Big Jeff’s mom just called, and although we’ve had a vague idea of when he’s coming home, we finally have a flight number to make it seem real!

Her voice was so happy, I knew what she called for before she even got the words out, and mine shortly went up into supersonic levels too.

He’s flying home on the 8th, and it’s into a public airport so we all get to meet him. That’s not always the case with military airports. We get to do our hugs and our greetings and our welcome homes, and then he’s released for the evening. He does have to go back the next day for out-processing, so I expect he’ll just stay in a hotel room down there that night, with a big family BBQ the next day. It’s worth driving down twice in a row for, that’s for sure.

We’ve been expecting it, and both of us have been getting a little stressed about getting things ready for him. That’s a little silly; I’m sure he’s going to be so happy to be home that he won’t care if there’s a little dust on his shelves. Hell, that man doesn’t care about dust when he’s home anyway!

But besides the hot tub cleaning (which didn’t stay cleaned and doesn’t seem to actually be hot anyway), we’ve got a lot of prep work done. I brought his boat down and had it serviced yesterday, and the kids and I are going to go over it and get it clean this weekend.

JJ and I have talked about when and how we’re going to get the horses back up to their own house; that will probably be next weekend so they aren’t unsupervised for too long.

Jeff’s mom is heading up this week to clean and to restock him with staples, since we tossed a bunch of stuff when we turned the refrigerators off.

And Mike is thinking about the welcome home party - that’s definitely Mike’s department. He throws the best parties!

So, what does one do when greeting a long-lost family member in an airport? We can bring balloons or flowers or signs, because it is public, but I’m not very good at that creative stuff. He’d like the attention though, I know he would. Maybe some balloons? A banner? Help me, you artistic friends!