we spent the rest of the weekend enjoying having him home. He's back at work today for duty, but he'll be back with us tomorrow morning. It just feels so good, 'cause

THE BIG E IS BACK!