homeowners

Oops again. It was my full intention to blog more while we were in New Mexico. I definitely kept busy there and let the blog fall aside. And like I said before, I'm really over my laptop. It takes a solid 10 minutes to turn it on. It's been a true test of patience. It's really hard to justify buying a new laptop when you're not in school and not using it 15 hours a day anymore! Anyway, enough excuses. On to what's been going on since April.

Jeff did get his private pilot's license but we still haven't found time for him to take me up yet. And now that we are in Spokane he has to get checked out at the airport here again before he can take me. So it may be a little while but I'm excited to do that whenever the time finally comes!

Over Memorial Day Weekend we met up with a few friends from Tri-Cities in Las Vegas. We had so much fun on that trip and loved that we were just a day's drive away. Wish we were going to be that close again!

All of us taking a break at the Forum Shops

We saw Blue Man Group--general consensus was not bad but not something we will see twice

The very next weekend I was off to Ireland to be maid of honor in Amanda & Tyler's wedding! We wished Jeff could have gone too but he wasn't allowed to take a week off during training for vacation. We spent a few days in Dublin and took day trips to Wicklow National Park and Kilkenny, and then headed out to the country for their wedding at Roundwood House in Laois. First of all, Ireland is absolutely beautiful. Not to be cliche, but my first thought stepping off the plane was it's so green! I expected that to have been exaggerated in movies and TV. But it's not, at all. It was so green that I couldn't stop looking at it. I could do an entire blog post on that trip alone but I'll just put a few of my favorite photos here.

First night in Dublin, going on about 24 hours without sleep right here! Wish I'd gotten the name of this little pub we ducked into for a quick dinner.

Exploring Glendalough National Park

Glendalough

Kilkenny Castle

Amanda and I failing to pose for a photo in front of Kilkenny Castle

Amanda, Tyler and I at the Guinness Storehouse

Enjoying the complimentary Guinness at the top of the storehouse

Enjoying the peaceful drawing room at Roundwood House in Laois

Wedding day!

So that was the very very condensed version of my week in Ireland. It was a beautiful, wonderful time spent celebrating two dear friends.

The rest of this summer was mainly spent by the pool. Jeff did a lot of hiking and I made sure to see all of the helicopter spouses as often as I could before we all got spread across the country. I love all the ladies that I've been able to meet so far! I'm sure that at each base we are stationed at we will always have at least one friend from this time with us.

Now for the biggest news of all: for 4th of July we booked a last minute trip up to Spokane to house hunt before the big move. We knew that if we wanted to buy we really should get a head start on it unless we wanted to live in a hotel for a few weeks after we got here. We spent two days looking at somewhere around 20 houses. It was a whirlwind but it had to be done. And.... we found one! We placed an offer that weekend and after a few counteroffers from both sides we finally landed our very first house. Homeowners!! We absolutely love it.

Ta da!! This isn't my photo. I haven't taken one yet! Oops. So just imagine green grass right now.

When we came back to Albuquerque Jeff got stuck with just five flights left and then monsoon season hit. Every single night there was a thunderstorm and every single night his flights would get canceled. We started to get nervous that he wouldn't finish in time before we would have to close on the house. We made plans for me to go up to Spokane on my own to close by myself. Then it just all fell into place. He managed to get five flights done in one week which is basically unheard of (in that program). We left Albuquerque on a Sunday and arrived in Spokane on Wednesday after stops in Salt Lake City and Tri-Cities. We were very happy to see our friends Shay and Alex in Salt Lake! Even if it was only for a brief couple of hours. We had our first night in our house just a few days before our 3rd wedding anniversary. Seemed very appropriate for looking back at everything that we've done since then!

And that pretty much leads us up to now! It's been a fun couple of months. We loved Albuquerque but by the end we were ready to be done and get up to Spokane. I can't tell you what a relief it is to finally have a place to settle down in after 3 years of knowing everywhere we'd live was temporary. It was such a fun adventure but it can really be exhausting. I have to keep reminding myself that we will have to do it all over again in another 3 years. Of course, I don't mind though. I love traveling, seeing new places and getting to know all of the quirks and ins and outs of new locations. I especially love meeting new people (never thought I would say those words) and always having friends in far-flung reaches of the world, even though it means I can't see them as often as I'd like. I love this life and all the constant change that it brings with it. But for now, it feels so great to call this place home.

drop night

It's here! We finally made it to drop night! This October has been fun but we've really just been waiting day by day for the 18th to arrive. We took Chipper to a pumpkin patch last weekend and picked out a couple of pumpkins that we have yet to carve. Jeff finished up his training on Wednesday and on Friday we welcomed friends who were in Columbus with us down to Enterprise. Shaylee came all the way from Altus, OK and Christy came from Little Rock, AR just to be here! Our other friends Megan and Mitch made the trip down from Columbus on their last weekend before moving out to Oklahoma themselves. They brought their pups and Chipper had a blast seeing old buddies and making a new pal too. I failed at getting a picture of all four of the dogs because they just moved so fast! They barely settled down for even a half an hour the entire weekend.

Chipper and his new buddy Roscoe

Friday afternoon we decorated the squadron in Halloween theme (best part? Punch bowl with dry ice definitely) and got a little dressed up... As in, I wore a witch hat and Jeff wore a huge wig. They were last minute "costumes" to say the least.

Finally, we sat down to watch the class video, then watched the guys compete in a short game to see who would get to find out their assignment first. We listened to roasts for each guy before finding out the assignment. I wish I had Jeff's entire roast on video but I could not video it myself and focus on what was happening at the same time! I was too excited! The game involved tying a balloon to your ankle and not letting anyone else stomp on it. Jeff was the first to get "out" for the game so he was the last one to hear his assignment. Torture.

That is me on the left in the small witch hat below. This is the video of both of our reactions when we found out we were going to Fairchild AFB!

Jeff's slide that was shown during his roast. The following slide would show his assignment.

 

As you can see, we were very excited! This was at the top of our dream sheet and we were pretty sure there were no open slots available. As we went through the rest of the drop and watched others receive their assignments, we both were mentally checking available bases off the list. By the time it came around to us, we were certain we were going to get our number 2 (F.E. Warren AFB) or our number 4 (Andrews AFB). I don't know how or why we got a spot at Fairchild when we were told several times not to expect it and that it was very unlikely there would be anything available, especially when they had filled a spot last month. All I can say is God is good.

I'll backtrack a bit to explain our decision process for Fairchild; Jeff had gone back and forth for several months about which aircraft and which base to put down as number one and when he finally told me he wanted Fairchild, I wasn't exactly on board. I wanted to go overseas or just see somewhere new, anywhere else at all. I wasn't mentally prepared to go back to somewhere I thought I had left for good. So I prayed about it and it was one of those times that I felt I almost instantly had an answer. Spokane was where we needed to be. So I told him to go ahead and put that as number 1 on the dream sheet. As we started to hear more and more that it was unlikely that we would go there, we started to wonder why we felt it was so important to put in for Spokane if we didn't have a chance at going there. Silly us. Obviously with God all things are possible. If He wanted to send us to Spokane, it would happen.

As time has gone on I've warmed up to moving back to that part of the country. We have lots of friends and family up there. It's a short plane ride to Alaska. We don't have to "start over" as much because we are already familiar with the area. I'm confident that I'll be able to find a job in Spokane, and I know that they've at the very least heard of my university! Speaking of University of Idaho, we also really miss Moscow and have been talking about wanting to go back and visit lately. That's also completely possible now that we'll be living in Spokane. I know that this will be good for us. And I know that everything in the military is temporary and we will eventually get to see more places and I'll get to satisfy that wandering bone. As far as the flying goes, Jeff says based on his strengths, Fairchild is the best base to be. He will also get a ton of flying hours there which is great.

All in all, this weekend was fantastic. We loved having friends come down to celebrate with us. But it's not over yet -- Jeff's mom, stepdad, aunt, and uncle are all coming down this weekend to watch him graduate and receive his wings. After that we send him off to survival training and kick off the holiday season. It's only going to get busier around here!

A couple extra photos of the weekend:

Some of the helicopter cookies I made that we all lived on this weekend. Even the dogs managed to get ahold of a couple. We had some casualties while baking them that caused some to be without a tail or rotors. I like to think of that as a good luck charm similar to saying "break a leg" to an actor, and not a reflection on my baking abilities.

Our visitors, minus Mitch. I love these ladies and am certain I've found friends for life!

This one is blurry because Jeff was receiving his new patch for his new squadron. You can see part of what it looks like on the screen behind him. The tradition is that someone who has been stationed at that squadron before rips off your old patch and replaces it with the new one by punching it onto your arm.