Scattered Thoughts . . .

We again headed toward the airport the other day to greet Adam as he arrived from his last assignment. He is on his way to his new assignment and will be staying with us for a short while before continuing on to his new duty station.  It was a big 4th of July Parade day in all the towns surrounding Burlington so we were a little late getting to the airport which meant we didn't have time to visit the tower to watch Adam's plane arrive from up there... Nan and Pop arrived at about the same time as we did but parked at the opposite end of the parking garage... Adam arrived only a few minutes after our own arrival... Liza and the kids arrived shortly after Adam's arrival and we found them on our way to the luggage carousel... Kenzie surprised us by making a sneaky and very determined, direct beeline toward Uncle Adam and jumped up into his arms... As usual, we headed out to a nearby restaurant for a nice lunch together... Lukey w...

Adam is visiting for a short while as he travels from his previous assignment to his next assignment. It has been nice catching up with him about stuff at home as well as Air Force stuff.   Last night, Adam realized that he had an award to show us and went digging through one of his bags...   Adam was recently awarded his second Air Force Achievement Medal (hence the reference to an "oak leaf cluster" on the certificate). The citation (the narrative describing his particular accomplishment for this medal) cannot be shown here because it contains classified and sensitive information but I can say that this is definitely a noteworthy achievement relating to specific Air Force operations and missions on multiple continents. Congratulations, Adam!

This morning was my turn for the hospital.   Yesterday, I had disassembled our icemaker because it was frosted-over and no longer making any ice. I defrosted all the ice/frost... and started assembling everything again... as I was pushing the icemaker upward with my thumb with as much force as I could muster to get it to clip back into place, my thumb suddenly popped loudly and bent completely backward just like a fingernail does at times...  That hurt a bit but the thought of my thumb bending completely backward at the top joint gave me the heebie-jeebies more than anything!   I continued assembling the icemaker... finished... turned it back on... and then took a closer look at my swollen thumb... I somehow got my thumb back into place but it was painful and a bit swollen. I figured I would let it go for now and see how it heals since it was not bruised yet nor was it looking like a balloon.  By last night, my whole hand was swollen so I knew I'd ...