In a funk..

I've totally been in a weird funk lately, hence the lag in blogging. Thanksgiving will be one year since buying our house and moving back to Texas. Looking back the year has whizzed by, but at times has dragged. I never ever would have thought I would miss Cleveland, Ohio as much as I do. In 2006, when we made the drive from Houston to Plattsburgh, NY for JD's training we drove through Cleveland and the minute we drove through I said, no way no how, I am not moving here. I really don't know why. I never gave Cleveland a chance until we were forced to go there, but I missed out on a whole year more that we could have been there. :(

So in 2006, we moved to Plattsburgh. Plattsburgh base closed so we packed up everything and moved to Olmsted Township and the rest is history. I love Texas, I really do, and we knew we would always move back to Texas anyways, but for some odd reason, Ohio will always have a special place in my heart. As will Plattsburgh, because I have a lot of great memories from there but I loved Ohio. I've got to learn to let it go, though, but I secretly hope that Chloe` wants to be a Buckeye! ;0)

So the guys are going on a "man trip" next weekend to see the Cowboys play the Redskins. The girls couldn't just stay home so....we're going on a "girls trip" to the Happiest Place on Earth! Cheesy, I know, but I love Disney World as much as Chloe` does! Chloe` doesn't know we're going. I want to tell her, but she'll think we are leaving tomorrow, so it's best to wait.

I think a dose of Disney World will help get me out of my funk!

As I'm typing this, Chloe` is on the Wii Fit. She just came up to me and asked if she could do the yoger one. You ask what is yoger? That is Chloe's way of saying YOGA!! LOL!! It took me a minute to figure it out too! So Chloe` is in our living room doing yoga!

I won!

The PWC was having giveaways last night to launch the new website and I won this neat coffee mug! I'm not a coffee drinker, but the mug will still get a lot of use! I'm an oreos and milk kind of girl! ;0)

Thanks Summer, Jen, and all the other PWC members I got to "meet" last night!

www.pilotwivesclub.com

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Avoided a disaster and all he got was a crappy letter?

A couple of weeks ago JD had an engine failure on takeoff, they declared emergency and landed safely(thank you Lord!). He does all his reports and write ups, maintenance fixes the problem, he does the test flight, and all is well again. So today JD got a letter in the mail from his company. It went like this:

Dear Captain ---,

On behalf of everybody at (JD airline) please accept our thanks for your performance during your recent in flight emergency. Your efforts in handling the aircraft and passengers, with a loss of power on the #1 engine, undoubtedly avoided a potentially disastrous situation.

Thank you for your efforts and professionalism.

Signed VP of Operations and Chief Pilot

Geez, you guys are so thoughtful!

JD said that when this happened the passengers were mad they weren't getting to their destination that night and not thankful they made it back to land! Go figure!

Now for some random pictures:


Leaving the airport and the sun was in her eyes, so she borrowed my glasses!

So independent. Chloe` got herself dressed.

She conked out on my Aunt's couch on Labor Day. So lady like!

No explanation needed!

Now if I could get a slice of this from The Cheesecake Factory my day would be even better!

Still going...

Last month JD took a MUCH needed vacation! For the first 4 days he and I went to Seattle and the last part we took Chloe` to Schlitterbahn and Sea World here in Texas. We had so much fun. Seattle and the surrounding area was beautiful. We went on a whale watching tour out to Friday Harbor, WA, toured the Boeing Factory, watched fish being thrown at Pike Place Market, saw Mt. St. Helen's and watched the Mariner's play the White Sox! It was a very busy vacation but well worth it. We ended up having to drive down to Portland and fly home from there. You have to be ready for anything flying on standby but it worked out well, we were able to sit first class round trip! Here are some pictures from our vacation week:

My husband was born and raised in Texas, he is 26 years old and this was his first time to visit the Alamo!

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT sit in the splash zone of the Shamu show! It's COLD and SALTY!

I'm so glad it's September. Fall is totally different here than what I was able to experience in NY and OH but at least it means cooler weather here soon. I love everything about fall! The colors, the smell, the food! I need some wassail and a pumpkin roll, asap! I never would have thought I would be excited about football starting but I AM! The Browns have picked the starting QB but are trying to be all sneaky and haven't announced it yet but I gotta feeling it's going to be BRADY!! I'm bummed I won't be able to see them on TV this year. Guess we'll just have to go back to OH and watch a game! Last season JD had a pretty good schedule and was home almost every Sunday so we would "tailgate" in our living room and watch the game together! Good memories. His schedule is so much different this season. *sigh*

It will get better though(trying to think positive!).

So that's all we've been up to. Vacation came and went way too fast and now we're back into our normal (as normal as can be) routine and getting ready for everything that comes along with Fall. I'm getting ready to start planning for Chloe's 4th birthday in October. She talks about her party constantly and informed me that she wants a Hannah Montana party! Lovely! :)

I won't wait so long to post next time!

Commuting

We woke up at 3am to have JD at the airport by 5am. He didn't get on his first choice flight. So had to wait around until the 8am flight. Gets to EWR around 12noon and his first round trip of the day was cancelled, so now he waits around until 545pm. Then that got cancelled and he was supposed to go to Harrisburg, PA. Cancelled! So at 9pm JD finally got into a hotel. And I forgot to mention, he left last Thursday night, I picked him up at the airport yesterday @ 2pm. And he is already gone :( It gets even better...he wasn't getting paid today! 1.25 per diem, baby...sometimes it helps to laugh!

Life of a pilot, not so glamorous!

Quick Trip

Last Wednesday, my mom and dad kept Chloe` for us and I headed up to Newark with JD. He was working a stand-up. He flies the last flight out that night and the first flight out from his overnight the next morning. This particular stand up he was staying in Nantucket, MA. The flight loads looked pretty good, but by that night, there were 3 seats open and 3 standbys that had a higher seniority than me. Thankfully one of the standbys was a captain for Continental. So the gate agent was trying to get him to sit in the jump seat so I could get on the flight. For some reason the computer was saying that the Dash8 did not have a jump seat. I tried telling him it did but he didn't believe me so I called JD and he came down and told the agent that yes there was a jump seat. So, after all that I finally got on and was able to go. I was so afraid I was going to get stuck in Newark and have to watch JD fly off. It was 10pm when we made it in so I didn't get to see the beaches but we walked around the town and got some great food at Stubby's. I'm not a major seafood eater, but the fish and chips were really good. The tarter sauce was homemade too. JD had fish tacos and lobster bisque that was also really good. The next morning we took a 5am cab back to the airport and headed back to Newark. Once there we took the NJ transit into NYC and we hiked over to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, but not before a quick stop at Juan Valdez for breakfast. Klutzy me, tripped over chairs and my muffin flew across the restaurant! My face was red!! I was so embarrassed and JD was cracking up and saying, "oh you'll never see these people again." Granted, I most likely will not, but it's still embarrassing at the moment!

The Intrepid was very cool. They have veterans from WWII that are available to answer questions. When you ask them questions, their faces light up and they were just so excited in telling us everything. We talked to this one guy for about 20 minutes. He said he was pretty good at detecting accents so he was going to guess mine. He guessed that I was Scandinavian!! Yeah..not quite. So he guessed again, Midwest! Getting closer! He never guessed Texas! But I told him he didn't have a fair chance because my accent is a major mix of East Texas, Northeast USA and Midwest USA! So the odds were against him!

The Intrepid was a floating town! Around 3500 people were on this carrier at a time. They had cafeteria workerslaundry workers, post office workers, amongst all of the sailors and pilots. There was a sheet posted of how much food they used daily! It was amazing. I had a really great time looking back on our history and of course airplanes! John McCain flew the A-1 Skyraider off of the USS Intrepid.

After the museum we decided to get some lunch and Chloe` had requested that we bring her back some red pajamas. I LOVE Famous Dave's and they just recently opened one off Times Square so we had some good BBQ for lunch and then headed over to the M&M's store to find red pajamas. After that we headed to Rockefeller Center for the NBC store. We started making our way back to Penn Station and made a quick stop in Macy's after walking by the hotel we had stayed in on our honeymoon. I was trying to catch a 5pm flight out of Newark to Cleveland and then on to Houston. JD's flight was oversold that night so I either had to go home or stay in Newark by myself. When we got to the airport the Cleveland flight looked horrible and all of the Houston direct flights were crazy too. We just decided to go to the Houston gates and see what happens. The first flight I tried had 4 seats open and 50, YES 50 standbys! Fat chance right! Well they called my name and I go down the jet way, onto about the middle of the plane and they tell me to get off because they miss counted and there really wasn't a seat for me! So off I go halfway up the jet way and they holler for me to come back because they miss counted again and there WAS ONE seat!! So I got the last seat back to Houston on the 7pm flight! It was a VERY quick trip but so worth it! I had so much fun just me and JD and I loved being in the City again.

Strawberries For One

Today was JD and I's 6th wedding anniversary! He had to be at the airport at 5am. So strawberries for one is how I celebrated our anniversary. JD had brought me some chocolate covered strawberries from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in the Minneapolis airport. They were very good, but weird eating them alone. This is the first time he's been gone on our anniversary. I was supposed to go on his overnight tonight and tomorrow, but the flight loads were horrible. So instead, I went to church and then ate lunch at Outback with my mom, dad, Chloe` and my niece, Jenna. Six years ago JD and I ate at Outback before going to the airport for our honeymoon. Six years ago we were taking our first flight together into Newark, and when we got there, we thought it was the stinkiest worst airport ever. Six years later, JD basically lives in Newark and guess what...six years later, Newark still stinks, but I wish I could be there every time he's there! We never would have thought that the roller coaster ride of this career would bring us back to where we started!

This afternoon I took Chloe` and Jenna to a birthday party and then took them to Incredible Pizza with some friends. It's taken me 3 years to realize this, but I'm finally starting to learn that it's not the end of the world when he can't be home for important dates. It doesn't mean that all is lost and we can't celebrate just because the day has passed! We just move the celebration to a different time. I kept myself surrounded with family and friends and actually had a much better day then I thought I would have. There are some days when I think all day about why we moved back home and wish that we hadn't, but it's days like today that remind me of how important it is to have family around and why we did move back home. I know I would not have had a good day if I was in Ohio by myself today. I miss Ohio so much, but this is home and I'm beginning to realize it more each day. I love our life. These last seven months (when we joined the commuter club) have been a real test and it has not been easy but we're passing! I'm still just as much in love with JD as the day we married. He's the peanut butter to my jelly and there's not another person I would rather navigate this life with!

(JD's grad from LETU 05)