Please pardon the hiatus... I had a baby!

So after about 3 months, I finally have a minute to blog. Here's a quick update on our little family in pictures:

23 March: Daniel graduates from UCT as distinguished graduate and earns the Outstanding Contributor and Sadler awards. This "trifecta" of honors had never been achieved before and he did it!

25 March: Daniel Jr. joins our little family after 28.5 hours of labor and a successful VBAC! The doctor and nurses were wonderful at the hospital on base. It was such a different experience compared to the C-section I had with Anna. The recovery was so much quicker and I'm already back to my pre-pregnancy weight!

28 March: Mom and Dad come to visit! We had a great time showing them around and it was so nice having help with our 2 beautiful babies. Anna loved going to the park behind our house with her Pap Pap in her pajamas first thing in the morning! We took them to Tatonuts donut shop and introduced them to our friends.

8 April: Happy Easter! We celebrated Easter at our house with some of our Air Force family- the Powells and the Ten Hakens. It was so nice even though I was exhausted at the end of it... it may have been a little much to host something like that just 2 weeks after having a baby, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Daniel was a huge help in getting everything ready and we had some delicious food with some help from our friends! Thanks to Meghan & Jason we had enough chairs for everyone and Bri let us use their oven so everything would be ready at the same time!

Our colorful Easter eggs!

22 April: Anna's 2nd birthday party- it's Minnie's Bowtique! 

We had a great time celebrating with our friends and Anna loved her cupcakes (pictured below)

These cupcakes were delicious and pretty easy to make- I used a chocolate cake mix & canned frosting that I dyed with food coloring. I added white chocolate chips to make polka dots, mini fudge stripe cookies for the ears and a small amount of fondant to make the bows.

Digging in after she blew out the candle!

29 April: Welcome to the Catholic Church, Daniel! We had Daniel Jr. baptized at Our Lady of Fatima at the 8:30am Mass (which we normally attend). Godparents, Kelly Mackey and Chris Wrinn traveled great distances to bear witness and take on their responsibilities as godmother and godfather. Kelly flew in from Seattle, WA and Chris drove (with his wife and 2 little boys) from Ft Worth, TX! 

Nana flew in for the occasion, too! She got to meet Daniel and spend some time with us after not being together since Thanksgiving! It was so nice and Anna loved getting her own Nana time.

15 May: Two weeks into Daniel's TDY in Florida, I take a trip to Pittsburgh with the kids. It's Daniel Jr's first plane ride! I was called "brave" so many times, I lost count, but it actually wasn't that bad!

Anna loved having her own seat and was very well behaved on both flights to Pittsburgh (Gulfport to Houston, Houston to Pittsburgh). She loved looking out the window!

Aunt Gracie with Anna and Daniel. This is the first time my siblings got to see our newest family member!

19 May: Cousin Billy and his beautiful bride, Alex, tie the knot in Philadelphia! It was quite a road trip, but we managed it! It was a great celebration and so nice to see our family!

Daniel hanging out with Uncle Bobby.

23 May: Saying goodbye to Aunt Katie and heading home to Mississippi.

24-28 May: We took a mini-vacay to Florida to spend some time with Daniel. He had to work for the majority of our stay, but we spent every night together and got him all to ourselves Sunday and Monday. We went swimming in the Gulf and Anna loved it. Daniel Jr spent most of the time asleep in the carrier!

Me and my sweetie. We all missed him while we were in Pittsburgh!

11-15 June: Sharon visits! She is one of my best friends & Anna's godmother. We hadn't seen each other since we visited her in August 2010! We went to the Biloxi lighthouse (pictured here), Tatonuts, Lovelace Drugstore, the beach & Beauvoir. It was a great trip & she was a huge help since Daniel was still TDY.

My babies & I at the beach.

That brings us up to date! Daniel has training this week & next and then he's home for good! Once he gets home, we'll be packing up for our next move. Expect posts about potential houses soon!

Drop Night!

It finally happened....the assignments came down, the murder board* happened and drop night occured. What a relief to finally know where we're going after Daniel graduates!
*no one actually gets killed at a murder board, which is where the instructors decide who gets what assignment and apparently it can get pretty ugly.

We'll be moving to Ft. Meade, Maryland!

Daniel got a great assignment that will certainly challenge him and keep him interested while we're stationed there, which will probably be 2-3 years. We are so thrilled with this assignment. Our #1 goal was to be closer to our family up north and this certainly puts us within reasonable driving distance (right now, we're 17+ hours from them!).

Overall, the drop night was great. We split up the food and drink responsibilities between the class & the spouses and had quite a spread! For warm dishes, we had pigs in a blanket (mini hot dogs in crescent rolls) that disappeared completely within the first hour and buffalo chicken dip. We also had some chips & pretzels with dip and an authentic King Cake from a bakery in New Orleans!

King Cake!

While most would think the military runs likes clockwork, the actual drop night didn't begin until 5:30, which turned out to be OK since most of the guests were fashionably late. I completely lost track of time because I was busy setting things up, chasing Anna around and talking with my fellow spouses about how anxious we all were for our husbands and friends to get there assignments!

Bri and Ayla (whose mom, Jackie made the girls matching dresses!)

Audrey (Ayla's big sister) with a Mardi Gras umbrella!

Anna in her Mardi Gras gear eating King Cake

Since the class is made up of 8 men, giving out the assignments didn't take very long. Daniel designed the slideshow that displayed pictures of each classmate, their hometown and favorite quote, along with a slide to show where they were going. Since it was Mardi Gras themed, he had beads fly up and knock away the 2 choices that weren't the actual assignment. The one remaining was where they were heading and would get nice and big before they switched to a video from the squadron the person would be going.

They were the Krewe of Nerf because they are having an all-out Nerf gun war in their classroom. And yes, these are the same men defending your freedom. :-) Don't worry, they will use more than Nerf darts to fight the terrorists.

Here's where everyone is heading:

• Josh: McChord AFB, Washington State
• Andrew: Barksdale AFB, Louisiana
• Justin D.: Columbus AFB, Mississippi
• Caleb: Holloman AFB, New Mexico
• Justin M.: Kadeena AB, Japan
• Daniel: Ft. Meade, Maryland
• Rebel: Nellis AFB, Nevada
• Byron: Fairchild AFB, Washington for the Air National Guard

I took video of each assignment as it was given out, capturing the person on stage and then panning to the choices on the slideshow. When it came to Daniel's, it took a second to focus so 2 out of the 3 possibilities that I saw were Qatar and Ft. Meade. (The other one was Curtland AFB in New Mexico.) I think my heart stopped when I saw Qatar, but thankfully, that one went away pretty quickly and Daniel said that it was supposed to be a joke... yeah, a joke for the class but not for spouses who see it and think "Oh my goodness, my husband is getting a remote tour where I can't go with him and we're about to have our second baby and I'm going to be in Mississippi far from family for 2 years and my friends are all PCSing away." (Not kidding, in the 1.2 seconds it was up there, that's what went through my mind.)
I was so relieved and happy and excited about Ft. Meade that I couldn't stop smiling! And the next assignment given out kept me smiling since Rebel was next and got his #1 choice, which sends my friend Bri to Las Vegas!
After we mingled and celebrated and cleaned up the room we used, we headed home so Dan could change and then we went to Olive Garden with Rebel and Bri to continue celebrating and get some real food in our tummies!
Once we got home and put Anna to bed, Daniel went to the after-party down the street and brought more of the buffalo chicken dip. Apparently, it was a huge hit because Daniel sent me a text that they were swarming it as soon as he walked in the door. I was worried because I made 6 quarts of it, but half was gone at the end of drop night and another 1.5 quarts was polished off at the party afterwards. Several people have been asking for the recipe, so I'll be posting that next. :-)
I still can't believe we're moving up north, or that I have friends already there and another friend from Keesler who will move there just a month before we get there. What an amazing feeling to know that we'll be in one place for 2-3 years, with friends, and in an area of the country we really wanted to go!
God is so good and I'm looking forward to the plans He has in store for us when we get to Maryland!

Back for 2012... and hopefully more regular posts!

So it's been quite awhile since I posted, but here's a quick recap on where we are:

• We moved to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS in August for Daniel's new training (Undergraduate Cber Training).
• We LOVE our new home on base and have made lots of good friends over the past few months.
• We're expecting a bundle of joy in mid-March and couldn't be happier about it!
• We hosted our first Thanksgiving in our home when Daniel's parents & brother came in for the holiday.
• We spent Christmas and New Year's in Pittsburgh and are now home and back to 'normal.'

Over the past month or so, I've discovered a love for Pinterest which is an online 'pin' board to help keep all the cool recipes, ideas, crafts, etc I find online organized and in one place! I'll be sharing some of those ideas here (and how successful (or not) I've found them to be) and some that I've come up with on my own. Hope you'll join me!

Just a slice of Air Force life...

I promised to make 2 coffee cakes for Class 11-11's Red Carpet breakfast tomorrow. They are simply scrumptious coffee cakes and I can't wait to share them with my friends but.... I didn't have bundt pans!

I enjoy baking and have a plethora of pans but still haven't purchased a bundt pan, but I knew I could still make the promised cakes "with a little help from my friends." I know lots of wonderful ladies on base and many of them are better bakers than I! So I contacted 2 of my friends and within about 10 minutes, I had walked to their homes, picked up their pans and caught up with them.

While I know that this kind of thing happens in neighborhoods, apartment buildings, etc all over the world, I want to point out that I've known these great friends for less than 6 months (one of them I just met in May!). Despite this short time frame, I have connected with and come to love these women. It makes me so sad that I can't count on living within walking distance of these friends that I've made but they say "It's a small Air Force" and I sure hope it's true!

And while the "see you later"s are inevitable, I'm going to soak up the warm fuzzies that I get when I text someone about helping me with a "baking emergency" and have them respond with "of course!"

And I'm back!

Greetings everyone! It's been a very long time and I thought I'd take this post to explain my hiatus and catch you up on our life.

Back in September, things got a little crazy with Daniel's Air Force career and pilot training sort of stopped for us. He was dizzy all the time and we were freaking out about possible reasons. The medical personnel were less than helpful and suggested everything from dehydration to a brain tumor but after 2 and 1/2 months, someone diagnosed Daniel in 45 minutes with a slight problem with his ocular-vestibular connection (between his eyes and his brain) and gave him exercises to fix it. And he's been 100% since January- Alleluia!

After that, it was on to figuring out what was going to happen to pilot training and after a very long process, it was decided that Daniel would be removed from UPT with the understanding that the door was still open for reapplying in the future- once he was asymptomatic for 12 months.

In the mean time, the USAF would reclassify him so that he'd have an official job which would be beneficial to his overall military career. While we had to play the waiting game (the military's FAVORITE) for a few more months, we finally have some information on where we're headed and what Dan will be doing!

He found out on Thursday that he'll be a cyberspace operations officer and it looks like we'll be PCSing (moving all of our stuff there) to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi! We're really excited about the next step in our great big adventure!

I think I've rattled on long enough- I'll post more soon, promise!

And they're off!

Daniel has successfully transitioned to Phase II- Flying the T-6! He took his dollar ride yesterday and had another flight this afternoon. It's exciting to be moving on with training but now begins his mandatory 12 hour days. Both Monday and Tuesday dinners have been eaten after 8 but I don't really mind. I love sharing meals with my husband (of 1 year and 3 days- we celebrated our first anniversary on Sunday) and my little girl. Anna obviously can't eat the meal but we sit her in her Bumbo seat and she joins us at the table.

Anna and Tigger in her Bumbo seat.

They say the first fifteen days of each phase are the hardest so it's probably good that Anna and I will be gone for the next few weeks so Daniel can focus on flying.

His class is broken into 2 flights. Daniel is in C Flight (or Cobra Flight) in the 8th Flying Training Wing. His classmates are a good group of people and we enjoyed a Friday night party at one of their houses off base. Since they aren't allowed to leave the flight room while on formal release, I've decided to bake them some treats to fuel their energy as they study and prepare for flights. Tomorrow I'll deliver some chocolate chip cookies before a trip to the commissary and BX.

I can't believe it's already Wednesday! I've been mentally preparing for our trip but now I need to start packing! Thankfully, I was able to get the laundry done today and I will be packing tomorrow. I am so excited to get to the beach! Only 4 more days!!

The Joys of a DITY Move

In the military, last minute notices are just part of life. But I'm still adjusting to all this. So when Daniel found out that his training got bumped up from the end of July to next Wednesday, it was a bit of a curve ball. However, after the initial shock, we have found some positives in the situation and one is that we get to move into a new home before he hits the flight line. We had hoped to move in the latter half of June so we could avoid moving while we had house guests. But that isn't happening...

What is happening? Well, we found out on Wednesday that we have to move by June 19 or we'd have to wait until August to get into a renovated house. With that in mind and knowing that in August Daniel would be flying, we decided to move this weekend. It all happened really quickly. We got a call Wednesday at 4:30 that we could move and by 6:30, we had a list of 4 houses to choose from and toured one of the possibilities. Yesterday morning, I looked at another one and decided to go with the first option. Daniel and I wanted to stay on our current street and it turns out that our move will be across the street...literally feet from our driveway.
Easy move, right? Just walk everything across the way and be done with it.... Not quite. Not when the Air Force is reimbursing us for the move and they need to know how many pounds of stuff we have to move. So we rented a 26' moving truck which we'll pick up, drive to a weigh station (to weigh it empty), drive it to our house, load it up, drive it back to the weigh station and then take it back to base to move our stuff about 50 feet across the street from our current home. It's not exactly the most practical, but it's the way it has to be done. Thankfully, Dan's family (mom, dad and brother) and his best friend from home are driving up tomorrow to help get us moved and set up before my friend and Anna's godmother, Sharon, arrives on Monday.
Once we're moved, we'll have lived in 7 'homes' in about 7 months and Anna will have lived in 2 different houses in less than 2 months. The house we're moving to is the same type of house that we're living in now but with a few improvements: wall-to-wall carpeting, new tile in the kitchen and bathroom, ceiling fans and new light fixtures, new countertops, updated shelves in the laundry room, and the exposed brick walls are now covered and so are the cedar ceilings. Also, instead of a carport, we'll have a garage which will be so nice in the winter!
I'll post again when we're moved in- now it's time to get packing!!

The Eagle Has Landed!

We've finally moved into our on-base house and couldn't be happier. Daniel's parents who have been storing most of our things drove them up to Enid on Saturday. Like mother-in-law, Pat, said, it was just like Christmas- opening all of our wedding gifts again and remembering all of the beautiful things we have to make the house a home. It was a long day of unpacking and setting up, but it was well worth it when we got to curl up on our new bed with our bedding and silky soft sheets in our bedroom.

Daniel and his dad, John, did most of the heavy lifting and assembled the baby's crib and two twin beds. The twin beds used to be Daniel's and Ben's (Daniel's brother) but now that both of them have flown the nest, Pat and John are going to turn their room into a guest room with a queen sized bed and they were kind enough to pass on the beds to us. Since our guest room is on the smaller size, we put one bed in there along with Daniel's old dresser and put the second in the nursery for those late night feedings that will be here before we know it.

While I set up our kitchen and sorted through boxes to find things like towels and things, Pat set up our bathroom, made beds and put our linen closet together. I can't imagine how long it would have taken Daniel and I to do everything that was accomplished on Saturday- we are so grateful for his parents' help!

Here is a link to some photos- I documented a lot of Saturday's work. I'm looking forward to when our bedroom set will arrive along with our sofas, but that won't be for a few weeks. Thankfully, we have our washer and dryer, our wonderful new mattress, as well as cable, internet and phone. If you'd like to have our new address and phone number, leave a comment or shoot me an email- I'd be happy to pass that along.

Even the spa has an acronym!

During the spouse orientation at the beginning of this training, we received a packet entitled "Air Force as a Second Language." And it couldn't be titled more appropriately! With just a little over 3 months as an Air Force wife, I've become proficient in the language of acronyms. Here's just a sampling of what I've learned so far.

• I've stayed in a VOQ (visiting officer quarters) as well as a TLF (temporary living facility).
• I am currently in Alabama because Daniel is on TDY (temporary duty) to attend ASBC (air and space basic course) which is part of SOC (squadron officer college).
• Next month, Daniel will head out to Colorado for IFS (initial flight screening). Later this year, he'll start UPT (undergraduate pilot training). Since he's a pilot, I'm part of the SSG (student spouses group) and may join the OSC (officers' spouses club).
• And today, I got to have a pregnancy massage at APOHOE (A Piece of Heaven on Earth) spa. It was amazing and I highly recommend any military wife do some searching to see if your base or post has a spa. The prices are great and the service I received was wonderful.