California, Here We Come!

It's official. As of January our new home will be in Los Angeles, California! We are so excited and ready for a new adventure in a new home.

It'll be sad to leave our friends and life here in Florida, but hey, we still have the next six months, right?

Tyndall's Air Show

Tyndall Air Force Base hosted the Gulf Coast Salute, an air show on March 26th and 27th. (I know, I know... I am so incredibly behind in blogging!) We went with some of our good friends who are stationed at Tyndall with us -- Denis and Lisa. We brought lawn chairs and enjoyed watching the stunts and performances by all of the amazing aircraft. Our favorite was the finale -- the Thunderbirds! (How can you not love watching them?)

Me, pressing all sorts of buttons in an E-9!

Lisa and I sitting in a C-17 -- It's huge!

A real, live hovercraft! Shaun tried to ask the guy some questions about how fast it could go and such, but was answered with "I can't disclose that information." Sweet!
This plane landed on top of the truck as it was driving down the runway. It took a couple of tries because of the wind, but it was cool.






A man rigged his school bus to shoot 75-foot flames out the back of it. Not only that, but it reached speeds of 350 MPH.

This is one of the tricks that the Thunderbirds do, when they seemingly fly two of the planes right at each other and then swerve right at the last moment to graze past each other.

And last, but not least, the United States Air Force's Thunderbirds!

500 Cookies

Back in October, Tyndall Air Force Base's facebook page had over 500 fans, so they offered a competition -- do anything you can think of with the number 500, make a video, and get as many people as you can to "like" your video on their page. If you got the most votes, you won $500. What better idea than to make 500 chocolate chip cookies and pass out plates of them to meet your neighbors on base?

However, 500 cookies is no small feat, so I asked my friend Lisa to help out. Together we made over 550 cookies (because you can't just let the rest of your dough go to waste!) and then proceeded to go door-to-door, passing out friendship on a plate!


We fought hard to get votes over the next couple of weeks, but unfortunately we were beat out by a video with two adorable children... it's hard to beat that. But it came down to the last 20 minutes of voting, and we gave it a good fight. If you were one of the people who voted for us, thank you for your support! We definitely felt loved -- over 580 votes!

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We spent over 4 hours baking these suckers!
Our kitchen was very warm that morning!

These were only my batches... the video link shows all 500+ cookies at once!

Happy Birthday, Air Force!

On Saturday, September 18th, Tyndall Air Force Base held the annual Air Force Ball. Each year bases hold a ball to commemorate the anniversary of the Air Force becoming a branch... it's birthday into the United States military. We went with our friends Dennis and Lisa. Dennis and Shaun work together at AFRL.

The night started off a little shaky. Because USAFA was in such a close football game against Oklahoma, Shaun took a little longer in getting ready in his mess dress, anxiously waiting to see the outcome of his alma mater. (PS, we won! Go Falcons!!) Unfortunately, that ran us a little late for the ball. Combine that with poor traffic driving out to Panama City Beach, not being sure of where we were going, and then waiting for a shuttle to get us from the parking lot to the resort center, and we were definitely walking in way past the call to be seated.

We missed the introductory festivities and the toasts, but slipped in as they were serving the dinner. After some seating snafus (namely the lack of our seats at the AFRL table, finding an open table, and then being scolded by one of the organizers for not being at our table, which we couldn't have done), we sat down and enjoyed our meal, not with the AFRL group as we had anticipated, but with the good company of some members of the Medical group at Tyndall. They were very welcoming and we had a good time. Then after meeting several people, listening to a little live music, and eating some Air Force birthday cake, we decided to head back home.

Shaun and I with our friends Dennis and Lisa

Shaun and his coworkers from AFRL

Dennis and Lisa in the lobby -- such a cute couple! :)

Shaun and I before we called it a night.


Happy 63rd birthday, Air Force! Next year we'll be prompt! :)