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 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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European Vacation Day 7: A “Free Day” in Paris

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Daily selfie at the Musee d’Orsay, a former train station built for the 1900 Paris Exhibition. Converted to a museum in the 1980s.

23 July 22: So…what does “Free Day in Paris” look like? It started with a trip to Le Bon Marche department store…one of the oldest in the world…except much of the store was closed, I think due to HVAC issues. So we were restricted to the food and alcohol sections only. I was able to pick up some souvenirs and we met a gentleman who used to do wine classes in the States, and helped us pick some good inexpensive wines.

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European Vacation Day 6: Bateaux Parisiens Cruise

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There’s another version of this with all of my face but the boys don’t look quite as pleasant. So we’ll go with this one…

22 July 22: We took a Bateaux Parisiens one hour guided Seine River cruise tonight, right at sunset. It was raining when the cruise started but it ended about 5 minutes into the trip. As it was a Friday night, the river was full of dinner cruises and party cruises…so much so that the kids started asking “Why didn’t WE book a dinner cruise?” Frankly, I didn’t think they’d enjoy such a thing. I guess I was wrong. We would have had to bring some dressier clothes.

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European Vacation Day 6: More Louvre Photos

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22 July 22: Here are some of the many photos I took at the Louvre today. I think I was more in awe of the sheer size of the buildings and galleries and the stunning architecture than the art. Also, as is probably the case with many American visitors, I am having to process how OLD much of this is. I don’t mean the antiquities on exhibit…I mean the fact that the museum opened (as an art museum) in 1793.

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