My name is Patricia, but in the blogging world I became known as "Major Mom" thanks to a friend in the Air Force Reserves. As soon as he had said it, the David Bowie song "Space Oddity" went through my mind.
I am a mother and wife first - an Air Force wife, that is. My husband proudly serves in the Air Force as a weather officer.
I also continue to serve my country as a Major in the Air Force Reserves.
It's a wonderful double-life I lead.
It was a very difficult decision for me -- I had our second son in early 2005 just before the 10-year-point in my career. It was already tough having to turn my oldest son over to a child care center every duty day -- 50 hours per week. So in spring 2005 I took advantage of a Reserves job opening for which I was qualified in Norfolk, Virginia -- my hometown!
It's truly wonderful getting to see my sons grow up, and be able to help out at their school, on their sports teams (I've coached soccer before) and as a Cub Scout den leader. I'm not sure I'd have had time for that if I had remained on active duty.
We currently live in Navarre, Florida, while my wonderful husband is assigned to Hurlburt Field, Florida.
We've also lived in the following locations since we graduated from Penn State University in 1995:
Fort Polk, Louisiana, 1995-1998
Yongsan Army Installation, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 1998-2000
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, 2000-2002
Patrick AFB, Florida, 2002-2005
Raleigh, North Carolina (Dave was assigned to North Carolina State University), 2005-2008
Offutt AFB, Nebraska, 2008-2010
Hurlburt Field, Florida, 2010-present
I started this blog in December 2007, thanks to suggestions from friends. We're in our third home since I started the blog.
I used to send out captioned photo albums -- from AOL Pictures to Shutterfly albums to Picasaweb albums. Instead of flooding everyone with photos, now I can use this blog to send out the highlights.
I'll talk about anything on here -- usually I'm talking about the kids, but I'll also delve into the local scene wherever we're living, and you'll also see some great posts about the two military moves (PCS: Permanent Changes of Station) we've had. Sometimes I talk about utter nonsense, such as finding a product called "Piggies in Pancakes" in a grocery store in South Carolina.
In my spare time I write for the parenting blog GeekMom.com, I serve on the board of the Hurlburt Spouses' Club, and I'm a Cub Scout den leader. I also enjoy running and playing the violin.
This afternoon Dave disassembled our two weather stations in the backyard. One of them (KFLGULFB11) had been reliably reporting backyard weather since December 2010, the other (KFLNAVAR18) was a test weather station whose review post is coming up soon on GeekMom.
During our week in Biloxi this past March, Dave and I took a drive to Ocean Springs, which has done a fantastic job of rebuilding after Katrina’s devastation. On the drive, we passed the most unusual-looking buildings near the Isle and Palace Casinos. There were three buildings in a row up against U.S. 90, each of … Read more
I’ve decided it’s time for me to get my list in writing. I turn 40 later this year and I figure that’s half of my life complete (based on U.S. census tables), so it’s time to set some goals for the latter half of my life. I see and hear about things all the time … Read more
Timmy is on the Phillies.Jacob is on the Cardinals.
This year the boys are both on very good, very hard working teams. It’s nice to see their hard work and tons of practice pay off in good records. Since it’s become apparent that the boys are serious about their baseball, we made the investment in some better-than-beginner equipment for the two of them.
I took our good camera out to the fields earlier this month, but didn’t get the best pictures because I had to deal with the chain link fence. I was able to use the manual focus on most of them, and all things considered, I’m pretty impressed. Enjoy!
Tonight I went to the Bellevue, Nebraska Walmart Super Center mainly to pick up some Dorothy Lynch salad dressing for my boys. It’s the only kind Timmy will have on his salads, otherwise he eats his salad “dry”.
I decided to pick up a small container of ice cream for myself while I was there, and I was in search of a pint-sized container, such as Ben & Jerry’s or Haagen-Dazs.
I found the gelato pictured above, and it’s very yummy! While I have been sitting here watching the NFL Draft enjoying it, I looked at the nutrition information:
Serving size: 1/2 cup
Number of Servings: 3.5
What?
Then I looked at the size of the container: 14 ounces?
The newly-rebuilt Jefferson Davis Presidential Library in Biloxi, MS. It opened on March 16, 2013. It has a library, restoration center, and gift shop.
Yipee! A new state to discover!
At the end of March, Dave and I made a trip to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS for Dave’s laser-eye surgery. We spent about 5 days in the area; before his procedure, we were able to do a little bit of sightseeing. Besides the numerous casinos, there are a couple of neat tourist attractions that we enjoyed.
First on our list was to pay a visit to Beauvoir, which was Jefferson Davis’ home after the Civil War. He was living as a disenfranchised not-really-citizen at the time he acquired this house, because he had some of his rights stripped as part of his treason indictment. In fact, he was nearly broke when he came to Beauvoir as a house guest in 1877. The country at the time was very divided on his right to remain in the U.S., but in the deep south he was left alone. On the grounds stands the Jefferson Davis “Presidential” Library**, which operates in the same way as other presidential libraries around the country. The property is managed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
**Being that the United States never formally recognized the Confederate States of America as a sovereign state, one could argue that Jefferson Davis wasn’t really president of anything. But I’m not going to get too deep into that argument.
Beauvoir itself. An understated home with a great view. There were many more trees before Katrina.
The grounds took a beating during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. You can see a picture of the house right after the storm in this CNN Article. The library was destroyed, and priceless artifacts were blown all over the place. It took over 2 years to restore the home, and it was able to reopen in summer 2008.
The purpose of this blog post is to have a place to quickly compare the two weather stations I have in my backyard. The top “sticker” is for our Davis Instruments Vantage Pro 2, circa 2004. This weather station has performed reliably for our family at each of our last four homes. The bottom “sticker” … Read more
It’s for real now — this week we’ve been squeezing in a couple of move-related tasks before I go to Omaha for more Air Force work. We put all our ducks in a row for looking for a house in Colorado, and we have made the arrangements for our belongings to get picked up in … Read more
On the last day of the boys’ Spring Break, we took a field trip to Mobile’s Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center. I went in thinking it would be an all-day museum, but we ended up not spending much time there at all. The kids enjoyed it, but there seemed to be a lot of empty space in a seemingly very large building. It wasn’t crowded at all while we were there, our school district seemed to be the only ones in the Gulf Coast region having Spring Break as early as the college kids….
I’m trying a new tool called “Press This” on my own blog, mainly for some training for GeekMom. I just want to see what Press This will do. Enjoy this recipe in the meantime 🙂 Bacon Stout Chocolate Cheesecake | Tide and Thyme.
