Major Mom

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.

European Vacation Day 9: The Hackescher Markt Station – CLOSED!

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This was station was just a few tens of meters from our AirBnB apartment building. But it was closed for the week. Boo!

25 July 22: See that train station in the photo above? That’s the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station, and it’s about 500′ from our apartment building. It was part of what I liked about the AirBnB we rented. This photo was taken from our AirBnB.

The station is closed for renovations until Thursday. The day after we leave Berlin. So we have to use the Alexanderplatz station which is about 0.4 miles away (2000′) which isn’t bad, but it wasn’t expected either.

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European Vacation Day 9: Our Day in Wittenberg

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After the original wooden doors were burned down in a fire, the new church doors were made with the text of the Ninety-Five Theses engraved in the bronze.

25 July 22: More photos from the Schlosskirche — Castle Church — and the Luther House Museum, both in Wittenberg (or Lutherstadt Wittenberg, which is the name I should have originally used to search for train routes and maybe it would have saved us 1/2 hour or so).

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European Vacation Day 9: Greetings from the Castle Church

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25 Jul 22: Daily selfie from the Castle Church, Wittenberg. This is the church on whose door Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses (also known as the Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences) in 1517, leading to the establishment of Protestantism. This church has been renovated many times over since then. More photos … Read more

European Vacation Day 9: Berliner Fernsehturm

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From the top of the Fernsehturm. We had to use Dave’s newer phone for this. Mine was struggling with the lighting with the bright background.

25 July 22: Greetings from the Berlin Fernsehturm — also known as the Berlin TV Tower. About 275m up.

I could spend all day up here getting the lay of the land. There are awesome descriptions of what you see every 6 degrees of the compass rose.

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European Vacation Day 9: First Morning in Berlin

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25 July 22: After yesterday’s shenanigans, we have now figured out how public transportation is going to look from our apartment (numerous closures this week near us, both the S-Bahn and the trams are unavailable). We aren’t far from the Alexanderplatz train station, about 0.4km away.

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European Vacation Day 8: More Travel Chaos!

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24 July 22: More chaos as we learned that the original train on the 2nd leg of our trip, from Karlsruhe to Berlin, was canceled and combined with another train.

We basically got ourselves on that other train and figured we’d just sit anywhere in First Class — we have First Class tickets — and be okay. We are at least heading in the right direction…towards Berlin…

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