Ups and Downs of the Air Force Life

I know it has been a couple of weeks since I posted! It has been a crazy couple of weeks.  Two Fridays ago, I wrote a post and never put it on the site.  Two weeks ago was really not such a good week. Last week got so much better, though!  Now that we are out of the woods, I feel more like sharing what we were going through.

The one highlight of two weeks ago was how sweet everybody was to call, text, email, and Facebook me on my birthday! Thanks everyone! Instead of taking forever to go through this post and change it for "past tense" instead of "present tense", I'm just going to post it as it was written on April 27:

So.  Poor Chris.  Some of you may know that he has struggled with motion sickness since he started flying, which was actually a couple of years ago at the Academy.  The T-6 is the most powerful plane he has ever flown in and the motion sickness hasn't gotten a whole lot better since he has been flying it.  There are times when he gets through the flight just fine, but there are times that he gets so sick he can't fly the plane.  This is not uncommon, it happens to a lot of pilot students.  The body can adjust to the motions of the plane, and eventually it just gets used the motions and you stop getting sick.  This takes longer for some than for others. There is a very specific regimen that the Air Force uses to help people overcome their motion sickness.

Step one is medication.  You can take these medications, which are a combination of stuff to help you not get sick and amphetamines to help you stay awake because the other stuff can make you drowsy on its own.  Amphetamines are highly regulated.  You can only take those medicines for 3 days.  While you take them, you are flying so your body is actually adjusting to the motions of the plane without having the symptoms of motion sickness that disrupt your flight.  The idea is, by the time you fly 3 more times, once you are off the medication your body has adjusted and you don't get sick anymore.

Unfortunately, between Chris' cold and some bad weather that resulted in cancelled flights, Chris took his medicine for 3 days but did not get to fly all 3 of those days...then he actually  had a 10 day break before he flew again.  The medicines really didn't get to serve their purpose. The Air Force is really cut-and-dry.  They won't give him a chance to take the medicine again.

If you still get sick after the medicine regimen, you go to step two. Chris got sick on his flight on Monday.  He couldn't finish his flight, so his instructor pilot had to take over.  On to step two.

So step two is the spin chair.  This is what everyone wants to avoid because it is not pleasant.  They spin you around in this chair basically until you vomit.  It's designed to be 100x worse than a flight should ever have to be.  It is such an extreme version of the worst possible motion sickness scenario, that it is very effective in adjusting your body to the motions of the plane...if your body can adjust to the spin chair, it is going to be able to handle a plane ride no-problem.  After 3 days in the chair, each day spinning for 3 10-minute sessions, most people's bodies are adjusted and they are over their motion sickness.

Chris has been doing the chair the past few days.  Obviously this has made his days terrible. The doctor told him to eat foods he didn't mind throwing up.  They make you do all sorts of things while you are spinning to make it as bad as possible...close your eyes, head down.  Open your eyes, head and arms up. 

If you continue to have motion sickness to the point where you can't fly the plane, you move on to step three.  Step three is, you are dismissed from pilot training and go take another Air Force job. Please pray that Chris won't have to go to step 3.

Things are looking pretty good at the moment.  Monday was the day he got sick.  He knew he would get assigned the chair on Tuesday, so Monday was not a good night.  We were both already very stressed about the possibility of having to move to step 3, even though we weren't to step 2 yet.  Tuesday was better...he did not get sick in flight.  However, he still got assigned to the chair.  Wednesday he also did not get sick in his flight, but that afternoon was his first chair session.  In the first 10-minute spin, he didn't get too sick.  On the second and third spins, he got sick and threw up both times.  Yesterday, he did not get sick in flight again.  He got sick in the chair but did not throw up.  Unfortunately, he felt sick the rest of the day after that.  Autumn and I went to a beer tasting/food pairing dinner in downtown Columbus...Chris (and Jon) wasn't able to come because they didn't get released until about 9.  They met us when they got out, but you could tell Chris didn't feel well.  Today he's doing a simulation but he is going to get spun one more time on Monday and fly....then, after that, we just hope that he is going to be cured of his motion sickness.

I also did not have a good week at work.  The excess stress from home, plus a couple of computer malfunctions did not help.  I'm ready for this week to be over.  Also, Chris is supposed to solo next week.  I did not expect him to solo this early, but I am really upset because I'm afraid I may be in Birmingham working and won't be able to make it back to watch him get dunked in the pool of water (it's a tradition after you solo the first time for you to try to run back into the flight room, and if your classmates can catch you, they throw you into this nasty pool of sitting water).  Obviously, I want to share in all the excitement and take pictures.  This is kind of a milestone.  So I'm just praying for some heavy rain next week.  Maybe his solo can get delayed until I am scheduled to be back in Columbus on Thursday.
I'm headed to Auburn for the weekend and Chris is going to stay here.  I'm looking forward to being with friends and family, but I'm bummed out about Chris not being able to come.  I am taking Monday off of work to help my sister, Jessica, ring in her 21st birthday.  Tuesday morning I'm heading to Birmingham to work there until Thursday, which is also the day of my Rodan + Fields launch event here in Columbus.

Okay!!  That was my blog for April 27, which I never published. So before I move forward with the events of last week, I'm sure you are all wondering what wound up happening with Chris.  He seems to be cured of his motion sickness, hooray! Thank you for your prayers.  He soloed last Monday, and sadly, I missed it.  However, he sent me this video of him getting dunked. This dunking process was traditionally a LOT more rambunctious than it is now.  But apparently some guy got a concussion recently when his head hit the side of the dunk tank, so until all that blows over, they have to be pretty gentle with the dunking :) They still have nasty water, though! (For full screen, click the icon in the lower right corner of the video).

Let's hope he never has to return to the chair! Since then, he's had several good flights. On Friday, he soloed again and there was some confusion in the air traffic control tower that could have caused several planes to collide.  Chris stayed calm under pressure and increased his altitude, which, in effect, prevented the collisions.  That just goes to show you that just because this is "just training", doesn't mean that Chris' day-to-day job is completely safe...this is a very scary realization for me, but I suppose that is what I signed up for when I said "I do"...when you become a military wife, you are really saying "I do" to a whole lot more than most wives! "I do" vow to never let my own anxiety over Chris' job affect the way he gets treated at home.  But I'm so thankful to be where we are and to get to hear the stories every day when he gets home.

I had a great weekend in Auburn two weekends ago visiting with everyone.  I got to spend time with some of my girlfriends, with my family (including my sister's 21st birthday celebration), Chris' family, former co-workers, I got to pay a visit to the Auburn School of Accountancy, and I did some business while I was there.  Busy, busy weekend but so much fun! Here are some pics:




Jessica and me at the Auburn University Singers Show..so proud of my talented little sis...she blew an Adele song out of the water on her solo! It was fantastic!



Family birthday celebration.  Jessica and I are 3 years and 4 days apart.



Happy 21st, Jessica! Wearing the crown I gave her (I also gave her that wand to carry out) and her b-day sign with a list of 21 tasks to complete while out on the town!



Sara and Lauren also joined us because they love Jessica like a sis! The two girls on the right are Jessica's friends from the education program at Auburn

Birthday dinner with Tammy, Greg, Warren, and Aunt Bette at Hamilton's.



Grand opening of the Event Center's upstairs lounge.  Love the cozy atmosphere and view!




View from the upstairs patio



Upstairs patio again

Upstairs bar area

On a side note, one of my coworkers showed me where Chris and I were in the local paper a couple of weeks ago on the opening day of the Farmer's Market (second down on the right side).  Next to us is another couple from base, Amanda and Nils Lorenz.  Amanda and I went to an afternoon of Pilgrimage tours a few weeks ago and she also came to my launch this week.  She's a sweet girl and I'm glad I'm getting to know her! My coworker was kind enough to laminate this for us...the "Scene and be Seen" page...I guess we are really "making it" here in Columbus, haha!

I left from Auburn last Tuesday morning and drove to Birmingham to work there until Thursday.  Thursday, Meredith came back to Columbus with me to help me with my Rodan + Fields launch event.  The theme was wine and cheese.  I had a great turnout, it was really laid back and a nice time.  Meredith and I were able to practice showcasing the products, and everyone was impressed by them after hearing how effective they are, seeing before/after pictures, and getting the chance to sample a few. 

Meredith and I with the table of all the great products! Thank goodness Meredith came to help me, because we had about an hour and ten minutes to get ready for the party once we got to Columbus from Birmingham!

After the launch, a few of us headed downtown to a photography studio where they were holding an art show/beer tasting.  That was very interesting and I found out that they have events like those the first Thursday of every month.  Like I said before, Columbus actually has plenty to do if you take the time to look for it!

Friday night we played cards over at Jon and Autumn's, and the next day we spent at Market Street Festival, which is Columbus' biggest event every year.  There were probably 100+ vendors there selling all kinds of unique goods.  There were also concerts and shows (a cheer competition, even!) and lots of food.  Saturday was also Cinco de Mayo.  We came home mid-afternoon for a break from the sun and heat, and I made a mexican dinner.  Yum!

Taking a break from cards to cuddle the pups!

Chris with this ginormous car that was at the car show at Market Street Festival

We found this painting by Nicole Bexton at the art gallery this weekend in downtown Columbus...we thought it bore a stiking resemblance to the picture below of Mason (which is our most likely choice to enter into the Humane Society contest)...isn't that crazy?? Haha.  We wanted to buy it pretty badly but it was $875, so I may just have to recreate it at Sips-N-Strokes one of these days...

Chicken enchilada casserole, tomato/cucumber/avacado/corn salad, and a Modelo.  Happy Cinco de Mayo!

 Once again, I'm sorry for not keeping up with the blog for so long.  As you can see, there has been a lot going on and it may have finally caught up to me! I will do better going forward!

Thanks for reading! We are looking forward to traveling home this weekend for Mother's Day.  We also have the special treat of getting to see both sets of Chris' grandparents that we do not get to visit with very often.  We have another project underway that I can't wait to share more about.  These are exciting times!

Pilgrimage, Easter, & Chris Flies!

Hey y'all! I know it has been a while since I did a "life" blog.   This Pilgrimage was the past two weeks and I had so many pictures to share, I wanted to do them all in one post.  I had fun hosting at three different houses and getting to dress in this antebellum dress...homemade by some of the wives on base...which did not include me! They are really some talented ladies! I got to wear a hoop skirt underneath, and when I was standing in those beautiful old homes surrounded by antiques and other people dressed like me, I felt just like I was Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, my favorite book...at least I felt how Scarlett O'Hara felt at the beginning when she was surrounded by lots of parties and nice things.. Maybe not so much like how she felt at the end when she was dirt poor and starving...

Last Saturday, Chris and I went on a couple of the home tours together during the morning.  First we went to this one, which is called Rosedale.  It was filled with the most exquisite, incredible antique furniture I have ever seen.  It has been restored to its original state by the family that now lives there.  This includes details right down to the wallpaper and rugs, most of which were hand made and imported from Europe.  They had some kind of experts come in to examine the house and determine what kinds of patterns would have originally been there.  I didn't really take pictures of the insides of any of the houses, because some you were allowed to take pictures, and some you weren't so I just didn't want to take my chances. If you want to see the insides, you will just have to come down next year from the Pilgrimage, or perhaps this fall for the fall tours of homes...

I kind of had to drag Chris with me to see the homes that morning, but he actually really enjoyed it.  Chris and I both have an appreciation for beautiful things, and these homes are chock full of them.  Chris said he doesn't think he could do the home tours all day long the way I could, but he definitely enjoyed seeing a few of them with me.  We also went to Twelve Gables that morning, which is a historic home here in Columbus where a few women got together and decided to go to the cemetery to decorate the graves of Yankee soldiers.  They felt bad because no one had decorated those graves, yet the graves of the Confederate soldiers were all decorated.  These women realized that the Yankee soldiers also had wives and mothers and children who were mourning their deaths, but could not visit their graves.  This act of kindness led to an article being written about it in the New York Times, which eventually inspired a famous poem called "The Blue and the Gray".  I'm not going to put the poem here, but if you have a minute, I would suggest finding it online because it really is a moving poem.

Chris and I had lunch at the Quartier Cafe, and then headed over to the Artisans Alley.  I mentioned those two stops on my Friday Favs post.  After that, I met up with another one of the wives that I know from the base and we went on a few more home tours while Chris went home to study.  Here are the ones we explored together:

This house is called Whitehall and has always remained in the same family.  It is filled with some fantastic antiques and has the most amazing wrap-around porch that I hope to emulate one day! The porch even includes a deck area large enough to put out some tables and chairs.  One of the things I just love about these antebellum homes are how inviting they are...from the large porches to the high ceilings and huge walkways between rooms, they all had excellent flow for entertaining.  I imagine the people who once lived in these homes had a lot of parties.  I also enjoyed learning about the jib windows, which are windows that open all the way up from the floor to become walkways out onto the porch.  That way, if you are having a big party, you can open all the windows, and voila...you have 6x more doorways!

This is Rosewood.  The owners of this home have a vast collection of porcelain from around the world.  I have never seen so many interesting "knick knacks", and the entire time I was touring it, I was terrified of knocking something over.  My favorite thing about this house was the gardens.

This chapel was in Rosewood's garden.  It was in disrepair somewhere up north, so they brought it down, restored it, and put it in the garden.  They have had (very small) weddings here.

The inside of the chapel.  There was a Bible from the 1700s!

Another picture of the gardens...love the quatrefoil fountain (it's a Phi Mu thing :)  )

Pavilion...really cute inside.  It had a fan and a bunch of plants and places to sit.

 The last place we went was an old home, but the owners are still working on getting it ready to show for the Pilgrimage.  However, they opened the beautiful garden for visitors, as well as their guest house.

I loved this idea for a stained glass window in the guest house...it lists all the places that the previous owners had been.

More gardens

Friday night I toured White Arches...I had to go alone because Chris didn't get out of training in time to join me, but, like all the others, it was pretty amazing.  I just love the architecture of this one!

This Saturday, we visited a couple more homes.  My favorite was Bryn Bella...why did I not take any pictures there?? I guess I just wasn't thinking.  What I loved about Bryn Bella is that, whereas most of the homes we saw were considered "town homes" that the wealthy would live in part-time so that they could be closer to the social events, Bryn Bella was a true plantation home...what I imagine Tara being like in Gone With the Wind.  The owners had a lot of beautiful antiques, as well as interesting pieces like a stuffed giraffe!! The house was surrounded by acres of beautiful land.  My favorite part? The smokehouse out back! The owners were smoking a bunch of ham and it smelled DELICIOUS.  Then they let us sample some of the bacon and ham.  It was incredible!

The last tour we went on was of Waverly Mansion.  This is a local tourist attraction that is actually open daily for tours, not just for Pilgrimage.  This home sat empty and abandoned for over 30 years while the family couldn't decide what to do with it.  Local high school and college students would throw parties there and carve their names in the woodwork.  When the family agreed to sell it and the new owners began to renovate it, it was filled with all kinds of wildlife that had made its home there.  It took 27 years to bring it up to the state that is in now. A confederate general lived there with his children.

I felt a little awkward...how do you go about posing for a picture with a pretend Confederate soldier?

Waverly Mansion

Whew! So as you can see, we stayed pretty busy with that the last couple of weeks! And I didn't even include the homes I gave tours of.   There are still plenty of homes that we didn't see.  Hopefully we will be able to see those next year.

Another project that we...okay, it was pretty much all Chris...worked on last weekend was this little project for Mason.  It's not the most beautiful thing, but it is very functional. 

Since Chris started formal release last week, he isn't able to come home during the day to let Mason out of his crate and play with him.  I really can't make it home on my lunch break, at least not every day.  My office is about 20-25 minutes away so I don't have enough time.  This is over on the side of our house.  We put a doggie door in the screen door, pulled some of the panels off of that little gate (that is supposed to hide our trash cans, but oh well...) and put this fence from Lowe's around.  Now we can put Mason in the kitchen and close all the doors so that Mason can have some room to spread out during the day, and when he needs to go potty, he can let himself out the dog door.  Our neighbour says Mason has been enjoying sitting out in the sun during the day.  This has been so nice because even when we are home, we don't have to constantly keep an eye on him to see if he is standing by the door to get out. I might eventually get around to spray painting that iron fence white so that it at least matches the other fence.  But with it being on the side of the house (the side where we don't have any neighbors or anything)...I think it is fine.  We do live in a rental, so we don't want to spend too much money on building fences, etc! This fence we can just pull up and take with us when we move.

This Sunday, Chris and I went to church at Columbus First United Methodist for Easter, and then I cooked lunch for a group of us.  

At church

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays...you can't help but to feel great on a day that is dedicated to remembering that, thanks to Jesus, we are saved from our sins...

This deviled egg recipe came from a Southern Living cookbook and was the bomb!

Chris doing the honor of cutting the ham

Broccoli and cauliflower casserole and squash boats...and Hawaiian rolls, yum!

After lunch we dyed eggs :)

Our neighbor Jaime is taking care of a litter of kittens for the humane society.  Here is one...isn't she cute??

The kitten love Mason...she wanted to sit on his back and bury her head in his fur.  She was purring the whole time.  It was so cute!

Mason liked playing with the kitten, too...

I worked in Birmingham last week and wanted to share this picture from The Club restaurant where I went one night with some of my coworkers.  Pretty fantastic view of Birmingham!

I think Chris and I would love being members of something like The Club one day.  No golf, no pool...just a bunch of private restaurants with an awesome view! The menu changes regularly so you would never get bored.  And the food was just flat-out fantastic.  There were also a bunch of specials...the night we went, they had 1/2 price bottles of wine and free dessert.  They have a range of restaurants that vary from more casual to very formal.  So you have an option for any type of occasion!

Now that Chris is on formal release, his schedule is very hectic.  He didn't get home until 8:30 Friday night...I was so sad! I know I will just have to get used to it though.  He won't be on formal release for the rest of pilot training, but we don't know exactly how much longer he will be on it.  He got to fly twice last week.  The first time, he got bad motion sickness.  These planes are a lot faster than the ones he has flown on before and the center of gravity is in the back of the plane so that makes a difference.  When you get bad motion sickness, you have to go to the doctor to get medicine, then you have to fly every day until your body adjusts to it.  Chris did not get motion sickness on his second flight.  However, a bunch of the guys are still getting motion sickness, so they get priority and actually wound up taking some of his other flights after he stopped getting sick.  Also, the weather did not cooperate with him every day.  So he is a little disappointed that he only got to fly twice last week when others got to fly as many as four times.  However, I'm sure he will eventually make up for it.  He got out of training around 9 most days last week.  This morning he went in around 6 so he should be home around 6 tonight. Last week he was able to practice maneuvers such as barrel rolls and loops. His first flight involved flying through clouds as well. This week he will practice his landings.

Suiting up for his first flight

Ready for takeoff...that's the IP (Instructor Pilot) in the back.  Eventually, Chris will be doing flights alone.

I can't believe it, but today is our 9 month anniversary! This year is FLYING by.  Before we know it, we will be hitting the one-year mark, and will no longer be considered "Newlyweds!" That is so hard to believe.  The past nine months have been filled with nothing but good times.  I'm sure we have hit a few rough spots. but I can't even think of any off the top of my head.  We have definitely been living in newlywed bliss! I'm sure pilot training will bring on a whole slew of new stressers.  I'm confident that we will be able to handle them gracefully.

Thanks so much for reading!

Dubs and Mason...BFF!!

A Toast to the Future...

Ahhh...another week has come and has almost gone...this week carried some news with it that required a little celebration.  I can't resist a good chance to build suspense and I just can't share this news with the blog world yet.  Keep reading over the next several months and eventually I will have to spill it.  All I'm going to say is...it's NOT a baby!!! Wanted to make that clear!

This weekend was a relaxing one and was far too short! Saturday morning was spent doing taxes...yuck! Taxes are no fun, esspecially when you owe them instead of getting the nifty refund that lots of people get!  Of course they say it is more fiscally responsible to pay taxes in April because that means that you have been earning interest on your money all year instead of giving it to the government to earn interest on, just so you can get a refund (with no interest).  That doesn't make writing checks to the government any more fun...even as a lisence-pending CPA, taxes make me so paranoid that I will leave something out, so hopefully we won't get any "screw-up" letters from the IRS!

To blow off some steam after that miserable task, Chris and I went out to the CAFB lake for a picnic.  I made guacamole bacon grilled cheese sandwhiches and homemade hummus and we brought a bottle of wine out and played with Mason.  I am just loving this weather!

Complete with homemade bread :)

Saturday night was fondue night...I had been meaning to bust out the fondue set again, and I figured that the rare weekend spent at home with no big events planned was the perfect weekend for it.

Chris had some studying to do on Monday, so I kept myself busy by making some Easter candle-holders out of doileys, doing a little decorating in the kitchen and around the house, and some other things on my list.  For lunch we made black bean burgers and they were delicious! For those of you who like to save money and who aren't scared of veggie substitutes, I would highly recommend this.  Black bean burgers don't necessarily taste like hamburgers, but they are low fat and very delicious! And get this...6 black bean burgers cost about $1.50.  I'm pretty sure you would be lucky to make 6 hamburgers for $5.  We put the leftover guacamole from the picnic along with some white cheddar cheese on them and they were dee-lish.

Monday we had Jon and Autumn over for dinner.  Autumn left Tuesday to go to Washington for a couple of weeks for a wedding so it was nice to catch up before she headed out.  Tuesday we returned to Little Tokyo and it was my turn to take a picture with the sushi "Love Boat".




Fast forward many years, and I feel like this picture of me would be a pretty good indication of what our future teenage sons could look like...haha


So, I've been doing a little updating on the blog and have decided on a couple of things.  First of all, there is a new page that I'm going to add tomorrow with all the events going on in Columbus.  Lately, I have had quite a few people ask me how I know everything that's going on, and it's mainly because I just look high and low to find some fun events to try.  However, Columbus isn't the type place that you can just google "events this weekend in Columbus, MS" and come up with...well, anything! Hopefully this page will be useful to some of our friends here, to me, and to any of our friends/family who I know are looking for excuses to visit us :)

Another thing I'm going to start doing tomorrow is something I'm going to call Friday Favs.  I know some of my friends are laughing at what a nerd I am right now! Laugh on, but I know you will love it! I am constantly coming up with recipes, tips, products, ideas, etc that I want to share with the people I care about.  I have gotten even more obsessed with this since a.) joining Pinterest, and b.) becoming an avid blog-reader. The problem with these venues is that on Pinterest, as much as I love it, it is hard to keep organized the things you would like to try, and the things you have tried.  Beyond that, it's hard to organize the things you would recommend that you have tried, and the things you wouldn't recommend.  Plus, not everyone has Pinterest, and it's not the best avenue to describe things in too much detail. 

The main problem with sharing things on this blog is that, unlike most of the blogs I read, which focus on cooking/decorating/crafting/couponing, etc, this blog isn't really about anything except for, well...us! I am not an expert enough in any field to attempt dedicating an entire blog to it, nor do I have the time.  But I do have time to write reviews about the many venues I use, whether sucessfully or unsuccessfully, to spice things up and keep them interesting.  I have been sharing these in the blog all along, but not in much detail, and I feel that they kind of "clutter" the point I am usually trying to make, which is, more or less, "here is what we did this week".  This way, if you don't care what we do, you can just read my Friday Favs posts, and if you don't care about the Friday Favs, you can just read the normal posts. 

Chris passed his test on Monday with a 90 and has another one, the hardest one so far, tomorrow on weather.  Then he is done with academics and gets to take his first flight! Everyone wish him luck and keep him in your prayers... He passed his PFT (Physical Fitness Test) yesterday and did even better on it than he did on the last one.  Next week he begins FORMAL release (this is a correction...previously I ha written permanent release, but thank goodness, it's not permanent!) which means that he will be gone a mandatory twelve hours a day.  So if he goes in at 4am, he gets off at 4pm.  If he goes in at 9:30am he gets off at 9:30pm.  He doesn't get to choose when he goes in, it's all on a schedule and will vary day to day.  We hope this demanding schedule only lasts the minimum amount of time.  The amount of time spent on formal release depends on how long it takes the class to meat certain qualifications.

So there is the update! Ever since I have gotten so into reading blogs, I have been itching to try something different with ours...we will see how it goes! I'll leave you with some pics of our house all decorated for Easter. Thanks for reading!

I am in the market for some Easter egg placemats...if anyone knows where I can get some, let me know!

That is one of my homemade doiley candle holders.

My other candle holders.

See how hard Chris is studying for his tests...wait, that's an ESPN magazine.

Yes, we have light up Easter eggs!