uncle nutty butters

i didn't take any pics, so i borrowed this one from amy. this was right before he left roanoke

as most of you know, my brother, jeff is en route to iraq. he's currently awaiting a flight into his final destination. last wednesday he left roanoke where amy and lena are staying while he's gone and his travels brought him through germany. as soon as i found out it was a remote possibility he was coming here, i blocked off the calendar. he ended up coming through ramstein, which is about 2 hours from here (on a good day with no traffic, construction, bad weather, etc) on thursday. he was suppose to get in a little after noon and have 3 or 4 hours before having to get back on the plane. so i loaded up the boys, checked the gps about a million times to make sure i was heading to the right place and we were off.

side note: this was my first time driving beyond stuttgart by myself and i was a little nervous to put it mildly.

we got up there in record time. we checked out the terminal and it said jeff would be coming in between 1245 and 145  and it was 1145 so we walked across the street and did a little shopping at the massive exchange and headed back over around 1230. somebody came in and mentioned the flight was coming in at 115....115 came and went. and then the next person said 200...which came and went. finally, someone said 230. 230 came and people magically started appearing from the direction of the exit gate. jeff saw me right away and we met up. and since their plane was an insane 2 hours late, he had 45 minutes before he had to get back on the plane. we couldn't even leave the terminal. but the bigger picture was that 1) i got to see my brother before he deployed and i hadn't seem him in almost 2 years. i was 4 or 5 months pregnant with grayson the last time i saw him 2) grayson got to meet his uncle jeffy 3) mayer got to show uncle nutty butters his cars and tell him all about soccer, the two things he talked about nonstop during the 2 hour drive.

we headed upstairs at the terminal and had some subway. mayer sat next to jeff and talked to him almost nonstop. i chimed in when i could. i love seeing the boys with family, especially since we are so very far away from everyone. grayson had no idea what was going on, but towards the end, he was interacting with jeff.

they called for jeff's flight and everyone got in line to get back onto the plane. i'm pretty sure that was the fastest 45 minutes ever.  the line was crazy long, it seemed like the whole airport stood up and got into line. jeff was literally the last person in line. he had a reserved seat so that meant more time with my brother. it was a bittersweet moment. i was so, so excited to see jeff but at the same time, the only reason i was able to see him was because he was on his way to iraq.

as we were leaving the airport, mayer kept yelling up to jeff and saying/yelling "bye" and jeff waved and yelled back each time.

we left the house at 9am and got home a little after 7pm, all to spend less than hour with jeff, but you can bet, when he's on his way home and has another layover at ramstein, we will be there.