SUPT SYLLABUS COMPLETE!!! Words we've been waiting for!

<--- Shadow and DJ, 2 of 3 beautiful boys at the Aquarium. They are actually half brothers! They swim together on a regular basis! They are 4 years apart and never met each other before being here! So sweet!



Hello, hello!

It's been a while since our last update... That's for sure!

So far... I got the job at Starbucks and I've been volunteering at the Texas State Aquarium right here in Corpus Christi. I am so lucky to volunteer at their Dolphin Bay! I work right alongside the trainers as they refine the behaviors and training of Shadow, DJ and Kai, their three male Atlantic Bottle Nose Dolphins. My bestie, Brit, came to visit at the beginning of this month! It was so much fun to introduce her to all of my wonderful friends here and she was a great encouragement when it came to doing some shopping... :0) I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. God has truly blessed me with amazing friends!!

Jeff FINISHED SUPT!!! He had his last flight on Friday and his assignment will come on Thursday. We are almost beyond words. It's really hard to describe what it feels like to think about how close we are to the end of 'training' as a whole. It's been a wild year of highs and lows, excitement and upsets, moves and settling... :0) We are very much looking forward to what God has in store for us. We had been really anxious about putting on paper what our top 5 dream spots would be. After many prayers and deep breathes... We came up with this...

Jeff & Caitlin's Dream Sheet

#1. MC-130P/H to Mildenhall Royal Air Force, UK

#2. Slick C-130 to Ramstein, Germany

#3. C-12s to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska

#4. c-12s to Yokoda, Japan ( just outside of Tokyo)

#5. MC-130P/H to Hurlburt Field, FL

Thursday, October 1, we will walk in to a Commander's office and be handed a sheet of paper. There will be a list of ALL the available assignments for the entire class. If it isn't crossed off, it's free. We are so excited and cannot believe it's finally time for our permanent assignment. Jeff has worked so hard and dealt with tedious 12 hour days, weekend cross countries, studying for hours on end when not at the flight room.... <--- (The T44A that Jeff's been flying for the past 5 months.)The list goes on. I'm so proud of what my amazing husband has accomplished. :0)

Friday, October 9, Jeff will finally graduate from the program. 13 months after he started Phase 1 back in Columbus, I will pin on his silver wings. :0) Seems like forever ago that we were talking about those 'gold bars'! :0)

I will keep everyone posted! As soon as we know what's next you'll know!

Thank you all for the prayers and thoughts! Much love!! XOXO

Jessica and Kyle's wedding

OK... Let me start by saying that not one of the pictures I took of Jess do her any justice... If you want to see the really great ones you'll have to check out the photographer, Benjamin James' blog.

The wedding was an absolute blast! Jessica and Kyle had the help of an amazing wedding planner, Heather Rouse, soon to be Heather Lam. :0) Everything was perfect, down to the details on the table.

Here Brit Tarr and I are towards the end of the night... We were dancing fools for most of the evening! It was freezing on the beach by my Texas standards of course but it was nice and warm inside the reception area. The wedding was held on the beach around sunset at The Sunset Restaurant in Malibu, CA.

I got to see friends and family that I haven't seen in ages. The only thing that was missing is my other half! Jeff couldn't get leave in the middle of training. Soon enough though... :0)

And... Props to Brit... Thanks for the awesome new do! It feels and looks amazing !

Forgive me as these pictures are going backwards in time... :0) My Mom, sister Natalie and the bride, Jessica right before we had to be in our places. See what I mean? Just beautiful! Our dresses looked so cute once all of us were done getting ready and my Mom rocked a super cute strapless knee-length dress.

My Niece Hunter and my sister Natalie as we were all getting ready at Kyle's mom's house. We were treated like princesses! Thank you Kathleen and Randy for everything! It was absolutely wonderful!

And of course, my favorite picture from the entire morning of getting ready... My dear sister has the most amazing hair! The stylist was doing a great job doing everyone's hair.

Thanks for being a sport for this one... Don't kill me, Jessica... :0P

USS LEXINGTON, WHATABURGER FIELD

These pictures are from the first couple of weeks of July! In this picture you see my Dad and Hannah being greeted by a Pelican. The fisherman on the pier were telling us that this guy is known for snatching their catches before they can even get the hook out of the fish! He was probably wondering why we weren't fishing! :0)

That Aircraft carrier you see in the background of this picture is called the USS Lexington. This ship was retired or 'decommissioned' in the early '90's. Before then it was used as a training ship for new crews and such. But before that it was an active war ship. My Grandpa Ray was on this ship on her last tour before being used for training. He has tons of neat stories about life on this monster. The greatest thing is that it's right here by our home!

On our tour of the USS Lexington, there was a plaque for some other ship, I'm assuming, but this name caught my eye for obvious reasons! Here's to my littlest sister, Hannah! I love you sis!

Here we are on the Fourth of July at a Hook's game. They are our local Minor AAA baseball team... They lost miserably but we got two fireworks shows! Our friends Brandon and Jenna were in town for the Fourth of July weekend as well.

After we got home from San Antonio, picking up Brandon and Jenna, all that we wanted to do was absolutely nothing! We had a blast of a weekend! We took a pontoon boat out in the morning to try our hand at fishing but we had zero luck... Only gooey catfish to be had... And the wakes were terrible!

Dax's Haircut

AFTER

BEFORE

"Remember the Alamo"

Berges Fest 2009! We're talking lawnmower races, a Dachshund race, vendors selling just about anything you could imagine... And of course an authentic German Polka band... :0)

The lawnmower pictured above is 14' long... 10' of that is ENGINE ! :0)

This handsome little guy is Hasani (African for Handsome ;-)) , is a North African Crested Porcupine. We had the pleasure of meeting and greeting him at the Fest, as well as Taz the Wallaby and a 6' long Boa constrictor! It was amazing! Kinda made me miss my old corn snake... But not that badly... :0)

The above two pictures are from the Mission San Jose in San Antonio. It is known as the 'Queen of Missions' because of how beautifully built it is. The entire compound is enormous! The church pictured here is an addition to the original one that wasn't much bigger than our living room. At one point, 350 people, Indians and Missionaries alike, crammed in to a tiny Chapel for Mass. The carvings on the church are fantastic! The frescoes were also beautiful.

We also visited the Alamo. I must say... I should've done a bit more research on the story before gracing the place with my presence... :0) I would like to read a book on it... If anyone has any suggestions, please let us know!

All in all, it was a splendid time. The drive from here to San Antonio is SO beautiful... Just fields upon fields for miles and miles, flat as can be! We even passed a "Cowboy Community Church"! I can just picture riding up in my boots and tying my horse up outside to attend service... Only in my dreams! :0)

Surfing USA!

Well, we finally went surfing! We've lived here for 6 weeks or so and we've been dying to get out to the water and catch some waves. We rented a couple of 8'6" boards from Outdoor Rec. on base at $10 for the entire day. We went with a couple of our friends, Marlena and Trey.

Off we go! We were both super excited to get in to the water... I was a bit nervous because it's been so long since I last surfed. The water was super choppy with waves only two seconds apart... But at 83 degrees... Who can complain??

Here is our neighbor's daughter, Naomi. I was babysitting her the other day and she took the leash off of her stuffed doggie, "Max", and insisted that Dax wear it... :0) So you can see here that Dax was being very sweet and patient as we was lead around the house! She was so sweet to him! I thought it was super cute.

Jeff started flying the T-44A this week. He absolutely loved it! He is really enjoying flying over the water... Very different from flying over the forests and swamps in Mississippi. We went to a "Fleet Night" at the base's Club. They gave all of the guys and the three wives that were there, the low down on all of the different types of aircrafts they can have dropped their way at 'assignment night'. It was really neat to learn about all of the missions out there in the big blue Air Force. The bottom line is that whatever airplane Jeff gets, we will be in an awesome community. That's always good to know.

Congratulations to Natalie and Matt as the tie the knot in Maui today! Wish we could be there! Our thoughts and prayers are with you guys! XOXO

30May-1June2009

Hey Y'all! We've been busy! On Saturday, Jeff and I became the proud new owners of a pair of fishing poles. We had to get a fishing license from the state of Texas. We went fishing off the pier on base and caught a little tiny Sun Perch and Jeff caught a baby Sea Bass. We let them both go after snapping a picture of them.

Our mutts are still our greatest source of entertainment... We've realized more so in the last few weeks just how much we love dogs!

I had to include this photo... Penny loves to lick the condensation off of our cups... When Jeff has a beer, in this case Yuengling, Penny paws at it and wags her tail frantically.... So when Jeff caves in to her begging, she gets to lick the bottle until she sneezes... Every time... She sneezes. It's pretty funny.

The job search for me still continues... I am getting ready to start advertising my cakes just to do something with my time.

Jeff started the Simulator today. They call it the Hulk. He will start flying next week. He has a chart of the events leading up to the winging ceremony and it's very encouraging to be able to check them off as he goes.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! And happy June! :0)