The Patriot Express and TLF

"There's Our Plane!!"  The kids are excited to get on the PE/ Rotator

Around 7:20 AM, we were able to board the Patriot Express, AKA the Rotator.  The Rotator is a military contracted transpacific flight of over 11 hours to Yokota, Japan then Osan, South Korea. The plane was extremely nice, the food was amazing, each seat had a nice TV with over 40 movies to choose from, there were pillows and blankets on each seat, and we were able to sit together. Little Monster had a few bouts of grumpiness when he was ready for a nap and super tired, but overall the kids did extremely well. On our flight from San Antonio to Seattle I got motion sickness, so luckily I had a motion sickness patch in my purse and I did much better on this flight. After 10 hours, we landed in Japan.  We were required to get off the plane and wait in a small room while the plane was refueled, cleaned, maintenance was performed and other necessitates were cared for.  We waited about 2 hours then got back on the plane and landed directly onto OSAN AFB about an hour and half later.

Once deplaned, we were required to attend a briefing to go over how to fill out the customs form.  After the briefing, we were lucky enough to be one of the first 10 groups of people to go through customs since we had small children!  Score for having mini me's! After we made it through customs, we experienced something we have never seen before.

We came down the escalator only to be welcomed by a standing ovation and over 30 people from the Squadron welcoming our family with signs and banners. Amazing!! Coming from 4 years of a residency that didn't care about you as a person or any of your efforts, made this stark contrast, it was something to be treasured. It made us almost want to cry. They had two cars waiting to cart all our stuff to our new hotel home, TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility). When we got to TLF, they even carried our bags up the stairs to our second floor rooms. They don't have elevators, which made lugging 24 bags up two flights of stairs on 2 hours of solid sleep a feat to say the least. I am super grateful for all of Kevin's fellow flight commanders that helped carry our stuff.


Our rooms are super small here, but we have all we need. We have two rooms here due to our family size of 6, and of course they aren't connected; that would just make sense, huh. In one room the A/C works in the bedroom but not in the living room, and the other the bedroom A/C doesn't work but the living room does: so we take our chances on whatever seems more comfortable.  We put most of our luggage in one room along with the wii, both rooms have our clothes in the drawers and the other room has all the kids' toys, games and coloring stuff. We have food in both rooms and it seems they are both in a constant state of disarray.

We hadn't been in the room not even 10 minutes when the phone rang, and Pam from our church here was at the front door with groceries for us!  What an amazing welcoming experience for us!  Our sponsor, Aragon took Kevin to the commissary as well as taking him the next day to get our ID's loaded so we won't be arrested as imposters on base. Everything is within walking distance which is super nice. We are excited to start exploring!!