Jacksonville, Arkansas

We're here! Jeff and I are hanging out in hotel while we wait for a house to open up for us. The dogs are at a kennel and as always, it was super hard to leave them, again.

One comforting thing that is different about the kennel they're at right now is that the people who work there took great interest in our mutts. They were so sweet to them which is just what Dax needs after 2 days in a car and no mommy... :0) Usually people at the kennels just look at them as two more yapping $20....

Jeff starts class on Tuesday. The base here is BEAUTIFUL! I've never been on an Air Force base that has a traffic light at every intersection. It's huge! So that's the update..

Corpus Christi IceRayz & Wedding dress pieces... :0)

So after washing and air-drying the two pieces of wedding dress I removed, I am left with two beautifully white pieces of satiny polyester... :0)

I'll keep the update going on these after I get to Little Rock this weekend.

We have been waiting all Summer long for Hockey season to start!! Saturday night, American Bank Center hosted the Corpus Christi Icerayz's first home game of the season! They played against the Shreveport Mudbugs! :0) They are a part of the Central Hockey League or CHL. The game was FANTASTIC! Over 5,000 people showed up and filled the place up! We had awesome seats just right of the net. Sadly, the Rayz lost by 1 in the last 18 seconds of the game. Very close game though... I miss hockey. :0(

On Saturday, Jeff and I hosted our second Corpus Christi garage sale.... The only thing we still need to get rid of is that couch... (See picture below) :0)

Here is a picture of our view from our awesome seats! Hockey might be one of the only sports that you might not want to be sitting center field/ice for... :0)

The movers are coming to pack up and move our stuff on Thursday. We have found a house that is 99% ours for the taking so that is very nice to look forward to. We learned from the last time we moved, that it's a smart idea to book a kennel before arriving at your new base! So when we pull in to town on Saturday morning, we'll take the dogs STRAIGHT to the kennel so that the poor mutts don't have to sit in the car freaking out at every one of our stops... I'll tell ya... Traveling with dogs is very annoying!

Anyhow, as usual, we'll keep y'all posted on what's happening... :0) Enjoy your weeks everyone!

Pumpkin Spice Bars

So perhaps it is a bit Fall-ish here now... 80 degrees outside? :0)

These bars are very much like the Starbucks Pumpkin Loaf you can buy only MUCH better!

Here is the recipe and some corresponding pictures...

Pumpkin-Spice Bars

4 Eggs

2 Cups Sugar

1 Cup Veg. Oil

1 Can(16oz) Pumpkin

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1/2 teaspoon Ground Ginger

1/4 teaspoon Ground Cloves

1 Cup Raisins (Optional) :-)

Cream Cheese Frosting (Recipe to follow)

1/2 Cup chopped walnuts (also optional...)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease jelly roll pan, 15.5"x10.5"x1". Beat eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, ginger, and cloves. Mix in raisins. Pour batter into pan. Bake 25-30 minutes or until light brown; cool. Frost with Cream Cheese frosting. Sprinkle with walnuts. Cut in to 2"x1.5" bars. Refrigerate any remaining bars.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 3-ounce package of cream cheese, softened

1/4 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons butter, softened

1 teaspoon Vanilla

2 Cups powdered sugar

Mix cream cheese, butter and vanilla. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until smooth.

** Don't eat it all before you can get it on the bars...

Jelly Roll pan that's a bit bigger than the one the recipe calls for.

The wonderful beginnings of an addictive frosting... :0)

So I forgot to rotate the picture... But this is what the large bar should look like coming out of the oven... You might be able to notice the the sides pulled up from the edge?? Does that make sense to anyone? :0)

AND the marvelous after product... :0) Cut up and ENJOY!! :0)

** This recipe is from my Betty Crocker Cookbook!

After the wedding

So, any married woman out there probably has a very beautiful, worn once wedding dress hanging up somewhere in their house... I was/am one them them... :0)

Today I began the tedious process of taking a wedding address apart very carefully. My dress still hasn't been washed since our wedding over a year and a half ago so I was worried about having to wash it at home... Luckily it turned out fine after one go on a gentle cycle in warm water/cold rinse and it's hanging to dry. The dirt came right out of the ends!!

You're probably wondering why in the world I am disassembling a perfectly fine wedding dress... Any of you that know me, know that I HATE clutter... I don't enjoy 'saving things'... :0) So having a dress sitting around and just waiting to be packed in to another box to sit for 7 months only to move with us for a THIRD time around the world does NOT fly with me...

After googling " What to do with a worn wedding dress", I found some pretty cool things that people are doing with their dresses. Some of the more ornate and expensive dresses are being sold on eBay while others that are more simple (like mine) are being turned in to a different kind of family heirloom...

I am making a BABY BLANKET out of my wedding dress. I got the idea forever ago from a website and today I worked up the courage to start taking my $250 dress apart! Ladies out there that paid more... You might want a glass of wine before you take the seam ripper to your 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'... :0)

First off, I used my little seam ripper to gently separate the bodice(boning, tooling, slip) from the outer dress. The two were attached by several cleverly hidden stitches around the waist of the dress. Then I began taking the stitches out of the zipper... The whole process took about 45 minutes.

This is what it looked like before I tore the tooling out... :0) I hate to say it but it felt really good taking it apart... Ha ha!

I promise to keep everyone posted on how the baby blanket comes along. As usual, I don't really have a plan for what the finished product will look like... If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them!!

More pictures from Grad week!

My wonderful in-laws and us at Bob Hall Beach, Corpus Christi, TX.

Jeff and me at the winging.

Jeff and his friend in the Italian Navy, Michele(Mikel).

My Mom and me at the Bay Club after the winging.

My ridiculously good-looking husband and me. The only picture of us with his wings on from the night!

Special Request: Prayer warriors! Please pray for my sister-in-law's family in Pennsylvania! They've suffered quite a bit off loss in the passed few weeks. Your prayers are appreciated!

Also please pray for my friend Jenn's mom. They found a lump and it's cancerous. they are meeting with Docs tomorrow to discuss treatment options and get more info about what they're up against... Thank you!

Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training Graduation Class 09-32

First and foremost, God is good. The past year has been described to me as the toughest year of a couple's marriage and that making it out of UPT alive is a miracle in itself. I can say with complete honesty that being married to a man of Jeff's quality and character has made this year quite a pleasant ride. No matter how busy or stressful his training day could become, he always came home and asked me how my day was. He always made time to give me a hug and let me know how much he loves me.

When we went in to Srgt. S's office on 1OCT to pick our assignment, we didn't know what we'd get. We prayed and prayed and hoped for some guidance in picking our three-year assignment. We were called in and sat down in front of a Colonel and a sheet of paper with 7 assignments for our taking... Japan was the only overseas assignment available and the decision took approximately 30 seconds to make. We looked at each other and smiled. Japan it is!

It's really been a neat to learn to trust in God's plan for our lives. Here we were planning out the next three years of our lives in England... Silly us! On we go as missionaries in this dark world, illuminating it with Christ's love.

09OCT2009 Jeff graduated from Pilot Training! As the day approached, the realization that the Operational Air Force is almost upon us hit me like a ton of bricks. This means that after our next stint of 'training', not 'competing', Jeff will be lined up to start flying real missions. Yes, 12 hour days are rough, but I'm thinking they're better than weeks at a time without Jeff around...

So this week we had Jeff's parents, Win and Susan, and my Mom in town for the winging. It was absolutely wonderful to have family in town to share this momentous occasion with us! I hope y'all enjoy the pictures I posted in this post and the one before it of the last week....

The scoop for when we move is in... Jeff starts his C-130 training on 27Oct. We are moving out of this house in Texas on Friday the 23rd. We have been looking for homes to rent in the Jacksonville area. I'm hoping to transfer to a Starbucks near the base for convenience sake. After Jeff is done in Little Rock, he will go to Washington for three weeks of Survival training... And then we head to Japan! So we are looking at mid to end of June for departing the USA.

The Air Force's newest Pilot! 13 months of hard work and long hours have finally paid off! Notice the shiny new set of wings on his jacket! :0)

My Mom was able to make it down here for Jeff's graduation! It was awesome to have her hanging out with us in our home finally! :0) Thank you SO much for coming out here Mommy!

On the day of the winging, a reserve unit from Florida flew a MC-130 to NAS Corpus Christi in honor of one of their newest grads. We were able to take a tour of the massive airplane. This plane has the exact same body as the C-130 that Jeff will be flying except the MC-130 has a bit more bells and whistles...

Off we go!

My Mom and I sitting at the front of a T-44A. This is the plane that Jeff flew in training here in Corpus Christi.

Yokota Air Base, Japan

SO the news is that we're headed to Japan! Yokota Air Base to be precise!

That is just about all we know right now... I will keep y'all posted as we find out more about when we leave Corpus Christi!