We were lucky to have one of our Navy friends from Italy, Eric Kleen, come visit us here in TN at the end of July. He is making his preparations for an upcoming assignment overseas again, but this one will be as a reservist working with the Army. We were thankful he had time for a visit before starting his new training and deploying later this year. He knew Luke since he was a little baby and always warned us about the
“NEEEDS” of two-year olds, so we were happy he could see Luke in all his 2-year old glory.
I can’t say we were the kindest of hosts because we invited to come on a weekend when we had agreed to run and walk in a 5K for charity, and we signed him us to run, too. So he arrives Friday night and we feed him well enough, but then wake him up at 5:45 on Saturday morning to go run in the summer humidity of a Tennessee July. He may never come see us again…..but since both he and Ben won their respective age groups at the race, I think it turned out to be worth the early morning effort. Luke and I had a good time doing the fun walk with a stroller, and he naturally loved to hold Ben and Eric’s ribbons.
We rounded out the visit with a trip to the Knox County RC plane flying field, where the boys had fun flying one of Ben’s trainer planes until an errant gust carried over the woods toward the lake, never to be seen again. Two seasoned RC pilots lost one of their planes shortly thereafter, so all round it was not a good day to be flying. The weather was beautiful despite the wind, and we finished up with a nice lakeside picnic and a wade into the lake for Ben and Luke. Luke can’t resist the water, so getting wet was inevitable.
We wish you well, Eric, and thank you again for visiting. We promise we won’t make you run next time.
