After 7 long months, we are coming home!

If you're going to be in this vicinity this weekend, watch out, because we will be too! We're spending the 22nd in Chicago, but will be in South Bend until the 1st. We miss everyone! Give us a call if you want to hang out :)

Old Myspace blogs for keepsakes

12-16-2007

Josh and I are coming home this weekend. Finally! We get to say goodbye to the saddest non-christmasy state of Mississippi. Seriously, these folks don't understand what they are missing. Christmas is always associated with snow. Snow ball fights, snowmobiling, sledding, living for snow days, snow angels, making snow forts, being snowed in by blizzards, having a whole attire for snow (snow pants epuipped with adjustable suspenders, boots, gloves, hat, scarf, neck warmer, and even a fancy helmet for the snowmobile rides). You would be surprised as to how a lack of fresh snow can damper the Christmas spirit. Basically, I'm saying, I'm excited to be coming home this weekend. We haven't been home since coming back from Jamaica in May. We're spending the day in Birmingham, then flying to Chicago, spending the day there with the family, then braving the Indiana toll road together to South Bend :)

I don't think we'll miss much of Mississippi while we're gone.

Starting the last phase of pilot training!

And its going to be in the T-38 track! For the next 6 months, Josh will train on this aircraft and in June we will find out if he will get a fighter or bomber jet. I'm so proud of my hubby :)

November is almost over!!

This is our newest edition to our humble home. It's also our Christmas gift to each other.
Bama vs. Mississippi State Game, free 2nd row seats to watch the upset!
Our first Dave and Busters experience in Atlanta. Fun!
The view from our wonderful hotel room on the 28th floor at the Omni :)

Hanging out at the Colts vs. Falcons game in Atlanta.

Stopping by Talladaga Superspeedway on the way back to Columbus.

Track Select is in 15 days!! We find out if Josh gets fighters, heavies, helios or T-44's. And, we will be coming home on December 22nd, we're staying the day in Chicago with the Parker fam, so we will be home that night. We are very homesick! We will be home until January 1st.

October

Picking Pumpkins

The Parker Pumpkin

Our front door for the trick or treaters.

Memphis was okay, its a big city for those southern folk that don't get out much. This picture sums up our trip.

We're really excited for Atlanta! My boss surprised me, and got Josh and I two nights at the Omni CNN hotel right next to the stadium. I'm actually loving my job :)

Thanksgiving plans...

We're going to Atlanta for the Falcons/Colts game :)

And we're spending the weekend downtown.

Gobble Gobble!

Meet Cooper! We're puppy sitting this weekend :)

Finally!

So its official, I am a college graduate!

Funny story though, the envelope strictly said DO NOT BEND on both sides, and guess what, the mailman stuffed in the mailbox! I had to plant my feet so hard on the ground and pull with 2 hands to get it out, so the folder is really bent. I've already filed a complaint with the post office, we'll see how that goes.

My brothers' vacation to MS was pleasant. I really liked having a visitor, we had a lot of fun. Mainly just watching football and playing poker. We went to the park, chased an armadillo and Jay lost his wallet. Luckily, he found it and we sent him on his way home after his first Sonic lunch ever. Here is the Tupelo airport, it was so small I had to take a picture. His flight to Atlanta had 8 people on it! This is the whole airport, the desk on the left, all the seating in the middle and security is through the door on the left.

Oh, and baggage claim is outside under the tent.
Our friends Paul and Gretchen had a Purdue vs. Minnesota get together. Everyone here went to Purdue except for moi. The boys

The girls

Josh has a 3 day weekend this weekend and for another weekend soon. We can't believe how fast our time here is flying by! Only 76 days til track select!

Our next adventure is to go camping soon, I think we have to wait for Purdue to have a by week though....

Hooray! A visitor...

Tomorrow, my little brother is flying in for a weekend in Columbus, Mississippi.

Back from Destin

Our second trip to Destin was even more fun than our first one. We spent Saturday at a nice sports bar watching Michigan get killed, ND embarrass themselves and Purdue run over Toledo. Thats right, our first day of vacation was watching football for 6 hours, but it was awesome! Sunday we spent some more time on the private Air Force beach. We met a nice little crab, a jellyfish we named Jack, and a fish named Fred that followed us around in the water all day.

Then, we went shopping at Destin Commons, and I had Starbucks for the first time in forever! Sunday night we went to a bay area that had a lot of cute shops, restaurants and clubs. We spent quite a few hours there. We had dinner on the water and I had lobster for the first time, so we had to take pictures of it.

While in Destin, we also visited the Air Force Armament Museum, exciting!
Here's Josh with the B-52.

Here's a link to see more pictures of our trip if you'd like to.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013438&l=335c6&id=197402064

We think our next trip will be to Memphis, maybe next month.

1st Check Ride!

Josh took his first check ride last Friday and he passed with a 3E! Apparently it's a pretty tough flying test but I don't know the details. The highest you can get is a 0E which means excellent with no errors, so Josh scored an excellent with 3 errors. He's pretty excited and doing pretty well. So now, we're counting down the days til Destin!

What a weekend!

Since there is nothing much to do in Columbus, Josh and I decided to drive an hour north to Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis!

His house is incredibly small, and he only lived here until he was thirteen, then he moved to Memphis, another place we hope to visit soon.

Tupelo has amazing shopping compared to Columbus, which isn't hard to do. So we shopped a bit and stopped at our favorite restaurant, Logans!

Sunday, we spent our 3rd month anniversary decorating our living room. We put a few pictures up and our curtains. I can't talk Josh into buying a new couch this year, so I give up.

We still have a few things to do to the living room, like get a surge protector for the tv that doesn't have 3 prongs, and I've got 2 pictures that are going up next to the clock.

And, the best news of all, we've decided where we are going for our Labor Day vacation:

We can't wait!!!

Only 301 days.....

First solo ride complete!

Josh's solo flight went...well... it went, and for 19 minutes, instead of an hour. To make a long story short he had a plane malfunction, but he did everything perfectly to handle the situation. Nothing was his fault :)

He was unable to make it back to the flight room without getting tackled, so he got dunked in a pool of who knows what. If he would have made it back to the room without getting caught, everyone in the whole class would owe him a pack of beer.

Well, it was a long day at work today. I got my first raise. I guess I really can't complain but lets just say I'm bummed because its at least $3 an hour less than what I've made the last 3 years of work, not including commissions. And I work just as hard, but in a place that is not yet air conditioned! Ah well. It beats not working I guess. I feel like the past 5 years of school was just a waste, especially in Columbus, MS. I'm praying that when we leave, I can really put my major to use.

We have 301 days left (thanks Anne) until we find out where we will be moving to and what Josh will be doing for the rest of his life, that's June 13th (Friday the 13th) and I can't wait! I'm already too anxious to get out of here. Please pray that we do not FAIP (First assignment instructor pilot) this isn't a terrible thing, but we just want something better. It means that Josh would have to stay here at Columbus and teach flying for 3 years. The good thing is that he wouldn't be deployed for those 3 years, but the bad thing is, we would still be in Columbus. There is usually 1 FAIP per class of about 30. Whatever is meant to be will be and we will find the good in every situation, but please pray that we will not FAIP :)

Big Day!

Well today was a big day for both Josh and I. Josh had his solo flight today, I'm still waiting for him to get home so I can hear all about it! As for me, we had our grand opening today at work and our official ribbon cutting stuff. There were a lot of people there for awhile, but then it slowed down quite a bit.

The weather has been crazy here, its been well over 100 for the past week, tomorrow is suppossed to be 105, and there's really no end in sight. We haven't had a single drop of rain for the past 3, going on 4 weeks. Our grass is struggling to grow.

Last Saturday at the base pool, we had a birthday pool party for 2 guys in the class, which was a blast!

And in other news, we finally received our new kitchen table. It's very fancy for us, and we're hoping that it will last us awhile because it wasn't cheap :)

I just had another shopping trip with Nina and Leann and I bought a few new things to spruce up the old house. We went to Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis. So, as soon as we get that stuff up, I'll put up some more pictures.

I'm going to go make some dinner!

Columbus, Mississippi

Well, we have made it through the first two amazing months of marriage! It has gone by incredibly quick. Living in the south is, well, different. Here is what we've been up to.

I have finished my BBA at Mississippi State, I know its confusing, but I'll actually be graduating from Wichita State, and I've already walked through their graduation ceremony. They allowed me to finish my last 3 classes in Mississippi, which is by far the easiest piece of cake school ever. I found a job at a coffee shop called Kudoz, we open next week, and I'm the assistant manager, yippie. And yes, even though I am a military wife, I will be working full-time. When I'm not working, or going to class, I usually spend my days either at the pool with the other wives or watching tivod friends episodes :)

When Josh isn't teaching the Japanese students to dance, or going crazy in New Orleans, he's really swamped with pilot training. He just finished up the academics part and I think he did pretty well, but what do I know about pilot training? There is a TON of jargon in the air force, and I'm slowly learning what it means. He also just started his 12 hour days! This means, I rarely see him :(

On Tuesday, he started flying the T-6, which in 3 weeks, he will fly solo, and yes that means only him and no one else will be in the plane.

If all goes well, in December at track select, he hopes to switch to the T-38 which is the fighter/bomber track.

And he also seems interested in the T-1 which is the heavies track.

It seems that Josh is indecisive on whether he wants to fly fighters or heavies. To be honest, I'm indecisive too. I'm not too sure which plane it is, but it sounds like one plane is deployed less often and for longer periods of time, while the other plane is deployed more often but for a shorter period of time.

If all goes really really well maybe one day he will fly this:

(Air Force One)


Columbus, is pretty boring. They intentionally make pilot training in boring places so that the students can truly focus. Honestly, it works. The good thing about Columbus is that its easy to escape from, a couple girls and I just had a wonderful shopping trip to Birmingham, AL which is 2 hours away. A couple weeks ago Josh's parents came to visit and we went to New Orleans and Biloxi, which is 5 hours away. We hope to visit Memphis, TN which is 3 hours away and Atlanta, GA which is about 5 hours, I think.

Our duplex is very comfy and very spacious. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a spacious living room and a nice size kitchen. We do not have neighbors in our duplex yet, but all of our other neighbors are extremely nice.

That's about is for now. I'm tired of myspace, so I'm switching to this for blogs so that I can add pictures.