Let The Games Begin — Vollmer PCS* 2010

*Glossary: PCS: Permanant Change of Station Don’t fret, we still have a few weeks. Eight, to be exact. Almost exact: 8 weeks from Tuesday the 28th. Yep. My brain has officially shifted into “Prepare to Move” mode. This is becoming old hat for me. Let me set the stage here. I grew up a military … Read more

Jacob’s Birthday Cake

This past weekend my oldest son turned 8. I had a great time working on his birthday cake. Since his 4th birthday, I’ve always taken on his cakes as a challenge each year, and this year was no exception. Jacob’s first soccer game was this past weekend also, so I thought it would be fun … Read more

Bovril Beef Gravy

I have to introduce this to the masses. I just have to! When Dave and I were visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, we enjoyed visiting the little grocery store up the street from our hotel. With the continental breakfast being $13.50 CD per person, per day, just picking up a loaf of bread, a block of butter … Read more

My Blog Before the Blog: Some Memories of the Apex Chlorine Fire…

Today I was uploading recipes to the Pioneer Woman’s public cooking website: Tasty Kitchen. A pretty neat website — like a Facebook for amateur cooks. Or Ravelry.com, which is a community for yarn craftsmen. Anyway, one of the recipes I had uploaded was the Linguini Salad that I make for pot lucks and picnic. I … Read more

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Timmy’s Flower Pot — Repurposed!

To follow up on yesterday’s panicked posting… I went to the Apple Store today and came out of there with a new replacement iPhone. Apple has a program where wet iPhones can be replaced for $199. This is FAR cheaper than walking into the store in the middle of a two-year contract and buying a … Read more

iPhone and Potties Don’t Mix!

Right after I hit “Publish Post” on that Labor Day blog post below, something dreadful happened. I got up from my spot on the couch where I do my blogging, walked to the half bath just outside the family room, and prepared to go to the bathroom. Before I could get started (thankfully!) my iPhone … Read more

Labor Day in America

Happy Labor Day friends! After all these years of celebrating Labor Day, taking advantage of the day off granted to most (but not all) Americans, I finally took the time to learn about this holiday’s origins. I found this from the ever-faithful (cough cough) Wikipedia and the perhaps-more-accurate U.S. Department of Labor website. The very … Read more

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A Thomas-Themed Scrapbook. Really? Yes, really.

How crazy are we?  My next scrapbook project is to use this lovely Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-themed scrapbook I got many years ago as a gift (I honestly don’t remember where/when I got it).  I opened it up recently after several years of it sitting with my other unused scrapbooks…and counted TWENTY available pages. Could I possibly come … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 19: Offutt Air Show 2010

We’ve done this two times before here and here, but it’s worth discussing again.

It’s late August at Offutt AFB — time for an AIRSHOW!

This year’s airshow lucked out with a last-minute booking of the Thunderbirds after the Coney Island Airshow was cancelled. (Don’t know why, message boards have speculated it was financial). Unfortunate for an entire airshow to be cancelled, but yay for us, right? When the airshow was first announced in mid-July, the F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team was the headliner.

Like the past two years, the aircraft start to roll in around mid-week and we can see the air traffic from throughout my neighborhood as the aerial demo teams start to practice their shows. While the propeller planes and helicopters stay pretty close to the runway, the jets need more maneuvering space and often have to turn around over our neighborhood. Whoo hoo! So we were seeing the Thunderbirds, the F-22 and F-18 several times right from our yard! The kids at school had quite a treat during their recess on Thursday and Friday too 🙂

In 2008 we watched the Thunderbirds from the local bike trail. In 2009 we watched from a local neighborhood that offered a good view. This time, the boys and I watched right there in the middle of the action.

Enjoy some of our experiences from the airshow.

These KC-135s are Nebraska Air National Guard planes from Lincoln
From 2010 08 28 Offutt AFB Airshow
I’d never seen a Global Hawk UAS up close before, after all the times I’d forecast for them….
From 2010 08 28 Offutt AFB Airshow

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The Vollmer "Weather Curse", Take 6

Most of this text is stolen from a 21 November 2008 blog post about the crazy weather experiences we’ve had everywhere we’ve lived since we’ve been married. At the end of that blog post, I posed the question: “What will Bellevue, Nebraska bring?” Now that we’re wrapping up our Nebraska tour and headed toward our … Read more