Jealous yet? We bought a house in the northeast part of Colorado Springs at the end of June, and we are now set up and comfortable. Just in time for the more profound winter heading our way, compared to what we had in Florida.

I wrote about our June cross-country drive on my blog, you can read about the four days here. The boys spent the time with my parents in West Virginia while Dave, Howie, and I did all the driving. My Mom flew them westward just after the July 4th weekend.

You can read on about our individual news below. Read on for some of our other highlights. This year's newsletter won't be as long as previous years, I promise!

If you remember from last year's holiday newsletter, I had indicated that we knew where we were going in summer 2013, but I didn't want to say anything until we had orders in hand.

Dave had interviewed for and got the position as the head of the meteorology major in the Physics department at the US Air Force Academy. We were able to formally announce things around Christmastime. It's a job he had been wanting for many years and he's thrilled to now be part of shaping future Air Force leaders.

Dave wrapped up his squadron command tour with little incident. He held onto that guidon with a death grip right up until the 21 June change of command. It was a very emotional last couple of days in Florida. As is military tradition, no more than 15 minutes after the ceremony ended, Dave and I left the Hurlburt Field Soundside Club, went home to pick up Howie, and left the area. By dinnertime on 21 June, we were in Lafayette, Louisiana. We closed on our house and started moving in on 24 June.

After a month of instructor training, Dave was turned loose with his first class. Not meteorology...yet. He is now wrapping up the fall semester teaching Physics 110, which is a "core" class, to around 50 cadets, mostly sophomores. Next semester he will be teaching Dynamic Meteorology and is very much looking forward to it.

When Dave isn't busy educating cadets and working on research efforts, he'd tell you that he's enjoying the great Colorado outdoors with plenty of hiking and skiing.

As for his model railroad, he had to pack it up in May, and only was able to uncrate it in mid-November. He'll be the first to tell you that it was very difficult to go nearly 6 months without enjoying his railroad, but as you'll read below, the N Scale Juniata Division is now in a great custom-built home in our newly-remodeled basement.

As for me, after several weeks of very sad "goodbyes" with my wonderful Florida friends, I was ready to move on to the next steps of my life.

For much of 2013 I was attempting to get a new AF Reserve job in Colorado. It took three applications for three different jobs, but in September I was hired into the Math Department at the AF Academy. It took until just before Thanksgiving for the transfer to truly happen, and in December I will be doing the "sign in" actions. I'm not only thrilled to be doing math-instructor work (something that's interested me for many years) but I am happy to be working locally again. Something I hadn't been able to do since 2009-2010.

I'm attempting to get some more AF Reserve work in the local area. The kids are now old enough that I can get away with a few weeks here and there. I have a couple leads in the local area, but with sequestration there isn't money to truly hire me. It's disappointing, but we're blessed that we can survive without my needing full time work.

I was the main point of contact for the basement finish work we did between July and November. Because I was home and had a flexible enough schedule for the contractors and inspections. I will be writing about it separately below, but I was the one making the phone calls to the contractors and inspectors, and I got to choose the flooring and cabinets. Dave did a lot of work on weekends, but I was able to get a lot of the painting and flooring done during the week while the kids were at school and Dave was at work.

Because of the basement work, I've not been as involved with the boys' school or Scouts as I was in Florida. I'd like to get a little more involved, all the while trying to keep my calendar open for any part time work that will come along.

I continue to write for GeekMom as a Core Contributor. We ended our involvement with Wired.com after Conde Nast Publishing attempted to make some less-than-desirable changes to our freelance contracts. We are back to a stand-alone site, which continues to garner a lot of pageviews. I still receive some pretty nifty things to review. Apparently 2013 has been "Year of the Solar Charger" since I had the opportunity to review FOUR of them this year. Feel free to view my latest GeekMom posts here.

Before we left Florida I had the chance to run one last Disney race. This time the whole family came along and we did the "Royal Family 5K" together dressed in our Incredibles costumes. It was also fun to visit with the McNabbs, we visited Sea World together and we had a nice day relaxing at the Art of Animation Resort pool. Feel free to read more about that trip here.

And finally, I turned 40 this year. Dave gave me a wonderful birthday party and Megan flew in from New Hampshire for the weekend. We were also able to visit with our old Irvin Hall friend Adam, who now lives right up the road from us. On the morning of my birthday, Megan and I climbed the Manitou Incline. It's a great workout!

Jacob is 11 years old and in 5th grade at his 3rd elementary school. It's right up the street from our house and is a nice small school, like what we experienced in Nebraska. Only 2-3 classes for each grade. Compared to Jacob having to get on a bus 45 minutes before school started, he likes that we don't have to leave the house until 5-20 minutes before the bell, depending on whether we walk, ride our bikes, or I drive them. I was making them walk every day while the weather was warmer, but these days I have to drive them most of the time.

As is typical with a military child, Jacob had a little bit of a tough time saying goodbye to his friends in Florida (many of whom had military moves of their own this past summer). He also felt a little overwhelmed with the much-larger classes here in Colorado (30 students, compared to 18 in his classes in Florida). We were able to get him quickly tested and placed in the daily-pull-out gifted and talented classes here. Jacob now spends most of his day with only 5-8 additional students and it's made a world of difference in his attitude.

He has a new piano teacher who gives lessons at our house. She challenges Jacob more than his Florida teacher ever did, and it's been so pleasant hearing him practice Joplin's "The Entertainer" every evening. He will be taking part in a competition in February and will have a recital in April.

Jacob continues his Webelos Cub Scouts, but by January he's expected to cross over into Boy Scouts. We have the task of finding a local Boy Scout troop for him. Being that we're new in town, this is doubly daunting for us. We'll see how that goes.

In his spare time Jacob enjoys reading and video games such as Minecraft and Portal 2. Out of nowhere he became a reading machine and I love it to pieces. He finished the Harry Potter series this summer and is now working through the Hunger Games series.

Timmy will be 9 in January and is in 3rd grade. He took the move and his new school very well, and has a circle of friends between his class and Cub Scouts. He's always done a good job making new friends. He also was quickly placed into the school's gifted program, but doesn't have the same level of support as Jacob. That will start in 4th grade.

Timmy was very resistant to continuing his piano lessons, so I allowed Timmy to choose a new instrument to play. He chose guitar. We found a nearby teacher who's not even 5 minutes away, and she's wonderful with Timmy. Because of his piano background, his teacher is able to quickly introduce him to chords. She even offers to transcribe Timmy's favorite songs into a playable format for him. Timmy recently asked for the theme to Adventure Time. I can't wait to hear how that sounds.

Timmy enjoys Adventure Time, Nyan Cat, and Minecraft. He and his friends at school have been writing "books" together about their favorite characters -- fan fiction, if you will. The stories are actually pretty fun to read and I love Timmy's and his friends' imaginations.

Timmy played another season of baseball this past spring and is really taking to being a catcher. He doesn't mind the extra equipment and enjoys being an infielder. He's also anxiously waiting for baseball season to start here.

Howie. He is 13 1/2 years old now and continues to bring joy and happiness to our family. The boys can't leave for school or go to bed at night without a goodnight hug and kiss with him. He usually walks to and from school with us, and I know the exercise is doing him well.

Howie's move to Colorado was pretty worrisome for us. He spent the first couple of weeks constantly out of breath and unable to negotiate the new house's stairs very well. Since Howie can't go "out" in the backyard without stairs now, we weren't sure what to do at first. But now he seems to be accustomed to living at 6800' elevation -- quite a change from sea-level! -- and enjoys morning and afternoon walks to the boys' school almost every day.

Howie's chronic rhinitis (congestion) had still been an issue after moving here, so we spent most of this fall nuking it with strong antibiotics. It seems to be resolved now, and it seems that Howie's only discomforts are from the arthritis he gets with weather changes.

Dave and I have those issues too, so we aren't as sympathetic as we used to be.

Now that the weather is turning colder, Howie enjoys sitting on our back deck watching the world. He also likes to sit at our front door, looking through the glass storm door at rabbits.

Rabbits are his new squirrels and we have a LOT of them around here.

In Other News....

Basement Remodel

When we were here in May looking for a house, we looked at about 10 houses, of which just one of them had an unfinished basement. Of course that's the one we ended up buying. We liked so many other things about this house, and the asking price was low enough without the finished basement we took a risk and attempted a loan right away to frame and finish the space. We started work at the end of July. We hired individual contractors to do the jobs we weren't able, and we did the rest of the work ourselves: mainly painting and flooring.

Lucky for us it all worked out very well: just before Thanksgiving -- and the coldest weather -- we had the final inspection and spent much of Thanksgiving week moving furniture downstairs and hanging window treatments, installing bathroom fixtures, and getting our bar area set up.

I thought it would have been easy, just calling and scheduling the plumbing, framing, insulation, trim work, and electrical work. But it was quite a dance, getting everything done in the proper order, fitting in the appropriate inspections in between everything. We accidentally put in carpeting sooner than we were supposed to, so we had to accommodate that. There was also a snafu with the countertops not being ordered as early as we thought...that put everything on hold for two weeks!

That being said, we had a VERY smooth basement construction process and couldn't be more pleased.

I have a photo album showing the before/after photos, as well as pictures from during the work itself. Feel free to browse!

Our Sponsor Cadet

For those who follow the family on Facebook and through my blog, you will sometimes see a uniformed young man in our pictures from around Colorado. We had the opportunity to take part in a cadet sponsor program here. Most military and even non-military families in the community are able take part. You fill out a basic application and then you're matched based on your preferences. We didn't have significant preferences, except that the cadet be a male.

We are all still in awe with what a great match was made. Meet Robert, a 4th Class (freshman/Doolie) cadet from Michigan. He has a lot in common with our family and our boys in particular. He's going to be a math major, which appeals to our entire family. He's very kind to the boys, enjoys playing X Box and Wii while visiting, is a fan of sci-fi like most of us in the house, and we have had fun taking him on several family road trips and hikes on the weekends he has available.

Families that take part in the program are asked to provide a "safe haven" from the stresses of AF Academy life on the cadets' available weekends. We are also supposed to serve as mentors and sounding boards, and I joke with Robert that everything I say is a "teachable moment".

We had the chance to meet his parents over Labor Day weekend and have made new friends in Eric and Carol. I try to take pictures during Robert's visits with us to send to them.

Hopefully we are providing him an example of a "normal" Air Force family <snicker>, while we are learning quite a bit about cadet life.