We had a fun day today. I got to spend time with each of the boys at their schools. Then we went out to dinner at one of the very few restaurants that the four of us can agree on. Unfortunately, when you order sushi while everyone else ordered off the Chinese food menu, I had to get my dinner to go. That’s okay…it was all yummy!
Dave got me a charm for the Pandora bracelet I got for Christmas.
I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day too.
Enjoy some pictures from today. More »
Dave and I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert last week! The Pensacola show was at the tail end of the Lounging at the Lagoon tour.
Cross that one off our Florida bucket list!
We honestly didn’t know what to expect. We read about folks tailgating hours before the concert, but since the concert was on a Tuesday, and we’d have to deal with babysitting on a school night, we elected to pack our camp stove and take some marinated chicken to grill.
Dave and I also packed plenty to drink in our cooler: Margarita, whiskey sours and plenty of beer.
We left as soon as the boys came home from school, and arrived at the Pensacola Bay Center at 4pm. Four hours till showtime. We got pretty good parking, with the venue less than a 5 minute walk away. There were plenty of things to do, lots of people-watching!
Everyone dresses in tropical apparel; Dave wore one of his numerous Hawaiian shirts with flip flops, and I wore a Hawaiian dress.
I didn’t get good photos of the concert itself, but the Parrotheads of Pensacola did and put their album online here.
Our awesome tailgate setup!
Last year we went to Mobile and experienced some pretty serious Mardi Gras-ness. This year we kept it local, so here’s some pictures from the Navarre Beach Mardi Gras parade, sponsored by the Navarre Krewe of Jesters.
You had to get to the route quite early, since they close the bridge from the mainland to Navarre Beach 30 minutes before the parade started. We got a great viewing spot towards the end of the parade route. I thought it was the beginning of the route, oops. Which mean the beads were being rationed by this point. That’s okay, nothing will beat how much we got last year.
Also, we didn’t realize how many people brought their pets to the parade! There’s so little around here that welcomes pets, we didn’t even think to ask.
Our waiting spot for the parade. We arrived 90 minutes early, we had great viewing. We brought plenty of drinks and snacks.
This is a very brave gentleman. Very friendly too.
He was happy to take pictures with everyone.
Bright shirts, bright sky! This year I ran the 15K in my fastest time!
This past Saturday I ran my third and final Pensacola Double Bridge Run. This year the route was slightly different, and there were medals for the 15K finishers for the first time. This is also the first year the 15K race sold out (I believe they capped it at 2500 runners).
As always, I have to be on the buses before 6am to be transported to the race start, which this year was at the new Pensacola Maritime Park (where the minor league baseball team plays).
A lovely sunrise over my right shoulder (on the left in the picture) before the race started.
The first year I ran this in 2011, the weather was chilly and it was overcast the entire time. There was a brisk north wind that seemingly propelled me across the two bridges. In 2012, the wind was from the south, still overcast, but about 30 degrees warmer. You could wring out my shirt after finishing that one. And a south wind means it felt like I was running in place when on the bridges.
For 2013, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was in the mid-30s at race start, and around 50 degrees by the time we finished. The sun was in our faces, and I even had a little bit of a sunburn!
The sun was in my face during the entire race. With temperatures in the 30s and 40s, it was a welcome addition. I don’t like running with sunglasses, so I was essentially squinting the whole time.
I am testing the MapMyFitness iPhone app for GeekMom; the app mapped my route well, but it seemed to pace me pretty fast: 1:28 hours for the 15K (a little more actually, which is something I’m working out with the company), which is much faster than I usually run. My official race time is around 1:30 hours, which is more realistic.
I’ll say more about the app in my official review.
I also took many pictures on the route, and the pictures geolocate along the route in the app, which is also pretty cool.
One of the 22 pictures I took along the route. Most of them look like this, to be honest. In this case, I’m ascending the Pensacola Beach Bridge (the 2nd bridge of the two). On the entire route, the outermost of the northbound lanes were blocked off for us.
The finish is very inspiring, and the after party is a lot of fun. We finish the race near the Boardwalk section of Pensacola Beach, and the numerous businesses there work together to provide free food and beer to the finishers.
I love my medal! It’s designed in the spirit of my favorite gaudy sign (linked photo courtesy of Fotomom)!
It was so windy outside, we had to fake the blowing out of the candles.
This year Timmy asked for a Nyan Cat birthday party. So he got one. He didn’t have a party last year, since we took a cruise that particular week a year ago.
I don’t know where he thinks of this stuff. It took a little bit of creativity, but the kids got a kick out of the party and Timmy was very happy.
I’ll just send you here to learn more about Nyan Cat.
And here’s the video, of course.
Since no one seemed to have done this before, I basically wagged everything. I set up a Pinterest board to collect the ideas I found online.
We rented a bouncy house. I found lots of rainbow-colored party items at our local Party City, and a friend from GeekMom recommended a craft activity.
Like the 8-bit plates?
With popsicle sticks, rainbow streamers, cardstock with Nyan Cat printouts, and a lot of glue, you too can make these cute puppets.
The cake was fun to make. I happened to have all the food color gels for the rainbow.
The bouncy house, rented from Hurlburt Field Outdoor Recreation.
I’m testing a capability for a GeekMom review of the new MapMyFitness app.
Running race directors — or leaders in running groups — can plot a course, then upload it to a website for folks to import to their MapMyFitness accounts.
When they run the race, the app will live-track others on the course and you can see real-time progress of other users, I believe this is with the MVP membership.
I’m running this race on Saturday.
The first week of January, I caught a status update on Facebook from the blog Pensacola with Kids. It’s a great Facebook page to follow when you’re looking for stuff to do on weekends around here.
They suggested the four-day-long Pensacola Dog Fanciers Association Agility Trials that started on Thursday of that week and lasted through the weekend (January 3-6, 2013). With our boys’ affinity for border collies, this was a no brainer.
It was a fun, super-laid-back event. We were very sad that we didn’t bring Howie, dogs were welcome to come as spectator. There were a few rules about keeping the visiting dogs from distracting the dogs, but Howie would have been perfectly fine.
We had a fun time! The kids LOVED watching the dogs compete, especially the more novice dogs that were VERY easily distracted…one of them saw a “friend” across the arena and completely STOPPED his course run to go and visit.
I took our telephoto lens with our new camera, but it’s clear that I have a lot to learn about our camera. I had a hard time capturing the super-fast dogs, but it’s a work in progress.
Here are some pictures from our day….
Timmy saw a friend from school and the two of them hung out most of the time.
What you’re looking at here are the handlers walking the course, like a rehearsal.
This kind woman was the emcee for the event, and in between events she brought animals up for the kids to pet.
Melt my heart! I switched to my 55-200mm telephoto lens and could get these detailed photos while still sitting up in the stands.
Training.
I have a lot to learn about photographing action. This is what most of my pictures look like of the dogs in motion. I fiddled with the exposure and f-stop somewhat, but I didn’t do much better than this.
That border collie was CRAZY fast!
My favorite of all the action pictures.
When the dog goes through the ring at the end of the course, the timer stops.
The boys and I are getting really excited about the mountain life! This is a view of Pike’s Peak from the Garden fo the Gods, courtesy of Wikipedia.
I’m back from Nebraska, the trip was pretty good. Uneventful…I feel relatively caught up on my Air Force Reserve life now. I’m looking forward to investigating some full-time AF work opportunities while I’m living in Colorado Springs. I learned through the grapevine that there’s quite a bit to do, I can’t wait to learn more and toss my name in the hat for the occasional odd job. 🙂
While I was in Nebraska, I had the time to really start investigating the layout of the community and how the schools are. Jacob will be going to middle school (yikes!) while we’re living there, so it’s time to take things up a notch and really get smart on this stuff.
We’re getting excited about it!
For now I don’t have that much to do — we haven’t even decided if Dave is going to try to fly out earlier to find us a house. We figured we could take a couple weeks right when we get there and take our time looking…we simply don’t know. And for now, we aren’t stressing about it. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of stress to go around in about 8 weeks.
Have you ever lived in Colorado Springs? What advice can you give to our family? I’ve never set foot in the area, Dave had spent 4 days there in early 2010.
No, I don’t mind chewing my orange juice one bit!
Of course I miss my family when I do my reserve duty, and I have to deal with flying in the month of January, but there are a few perks to being on my own for a week.
Such as getting to buy and drink “HIGH PULP” orange juice!
And working through a box of Raisin Nut Bran cereal for breakfast every day I’m here.
I eat sushi for dinner without commentary from the peanut galley.
I can stay up as late as I like to read my book…when I’m not studying for my first Air War College exam, I’m working on World War Z by Tom Brooks right now. Yes, a zombie book, but there’s another layer to it that makes it a very worthwhile read: do YOU have the skills to survive for a generation or longer without electricity, fuel for your vehicles, or the Internet?
For the first few days I truly enjoy the quiet when I’m off duty. I don’t talk much, I get to surf the web without feeling guilty, the TV is on the channel I want. But after about 4 days of this, I do begin to get lonely. I begin to surf online albums of the boys’ baby pictures and pictures of Dave and me enjoying life.
Of course, I’ll take this over a long deployment…and kudos to those who are separated for much, much longer than this.
Here we go again! This big orange truck (as Jacob called it) was from July 2008.
That’s just move #8 since Dave joined the Air Force.
This had been a long time coming; we’ve been waiting almost 6 months to tell our other-than-family-and-closest-friends our big news!
This past summer Dave was invited to apply for a professor position at the US Air Force Academy. He got the job, but had to keep quiet until all the assignment-world ducks were in a row. He’s going to teach physics and meteorology! Today he found out his report date, and we can start the ball rolling on our next move…
…to COLORADO SPRINGS…
…in a mere five months!
That seems pretty quick, doesn’t it? For some reason, this is such old hat to Dave and me, that I am calm…for now.
That’s about where I am now: plan to work through my pantry, mentally inventory things that we want to sell before our move (i.e. a riding lawn mower, outdoor furniture), and start researching the boys’ school options.
I’ve written quite a bit about the other two PCSs we’ve had since I started this blog, in 2008 and 2010. I put some of those posts on a Pinterest board, if you’d like to learn more.
You can also view any moving-related posts here, but that could get lengthy.
We’re thrilled about Colorado Springs, the hiking, the shopping, the skiing, the camping, the opportunities to explore the American west! We have friends stationed out there, too, who we can’t wait to see after so many years.
Stay tuned for the inevitable rants and raves about our PCS preparations. For now, we are basking in the excitement still.
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