Sunday Surprise

Sunday morning I intentionally showed up to church an hour late. The week before I had tried to attend all three hours with the kids, and it didn't go so well. I did my best to keep all 6 kids quiet in Sacrament meeting, but apparently failed miserably (we had people actually get up and move away from us). So I decided to spare everyone else and just show up for Primary. It was much less stressful on me.

After church I had hoped to be able to go on a family bike ride (now that our bikes had unflat tires), but the weather took a turn for the worse and was pouring down rain. So we stayed inside and tried to pass the time.

Now, I have to back track just a bit here. In past years, there have been times when Scott finished up at Red Dog Mine early and was able to come home early. There are charter airplanes that fly in and out of the mine twice a week--on Wednesdays and on Saturdays. So, for him to get to come home early, he has to finish half a week ahead of schedule. It doesn't always happen, but a few times it has. I was really hoping this would be one of those times. Earlier in the week, he mentioned in an email that he was seeing people from 7 in the morning till 11:30 at night, and that hopefully it would pay off so he could finish early. I clung to that hope all week.

Also during that week, I'd become familiar with the special telephone ring that meant it was Scott calling. He has no cell phone coverage up where he is in Alaska, so I have no way of calling him. I have to just sit and wait for him to get a chance to call us. Our home phone has a feature on it that doesn't allow blocked phone numbers to call in. So, when he called from the mine, he had to enter his phone number to allow the call to go through. And when he did that, the phone here did two short rings instead of one long ring like it usually does. I don't know why it did that, but it did. And it was nice because as soon as the phone would start ringing, I knew it was him without even checking Caller ID, and we'd all run frantically to find a phone so we could talk to dad. I told him at one point in the week about the funny ring--I didn't think anything of it, I just mentioned it in one of our phone calls.

So, here we were on day 9 of Scott's trip. And we still had 4 more days to go. He was scheduled to be on the charter plane out of Red Dog on Wednesday and then finish the trip home on Thursday. But, on Friday I had started to hope that just maybe he would finish early, be on the charter plane on Saturday and be home on Sunday. But when he called at 10:30 on Saturday night, it was still the two short rings that we'd become familiar with. I cried to him that I had really needed for him to come home early, and told him I didn't know how I was going to make it through the remaining days. He told me how sorry he was, but that there was just still too much work to do up at the mine.

Sunday afternoon we all sat inside the the house, with the rain coming down, and everything looking drearily gray. At 3:30 the phone rang. It was two short rings. I answered it, knowing it was Scott. He sounded tired. I asked him how he was. He said, "What if I told you that I was at the Boise airport and needed you to come pick me up?" I told him that wasn't even funny, that he shouldn't even joke about it. "I know you are still at the mine, because the phone did two short rings." He said, "What if I figured out how to make the phone do that from anywhere, and I really am at the Boise airport?". I started bawling. I made sure he really was telling the truth, then told him I'd be right there to get him.

Still crying uncontrollably, I got off the phone and yelled at all the kids to hop in the car because we were going to go get dad. Owen was asleep in his crib, and I didn't even care that I had to interrupt his nap and wake him up to come. We drove through the rain to the airport, and I tried really hard to control my tears. Savannah commented half way there, "You are really happy that Dad's back, aren't you". We pulled up to the airport and I jumped out and hugged him so tightly. He said, "You aren't mad that I tricked you, are you?". I assured him that this was a great surprise and that I wasn't mad at all.

So, the October Alaska trip ended up being only 9 days. I feel like we got off so light. I mean, 9 days is a long time, but he's usually gone the entire month. I want to just breath a sigh of relief, but I know that we've got to do this again in November, so we really aren't done yet. But for now, I have my husband back and my kids have their dad again, and we are going to enjoy every minute we have with him.