He's HOME!!!

Dirk arrived in Utah shortly before 4 pm today - Hurrah!! He beat everyone - Melinda and I and grandpa Nielson and Ben and Simon got at the baggage area about 4 pm . We figured it would be about 15 minutes before Dirk got down to the baggage area. HAH!!! His flight got in early and the soldiers were the first ones off the plane. Melinda was just looking at the flight schedule and had turned to me to say - his plane has landed when I looked up and here comes Dirk just a truckin!! If I had wanted to I could have gotten the first hug!!


This is the sign I made with the help of Jeff and Teresa - I thought the vinyl lettering was really nice and they added the flags!! WOW!! Special Thanks to teresascustomcreations.com!! If anyone wants some awesome vinyl or steel signs and lettering that's the place to get it!

Melinda of course got the first hugs and she sobbed her welcome to Dirk in his arms. Then she turned to the boys and Ben was somewhat shy about going to his dad, but he knew his daddy and was glad to see him. He got big loves from daddy and then was more interested in the yellow balloons tied to Simon's stroller. (as is normal!)
Simon watched everything with those big blue eyes of his and didn't mind having daddy hold him. The picture above shows Ben pointing to the balloons again!
About five minutes after the joyful welcome Shawn and Cade showed up. I guess they would have made it on time but the airport police thought Shawn was traveling too fast!! Shawn gave him the "but officer, I was just hurrying to welcome my brother who is just arriving from Afghanistan!" The officer merely said " then I will hurry and write the ticket faster!"
Here Ben is playing with the balloons and by now Grandpa Ed has made it too. He had me come earlier because he had was teaching a class and couldn't get away early enough.
This is the cute sign Da made - the back of it says DAD! Ben thought it was great fun to play with and he also liked the flags - he had one for each hand.
If Dirk is looking a little spacey its because he left Kuwait 26 hrs before landing in SLC - longggggggg flight. He said that Dallas really gave them a royal welcome. As soon as they got to the window to connect to their next flight - they were told there was an earlier flight leaving that they could come on, and they were immediately upgraded to first class seats!! He said there were lines of people waiting to shake their hands and welcome them home. Of course, his luggage didn't make the quick connection so the airlines will deliver it in the middle of the night to his home.

We are sooo glad to have Dirk home for this two week visit. He looks really good ...I think he has put on 10-20 pounds which look good on him. WELCOME HOME KID!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Welcome Home

We landed in Salt Lake Thursday night about 11:10 and it was after midnight when we finally pulled into our driveway. The landing was one of the scariest I've ever been on even though the pilot did a fantastic job - the weather didn't cooperate.

Anyway - we were home sweet home and as we walked through the door - ugghh - Ed said - didn't we empty the trash before we left and I said I thought we did but as I got closer to the trash can the worse the smell was.

So I grabbed it and took it outside and dumped. The house was cooollllldddd - we had turned the thermostat down to 50 and it felt like it through and through. But the house was still smelly so Ed propped the back door open to hopefully air it out some. I grabbed a cooking pot and filled it halfway with water and put it on to boil and added cinnamon to help things out. I also got out the aerosole spray and sprayed everything down. We got the luggage inside and turned up the heat and brushed out teeth and went to bed hoping the house would smell better in the morning.

It didn't. Ed opened the fridge (that is only six years old) Friday morning and said - eeewwww - you're going to have to throw out some leftovers.... and then he said - OH NO! EVERYTHING is bad!! The power is off - no, the power isn't off but the fridge is warm.....and so is the freezer.

THAT WAS WHAT SMELLED - I bet the fridge had died a day or so after we left and everything in it sat and 'cooked' for a week. Gross!! I hauled four garbage cans full of rotten food scrubbing as I went. I pulled every shelf and drawer out of the fridge and the freezer - of course all the staples, like mayo, mustard and salad dressings got tossed. Even the pickles were bad! The left over chili and beans from the family party that I had put in the freezer - gone. Chicken, pork, hamburger (I had a pound of the pre-packaged hamburger in the freezer - it had literally ballooned out to TWICE the normal size!!)

I called and got a repairman over - Ed and I decided that we would have them give us a bid and if it was $400 or more we would go buy a new refrigerator. I called the place at 9:30 and she said she could get someone there today but wasn't sure how soon . I said give me a half an hour at least so I can run to Wal Mart's and get a gallon of milk so I can eat breakfast. That is exactly what they gave me - the guy was at my door at 10:05!! But I had my milk!! He walked through the door, took one look at my fridge from ACROSS the room and said I know exactly what is wrong with your refrigerator. It is a relay switch in the compressor that has gone bad. Whirlpool had been using the same switch for over 25 years with no problem but all of a sudden about 1999 or 2000 they switched to a different one and that one has given them all sorts of headaches. He told me that he has changed out over 2000 of those himself in the past few years!!! It makes me so angry that Whirlpool would do that and not notify the customers or do a recall ...instead we get the dead appliance and rotten food. It wouldn't have been so bad if we had been home - we wouldn't have lost everything - we would have noticed a problem within 24 hours or so.

About the time the ice cubes started defrosting.

So that was our welcome home. And I can still smell the smell slightly when I open the refrigerator door. I've tried baking soda but it still smells - any ideas out there?

One fun side note - Ed got to bed before I did last night and when I walked into the cold bedroom he's laying there without any covers on. I said "Are you hot? How come you haven't pulled the blankets up over you in this cold house?" He said "Cause the bed is COLD!!!!! This way only ONE side of me is cold - I'm not about to pull those icy blankets over me!!"

I don't think we'll turn the heat down so much next time we leave!!