Thursday Thoughts...

Thursday...it's a beautiful cooler day here in the great midwest, unbelievably, it is only 66* as I type. I love cool mornings, warm (not HOT) afternoons and cool evenings. However, it has been HOT at all hours since I arrived so this is a wonderful, welcome change!

It has been fun to hook up with our NE friends this week, I am looking forward to making other trips back and seeing others that I missed this time. I think my next trip will be in August to help lil'blue get settled in her place for the fall semester.

Thursday Thoughts:

• Loving fresh Arkansas tomatoes
• All the driving hasn't been so bad
• HLM continues to grow, as I am too...
• Feeling good about the school transfer.
• Spending Father's Day w/my Dad was awesome!
  

Short and sweet today!

She's a Maverick now!

On Tuesday lil'blue and I spent a rainy day in Omaha checking in at her new school. We took care of her housing contract, paid a visit to the finance office to chat with the VA rep, stopped in at the security office for parking info, double checked residency status, checked her schedule and just made sure we were getting everything done we were supposed to for a smooth transition in August.

So far, so good! I am thrilled with the answers we got from the VA rep, all paperwork IS in order and even if the $$ doesn't come in at the appointed balance due time, we do not have to pay it, they will suspend the bill til the VA gets the payments to them...that is a great bit of news. Her book stipend will be twice a year as long as she takes a minimum of 12 hours and if there is $$ left they will help with any summer books she might need, should she decide to take classes (which I think she will be). So again, I say, so far so good!

And just so you know I am now on Offutt and living large in a suite...goodness, I feel truly taken care of, it's too bad I am leaving to head back to MO tomorrow...but dad and I are going to pal around for a couple days just me and him so it's all good!

Sorry there are no pics from the campus visit but it was raining and I didn't lug anything around that wasn't necessary that day!

Here I am!!!

Did you miss me??? I know, I missed you!

So we made it from FL to MO for Father's Day and now we am in NE. Weather cooperated for the most part the whole time (well, there was that 40 minutes or so outside Springfield MO but we won't talk about that)!

So here I am sitting in a non par hotel room that I am still feeling unsure about but think I am glad to have it considering the circumstances...CWS in Omaha, NE I mean who knew, I sure didn't! When we planned to be in Bellevue this week I just thought nothing of it! The friend who we were supposed to be staying with has sick, sick, sick kids; since I so didn't want to get in on that action I went to plan b - however, it was a no go, plan c just didn't work out either, so plan d is where I am now...it's only for one night, cause that is ALL they had, so tomorrow I may not be in NE anymore, Toto. At least I will have a little more daylight to work out different accommodations.

I mean I lived here for 4 years, I know about the CWS, it just failed to register that the week we were coming up was during that HUGE event...so my bad...oh, well, we have already completed a nice chunk of our to do list and tomorrow we are off to check out the new school to complete even more! It's going to be all good in the end.

Not much of an update I know, but it's the best I can do. I have had little to no internet access.

I'm now going to head on out to make some drive arounds and see what's changed since we left! Then I am hoping for some good sleeping and a full productive day tomorrow!

As for a 365 update the MiB is in his new locale and from all indications it is going well. I actually spoke with him today (1st time) and he sounded tired but upbeat. We have been emailing, texting, facebooking since he left so the phone call was a nice upper to my sort of downer day in relation to the whole no place to stay thing!

So we are both surviving this year apart and my traveling has been going well. I just hope living the nomadic life for a year continues to agree with me. I'm totally excited and ready and both MiB and I think it's the chance of a lifetime for me to be happily homeless by choice!

The final HOOPLA!

It was a FREE event, cause we think that's the way it should be...

We were overjoyed to have Airmen come if they wanted and not have to pay a bazillion dollars for 'horse douvers' that you can never eat enough of to feel like you got your monies worth or full.

So it was a BBQ shindig! There was chicken that had some of the best sauce I have ever had (and YES, I did get the secret to the sauce:) I will be making this little concoction on my own and there was pork butt (DaveM's words not mine and he was the cook for that so I'm sticking with his verbiage, it's kinda funny to say!) Of course there were yummy sides, beans, cole slaw and tater salad. It was all good.

The Servers! McBride, Ernie, DaveM

The eatin' was going real good but then they quieted everyone down to get onto the business of telling us goodbye, farewall, see ya. That was the part I was not looking forward to...honestly, it just isn't in our comfort zone to be in the spotlight or on the hot seat as they called it, course it was really MiB that had that distinction but they honored me as well; which was so thoughtful but yet so not me. They meant well and that is what I know so I went with the flow, I do that best anyway :)

Some pictorial moments to mark the event!

John N was the leader in presentations and hard to top!

Schaf did the honors for the NAF! He did it well!
The surfboard momento was a hit!!!!

All in all it was as good as it gets...you have to say farewell...might as well have a good food venue and do it up right, that is what we went for, we hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did! Thanks for the wonderful ride, it got somewhat bumpy at times, had its ups and downs but overall we had a great ride and felt so honored and privileged to serve along side the men and women of the 45th Space Wing, you are professionals and do your very best day in and day out and we are thankful for the opportunity to share in your world for the past few months!

Col W gives the final remarks and goodbyes...

The man in charge of the big goodbye! THANKS DaveM...you are the party planner bomb!

Godspeed!

Thursday Thoughts!

This has been a fun week...we got to be included in a birthday celebration on Tuesday for her! It was a really fun evening of sharing a meal and another wonderfully luscious dessert.

Eeeegads, it was soooo good, it had a chocolate layer around the entire cake, yes like real chocolate that a chocolate candy bar is made of, was on the entire cake. Then the cake was, of course, wait for it......CHOCOLATE!!!! And it was a layer cake with, are you ready, chocolate fudge icing in between the layers, yahuh, really, even though MiB wasn't certain about this I am, I saw them. So then on top of the candy bar covering that is on the WHOLE cake are these fudgey roses. Not real deal icing, I am talking fudgey stuff here and it was decadent, probably my favorite part. If we had been at home and no one was around I would've been licking the knife and cake board thing , seriously! Then there were these gianormous strawberries on top which had been dipped/coated in some very sweet strawberry coating stuff and stuck on a bed of the yummy fudgey stuff. I know I am about to drool on myself telling you about it and this was two days ago! I still know this cake inside and out!!! We got it here since as you know I am in the business of procuring desserts rather then making them at this stage in our transition. And seriously, I would not have been able to make this anyway.

The birthday girl with her cake!

Thursday Thoughts:

• Beachin' it is nearly over
• The B I G farewell is tomorrow
• The B I G G E R one is next week
  
• I'm savoring days and moments like crazy
• I am sooooooo thankful for friends and family!

Over and out for now...

Ruskie Food

Today we had traditional Russian food prepared by the beautiful girl in the picture below; she is from Kyrgyzstan. Man, can she can cook! We have been treated to her cooking before, she made borscht for us along with some other yummy salads a few months back. Today she made Okroshka and it was awesome!

The Ruskie Cook!

Along with the cold soup we had onion beef, and fry bread, oh me, I was in heaven. It was soooooo good. And the cool thing is she sent us home with some. I know what I am having for breakfast tomorrow!

Getting ready to cut and fry the bread!

Just so your don't think we are slackers, our contribution to the dinner was dessert, yeah, I know, exactly what I don't need to be eating, but we rose to the challenge and got a nice sampler platter of cheesecake slices. Yes, it was purchased but it rocked (ummm, I know this because sadly I have needed to bring dessert to a few other events as of late and with our limited cooking supply situation it is just easier to get something like this rather then make it). Anyway, when we stopped to pick up the said cheesecake there were these cute little gingerbread boys and girls in the bakery case and I really thought this little girl would like one. I was right, she smiled really big when we gave it to her :)


I don't know any Russian but if I did I would so say, "THANK YOU" since I would need to be thanking them all the time for the yummy food! I did say thank you in English but I think it would be cool to know it in Russian...I will work on learning that so I can say that next time. I will ask the gingerbread girl eater since she speaks fluent Russian!

Who ate what results

I am sure this has weighed HEAVILY on your mind ALLLLLL day long so I will take the suspense away now....If you are confused about what I speak of see here!

The Cheesecake Eater

The Turnover Eater

So that leaves the yogurt for me :) I can't imagine that that was a big surprise but who knows maybe I just blew your socks off :)

And just so ya know I DID not eat all three yogurts at once...I had the cappuccino one for breakfast this morning! It was okay, I would have preferred a little stronger coffee taste but it was still nice. (I did eat the other two last night...I had the strawberry cheesecake after we went for a walk on the beach, then we were up sort of late and the pineapple coconut was just calling out my name so to shut it up so I could get some sleep I went in and ate it!!!) Sorry, there is no pictorial evidence since I was the one snapping the photos for this event.

Each to his own

Since we are still in the 'suite' and it is only equipped with a microwave we had dinner out tonight. Then on our way home we made an impulse stop at Publix for dessert. We each got something different. We really didn't need any of these things but we were hankerin' for a little somethin' sweet. Since we all had different ideas on what would satisfy our desire we came out with three different treats!



You ponder who had what and then tomorrow I will post the evidence of who enjoyed what :)

And lest we forget it is Thursday so the thoughts are this:

• Rain is a good thing!
• Fly out date has been secured
• Going away is scheduled as well
• Russian food is on tap for this weekend :)
• Living on the beach is something I am really enjoying!
  

F R O Z E N like an ice cube...

What is it with us and AC units? We have yet again had to have a service call for the AC...it's frozen! Yeah, like rock solid frozen. And NO I didn't do it. You see we had to check out of the beach house today (I know, real bummer) and move to a suite. Not a big deal it is just for two nights and then we are back in the beach house :)

So anyway, we moved over to this suite and it seemed a bit warm temperature wise, but it was late in the morning, the drapes were open and we were coming in and out moving our things in, I thought no big deal it will cool down once we are in close the drapes and get the ceiling fans going. So it's 8 hours later and still not cooler, as in it was 80* in the room, it was cooler outside on the veranda with the ocean breeze then in our rooms. MiB placed a call to the front desk and within a very short amount of time Airmen Blue showed up...seriously, that was his name, I am not kidding! Amn Blue determined that the unit was FROZE up, the inside of the inside unit was a solid ice block and the inside of the outside unit was frozen solid along with the outside of the outside unit...so yeah, it was frozen, ALL of it. Who knew? So that is why we weren't being cooled and ya know I happen to have my camera handy so I took some pictures for ya, I wish I would have taken a picture of Amn Blue but I didn't, sorry!

The inside of the the inside part

The outside of the outside part

The inside of the outside part, look close at that white hose looking thing, that is the frozen part it should be the size of the copper tube right next to it.

Holy Moly, it's just one AC call after another in my life right now! I think this makes 5 calls in the last month or so. So if you are in the HVAC field and you live near me you are gainfully employed! You may even have job security if I keep moving around billeting!

I'm going to bed now, I gotta get up early cause the AC repair man is coming back in the morning! However, I am now in the suite next door, it is cool in here! Night :D

24

Not the FOX TV show, which I have never even seen, and don't even want to. Yep it's the 24 for us today as in it was 24 years ago on this date (1986, for those who are not quick w/the math skills) that I married the MiB. It's been sweet bliss since...well, for the most part...cause there was that one time, then there was also that day back when, and oh yeah, that one year when we almost...oh, okay, well you get the picture we are still together some days are more blissful then others but we hang in there. We took those vows seriously all those 24 years ago and here we are...it's 24 years later.

Believe it or not I am still in love with him, I still love him and he loves me. How 'bout that? He does get under my skin every now and then and I get cranky sometimes as well, but we make it work, every day, day in, day out. It's not a bed of roses, it's not a uphill hike, at least not everyday anyway, but there are days, it's real life in our life and no matter what you think it's not lovely every single day, but every day there is something to love. It works and most days it is no worries, that is our life, I live it, I love it.

I love you MiB, happy 24th!