Summer 2014

As summer comes to an end in most of the country (although not in Texas!), it's time to look back on a great summer!  All the pictures from the summer are in the Summer 2014 album.

We started things off with a going away night out in downtown San Antonio.  The Luxury is always a good time, and you can't go wrong with giant Jenga.

Lindsey came to town and we all enjoyed a haunted tour of downtown.  We got a special treat when we walked by San Fernando Cathedral. 

Next up was a trip to the top of the Tower of the Americas for one last night with deployer Eric.  We sure do miss having you around!

One of Eric's favorite places was the Beethoven Maennerchor.  They showed all the USA and Germany World Cup games on the big screen.  We joined in the fun for the USA-Portugal game.

While all of this was going on, Amy and I were drowning in our weekly veggie shipment.  We shared, but how do you put a dent in a haul like this?  I think some of those banana peppers are still in my freezer...

Next up was the 4th of July.  I spent the day with friends at the Missions baseball game, then enjoyed the fireworks after the game.  Another shot from this night featured as the P52 picture for Week 27.

Two days later, I was on a plane headed for Atlanta.  I spent most of the summer there.  You can read about my adventures in my post here.  While in Atlanta, I snuck away for a long weekend with Lindsey in Vancouver.  You can read about our fun here.  

I came back to San Antonio for a few weeks in August.  I spent one weekend at our office summer picnic at the river with my silly, water-hating dogs.  See that angry face Roxie has on?  That's because she got a teeny, tiny bit of river water on her ears.

  

I spent the next weekend with a group of ladies at what I hope will become an annual tradition.  You can read all about our Ladies Weekend in Austin here.

The very next weekend, I was on another plane headed for South Dakota.  I spent 10 wonderful days with my family before heading back to Atlanta.  I wrote about my trip to South Dakota here.

On my first day back in Atlanta, I was greeted by flowers from my husband.  How sweet is he?

My travels didn't end there.  I had the opportunity to travel to upstate New York for a project meeting.  It was beautiful!  I'm trying to figure out a way that I can go back while the leaves are changing.

At the end of September, I made my way back to San Antonio.  It was great to see my puppies and sleep in my bed for a change, but I still miss all my new Atlanta friends.

To close out the summer, our group of Air Force friends spent a day in Fredericksburg as a going away for one of the couples in the group.  They are successfully relocated to South Carolina.  Lucky duckies!

With such a crazy summer behind me, I'm really looking forward to a calmer fall.  Maybe...

I Remember...

I remember... until I don't.  Until life on fast forward gets away from me, and it's lunch before I look down and realize that I didn't remember.  That I didn't see this day coming.  That my time away from a community so deeply saturated in military culture has given me a taste of what the world looks like to everyone else.

Except that I don't really live in that world.  Deployments still happen with a regularity that others can't comprehend.  And every time I hear the news, I am so thankful that Chris's parents didn't teach him Ukrainian - something that used to disappoint me.  Now, now I'm thankful because while he may not always be home, I at least know where he is.  Most of the time.  I think.

It's startling to me how different my life is than it was three years ago, thirteen years ago, and in so many ways the same.  How different the world itself is, and still the same.  New hopes, and dreams, and fears take hold while the old ones linger, always there, never completely fading away.

I remember, because how can I ever really forget.

P52 - Patterns - 11/52

I spent last night with one of my very best friends - Lindsey.  I guess we have a thing for St. Patrick's Day (or there about).  Two years ago, we spent the day together in Florence not long after she left Lajes for a new adventure in Germany.  This year, she is visiting San Antonio from her new home in San Francisco.  Another year - another adventure.  Such is the way of this crazy Air Force life.  The constant movement away from and the returning to.  Crossing paths in a thousand unexpected ways; in corporate lobbies, in parking lots, in countries half-way around the world.  In dark corners in crowded rooms, where months and years of lost time spill out like the light from the old lamp on the marble-topped table beside us, illuminating the cracked and crazy and beautiful in our lives for a few fleeting hours.

  

Boston, a Wedding, and a Lajes Reunion (Part 2)

... we left off on the train from Boston to Providence...

We arrived in Providence after dark (aka 4:30 pm in Southern Canada), found the rental car facility, stopped to do a little bit of wedding gift shopping, and then made our way out of town to our bed and breakfast in Bristol, RI.  We were greeted by our very friendly inn keeper, shown our room, and left to get ourselves ready to join the wedding festivities already in progress just down the road in Barrington, RI.  The wedding was being held at an old mansion on the beach, and most of the family and out-of-town guests were gathering for dinner at the house.  We were so excited to see many of our old friends from Lajes.

We had dinner, did a quick wedding rehearsal, then spend the rest of the night catching up with our friends.

We may have also checked out the house and found some interesting surprises - like a creepy basement complete with dead flowers from weddings past.

The next morning, Chris and I enjoyed a fabulous, fabulous breakfast courtesy of our wonderful inn keeper.  If you ever find yourself anywhere near Bristol, RI, we would highly recommend the Bristol House Bed and Breakfast.  Then, we headed for Newport, RI to tour one of the Gilded-Era summer homes built by the Vanderbilt family.  The Breakers is the most famous of the many mansions and is one of only a few open during the off-season.

Unfortunately, the were no photographs allowed inside, so you'll have to check out their website for a peak at the stunning interior.  The house was rebuilt in the late 1800s in the Renaissance style commonly seen throughout Europe.  Having seen many of the chateaus and palaces this house was modeled after, we can certainly say that the The Breakers was every bit as opulent and over-the-top as its European rivals.  The only difference - modern conveniences like gas appliances and running water.

We didn't have enough time to tour another house, so we opted instead to take a driving tour around the Newport area.  We stopped at several beaches along the way and ended with a drive through the heart of Newport's historic downtown.  Then, we headed back to the B&B to get ready for the wedding.

The wedding was another night of celebration with friends.  The bride was beautiful, and I have rarely seen the groom as happy.

There's something special about being part of a group willing to travel, literally, half way around the world to attend a wedding.

It was also a reminder of just how small this Air Force family really is.

The next morning, we packed up early and hit the road for a quick detour through Connecticut before heading to the airport for our flight back to Texas.

(obligatory picture in front of a Connecticut church - because that's just what we do)

3 Years Later

Three years ago today, I hit "publish" on my very first blog post.  We were a week away from starting our four day odyssey to Lajes Field.  We had no idea how much two years on a little rock in the Atlantic would change us, our priorities, our world view, our lives.  Even now, nearly a year after leaving, I miss my friends and the tight-knit community we were blessed to be a part of.  Some days life in Texas gets the best of me, and I wish we were back on the island getting ready for another dinner party or a bonfire with our friends.  But going back now wouldn't be the same.  It is the people, forever frozen in my memories against the backdrop of such a beautiful place, that hold a special place in my heart and always will.

Our Life in Lajes

Counting

November 14, 2012 was a big day for us, but it passed by quietly, unnoticed.  Just another Wednesday in a long line of Wednesdays.  Chris went to work and I unpacked boxes and washed clothes.  But, it was day 309;  a big day.  309 days of being together in the same place, in the same state, in the same country.  309 days of no 6-week training courses in Ohio, no weeks spent in a tent in Florida, no deployments to far away places.  309 days together.  The most we had managed to string together in our five and a half year marriage.

March 19th, 2013 was another big day for us, and it too slipped by without notice or fanfare.  But it was day 457; a big day.  457 days since Chris returned to our little island from his deployment to Afghanistan.  457 days of being in the same country, on the same continent.  457 nights of not worrying or wondering about all the what-ifs that creep in while laying in bed alone.  457 days since I started breathing again after seven long months.  457 days together.  The longest we had ever made it between deployments in our nearly six year marriage.  

Today, May 19, 2013, we are celebrating day 518!  We are also celebrating day 2,192.  2,192 days of friends and family, of friends-turned-family.  2,192 days of moves, new houses, and new jobs.  2,192 days of exploring a new cites, new countries together.  2,192 days since we stood in the front of a church and promised to love each other forever.  To stand by each other through everything life was about to throw our way.

"Here's to all the places we went.  And here's to all the places we'll go.  And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: I love you." - John Green

Happy Thanksgiving 2012

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!  I hope you had a wonderful day filled with family, friends, and lots of good food!!

We were not able to make the trip home for Thanksgiving this year (check out this post just in case you missed the craziness that was last year), so we held our own Thanksgiving celebration.  We invited two other Air Force guys that were stuck in San Antonio over the holiday to join us for dinner and some football.

The Air Force makes you good at creating your own little 'family' gatherings, and let's be honest, I'll find any excuse I can to cook!  I made a small feast that Chris and I will be enjoying for the next week or so.

Here was the menu:

Turkey (of course!) - roasted with salt, pepper, and olive oil.  That's it.  Nothing fancy.

Sweet potato casserole - I may have made a double batch.

Green bean casserole - I substituted French fried onions for the crackers.  I suggest you do the same.

Garlic mashed potatoes - I use red potatoes and leave the skin on.  Yum!

Cranberry Sauce - Follow the suggestion to add Grand Marinier

Pumpkin Pie - Right off the pumpkin can.

Rolls, Cheese, Beer and Wine - Thanks to our guests!

Hello Washer, Hello Dryer...

Hello washer, hello dryer,

Here we are at laundry mountain.

It's been so long since I've seen you,

And you brought your old friend the refrigerator!

As you can tell from my joyful song, we had our final shipment delivered today... sort-of... almost... mostly.

They lost our John Deere lawn tractor, a sofa, Big Blue the chair, and a kiddy pool.  Surprise, surprise - bring on the claim forms.  At least the important things arrived.  We were almost out of clean underwear!

Unpacking Pause

Things were really rolling along on the unpacking front until Thursday morning.  We had our bedroom and one of the spare bedrooms painted, our clothes were unpacked, and we were working steadily on removing all traces of Bambi and friends from our sitting room.  We were down to just a handful of boxes piled up in the living room.  Not too bad for just four days!

Then, as many of you who also get my updates of Facebook already know, I had to go in for hernia surgery.  No worries – after two days of drug-induced sleep, I am back and better than ever.  The only exception is that can’t lift anything that weighs more then 10 lbs.  Let me tell you what, EVERYTHING in our house weighs at least 10 lbs.  I can’t do anything!!  Can you tell I’m frustrated?  However, I have the best husband ever, and he listened very patiently this weekend while I talked him through moving most of the boxes out of the living room.  Here’s what it looks like now.

It’s still a mess, and the living areas still need paint, but we’re getting there.  On the down side, our storage shipment may or may not ever make it to our house.  It was supposed to be delivered no later than today, and there’s still no sign of our refrigerator or our washer and dryer.  Good thing we both have way too many clothes!

Boxes, Boxes, Everywhere!!

In an unexpected, but much appreciated turn of events, our household goods shipment was delivered on Friday!!!  That meant we spent most of Thursday scrambling to get the essential walls painted and ready for furniture, but it was so worth it to sleep in our own bed again.

Chris took a few pictures of the unloading and unpacking that I thought you all might enjoy.

The main living areas before the unloading started:

Moving crates all unloaded:

The main living areas after unloading the truck and unpacking the kitchen:

We still have lots of boxes to unpack, but we're getting there.  Hopefully, we will get our refrigerator and our washing machine some time this week too!

Moving Update

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, so I thought I should fill you all in on how things have been going.  In a word… slowly.  Very, very slowly. 

I wrote about our initial journey in this post.  Since then, we've found a house and negotiated all the nitty-gritty details of the contract.  We are scheduled to close on Monday.  Keep your fingers crossed that nothing changes that date!  I’ll post pictures of the house once we are actually the owners.  We have attempted to schedule our various shipments for next week as well, but in typical military-move fashion, nothing is working out as we had hoped.  We will be able to get our unaccompanied baggage next week, so we’ll have a vacuum, one bicycle, a TV and some clothes.  However, our main household goods shipment was held up in customs, so we may no see that shipment (or our bed) for at least two weeks.  Yippee!!  We have also been unsuccessful in scheduling the delivery of the items we put in storage when we moved to Lajes.  As of today, they will be picked up from storage on the 18th and delivered in 2-14 days.  Really… 2-14 days, that’s the best you can do?  At least I have the internet installation scheduled for Tuesday!

Since we knew there would be a big time lag between finding a house and actually being able to move in, we scheduled a trip back to South Dakota and Nebraska to see our families.  I wrote about that trip here.  It was great to see our family, and I was thankful to not have to spend those 10 days in a hotel.

Almost immediately upon our arrival home from South Dakota, we found out our car had arrived in Dallas.  We flew up to Thursday morning and drove it home Thursday afternoon.  We were lucky enough to meet my cousin Amy and her family for lunch.  Thanks Brown family for being our taxi service!  It was great to see you guys.  We also purchased a new-to-us car a few days after our arrival.  We are now the proud owners of a 2010 Toyota Prius.  We love the car and the 51 mpg we've been averaging!

We were also lucky enough to spend the last three days with my aunt and uncle from Denver.  I haven’t seen them since I tagged along with them to Hawaii last December.  My uncle was in town for a conference, so I spent the afternoons with my aunt strolling along the River Walk.

And that takes me to today.  Despite a long list of things I need to blog about, I’m really, really bored… Sam agrees whole-heartedly with that last part.

Maybe we’ll go to the dog park again this afternoon.  Or, maybe not.  It’s awfully hot and humid out right now.  Story of our new life.

The Long Road to our New Home

Moving is never easy.  It involves lots of planning and re-planning and back-up plans for the back-up plans.  If you’re lucky, you’re only on ‘Plan C’ by the time you finally arrive.  We were lucky and arrived using only ‘Plan C’.  We are now, however, well on our way to ‘Plan E or F’.  Here’s the run-down of our trip from our little rock in the pond to everything-really-is-bigger-here Texas.

Last Saturday we packed our bags for the last time, then mailed whatever wouldn’t fit.  You know, things like the shower head we forgot to take down before the movers came.  Sam and Roxie decided thy wanted to get mailed too.  Silly puppies.

That night, we enjoyed final BBQ with our CE friends.  We really couldn’t have asked for a better way to wrap up our time in Lajes.  Just looking at the pictures makes me miss you all!

Bright and early Sunday morning, the circus that is our family arrived at the terminal for check-in.

Thankfully, two of our friends volunteered to help us get two very large dog kennels, two dogs, four suitcases, and two back-packs into the terminal and onto the plane. 

Many, many more of our friends arrived at the terminal to wish us farewell.  It’s hard to say ‘see you soon’ to so many great people all at once, but it seemed a fitting end to a tour that started with a welcome attended by just as many people.

That night, we landed in Baltimore, picked up our dogs, and tried to wrangle four luggage carts to the pick-up point for the hotel shuttle.  Thanks to some help from the shuttle driver, we managed to get everything to the hotel and into our room where we all promptly collapsed.  The time change is a real pain for the first couple of days.

Monday morning, we reloaded everything into the shuttle then made our way to the cargo terminal to check in the dogs.  Once the dogs were checked in for their flights, we went to the passenger terminal and checked ourselves in for our flights.  I managed to make arrangements for the dogs to be cargo on the same flights we would be taking.  The theory being, if one of the flights was delayed along the way, we would still all arrive in San Antonio at the same time.  We flew to Atlanta, where we saw the dog kennels sitting on the tarmac waiting to be loaded in the plane, before finally landing in San Antonio at 7:45pm (that’s nearly 1am Azores time). 

We loaded the circus into another shuttle, this one took us to the car rental counter.  I would have loved to see a video of us making our way through the airport with everything in tow.  I’m sure we were quite a sight.  We got our upgraded rental car (thank you Enterprise!) and collapsed in yet another hotel room.

Tuesday morning, we dropped the dogs off at the kennel (no pet-friendly rooms available in lodging on base) and started our search for a new house to call home.  We saw nine houses and eliminated all but two of them from the search.  We finally got to enjoy our first meal at Chipotle!  It really is the little things.

We also got our first taste of traffic and driving in the big city.  Now, as I had hoped, there are lanes on these road.  However, the paint is so worn that you can hardly see them, and people don’t really stay in their lanes.  Rather, they weave in and out of the streams of traffic trying to get just one car ahead in the line.  It’s enough to make you crazy.  But not as crazy as random pedestrians, stopped cars, and ridiculously narrow roads. 

We continued house hunting on Wednesday and plan to finish up tomorrow.  ‘Good enough’ is much easier to find than ‘perfect’, so this search is going much faster than our search in Kansas.

Chris checked into work yesterday, and I moved the dogs to a kennel we could actually afford to keep them in for more than two days (seriously Petsmart, it’s a dog kennel not an apartment!)  Then, I went shopping for interview clothes and other items that I haven’t been able to buy for the last two years.  Things like the only brand of make-up that doesn't make me break out in hives.  I also attempted a bit of grocery shopping.  Shopping in the teeny, tiny little commissary at Lajes left me under-prepared for what I was getting into.  Let’s just say this was the score of yesterday’s shopping trip:  HEB – 1, me – 0.  Another description… “Holy choices, Batman!”

Chris is at work again today, and I’m in the hotel trying to figure out if I should just suck it up and get my own web address so I can make my blog look like I really want it to.  Choices, choices.