Cmdr. Ted Riccardella, a naval aviator with Strike Fighter Squadron 213, embraces his family during a homecoming celebration at Virginia Beach, Va., on Nov. 14, 2014.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — As Cmdr. Michael Rovenolt's jet catapulted off the deck of the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush cruising in the Atlantic, his teenage daughters huddled inside a drafty hangar at Oceana Naval Air Station on Friday morning, trying to keep warm while they waited.

It was freezing out, and it was a school day, but there was no way 15-year-old Faith and 17-year-old Grace were going to be sitting in warm classrooms when their dad finally landed.

"We haven't seen him in nine months," Grace said.

"And we're not gonna wait anymore," her sister chimed in.

They're among thousands of Hampton Roads families who are welcoming home Bush sailors this weekend.

The Norfolk-based carrier deployed in February and spent its first few months at sea supporting operations in Afghanistan. This summer, it was tasked with quickly shifting to the Arabian Gulf to strike Islamic State targets in Iraq and later Syria.

The Bush is set to arrive in Norfolk today. Most of its air wing, Carrier Air Wing Eight, which played a major role in the airstrikes against the Islamic State, arrived Friday.

For Faith and Grace, deployments are nothing new. Now the commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 31, Rovenolt began flying years before either of them was born.

But the girls said this deployment was especially hard, partly because of everything their dad missed, and partly because they knew the Bush was taking part in the high-profile strikes in Iraq and Syria.

When they heard about it on the news, "it totally freaked me out," Faith said. "I started Googling everything I could about it."

"We knew exactly what he was doing," Grace said. "Somehow that made it more real."

While Rovenolt was away, Grace went to prom. He missed her entire college application process, too, she said.

Faith got her learner's permit and started wearing makeup. (She decided to skip black eyeliner on Friday, she said, to ease her dad into the transition.)

As for what they're going to do once their dad gets a chance to catch up on sleep, "normal stuff," Grace said. Movies. Board games. Just hanging out.

In addition to several strike fighter squadrons that returned to Oceana, an airborne early warning squadron, a helicopter support squadron and others returned to Norfolk Naval Station. Additional squadrons with Carrier Air Wing Eight arrived in Whidbey Island, Wash., and Mayport, Fla.

In all, the air wing includes roughly 70 aircraft and 1,800 sailors. Together, they flew nearly 35,000 hours during the deployment, according to the Navy, with about 18,000 of the hours for combat missions. They dropped 232 precision-guided bombs, the service said, before being relieved in the Arabian Gulf last month by the San Diego-based carrier Carl Vinson and its strike group.

The air wing's commander, Capt. Dan Cheever, told reporters Friday that while no one on the Bush anticipated when they left that they'd be taking on missions over Iraq and Syria, the transition was smooth.

"That's the magic of the Navy," Cheever said. "The flexibility."

As jets with Rovenolt's squadron began landing at Oceana, moms and dads raised homemade signs. Kids wearing red, white and blue, and wives shivering in new dresses and high heels hurried out of the hangar and cheered.

Faith clutched a small American flag. Grace held up her iPhone and snapped a few pictures. Their mother, Felicia, stood on her tip toes, searching for her husband's face.

When the girls finally spotted their dad, they ran, beating their mom to the first hug.

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©2014 The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.) Distributed by MCT Information Services

