April

Mom and Lis left this afternoon. They were visiting on their Spring Break and taking care of me after my wisdom teeth came out. Which was surprisingly stress-less.

Happy Easter weekend.. I haven't decided yet if I am going to go to church on my own on Sunday...

Mike will be back soon! I'm so excited to see him! The past 5 weeks went by faster than I would have thought, but were still kind of a bummer.

Loooooking for money for grad school.

Been a while..

I went to MD to visit everyone for a while. Worked at Dad's office, painted at Mom's house.. etc etc.

I got to hang out with Bethanee!

Now I'm back in Dayton, and the first 3 days were seriously boring/depressing, but then I finally found a job! Babysitting full-time for a great family. Three boys, lots of fun!
Missed out on the middle of the belly-dancing classes, so that's a bummer. I'm going to try to get back to a class next week, if I'm not too exhausted.

Hmm.. need to file my state taxes.. both CO and OK. Fun.


Oh, I got accepted into the Masters of Social Work program! So I'll be starting school in September.

Wedding is quickly and sneakily approaching. This year May showers will bring May flowers/presents? Lots of things to do.

TV.

(Aren't I articulate?)

ASBC

Okay, so Mike will, in fact, be going to Alabama for a while. But in the spirit of not putting out Katelyn-safety-compromising information, I'm not saying when. Not sure what I'll do yet. We shall see.
Still looking for a job! Another interview monday morning.

Started Belly-Dancing classes last week! random. but fun.

February

Well. Let's see.

I finally have all of my application materials in to the University of Cincinnati. They were supposed to all be in last week, but apparenty my paperwork that I mailed 2 weeks ago never arrived. So I went Friday afternoon and paid the $5 to make sure it got there. Never using the on-base post office again.. Waiting to hear what they think of my application. Will let you know.

In other news, I've been working my butt of trying to find a job. Yep. No luck. Going for my second interview today, only childcare stuff so far. I've applied for numerous types of jobs, and no one is responding, stupid economy. I'm telling you, at least 15 resumes/applications have gone out this month and nothing back.
That's okay, I'm a trooper. And thank heavens the AF is no longer downsizing, so no worries there.

Mike may or may not be finally sent to ASBC this spring. Long story short, if he goes it will be either starting March 9 or March 30, or not at all. We will see what happens. If he leaves soon and I still don't have a job, it's perhaps Maryland for a few weeks with the cats. Perhaps I'll try to take advantage of the potential nepotism in the Towson area... a job perhaps?

Apartment is still getting closer and closer to being completely settled.

We are officially addicted to "Bones". and partially addicted to "Las Vegas". It's been a real struggle keeping ourselves from spending the ridiculous amounts of money people want for boxed sets of tv shows. I mean seriously, if I had the time and flexible schedule to sit around and wait for each show to come on, that'd be one thing.. but it's not going to happen.
Bones Season 3 should be arriving in our mailbox today or tomorrow...

Still working on wedding things of course.. but no big news.

Might go out to the aero club and get an intro flight for me. Mike will be using a different airport (depending on how this training goes, don't know when he'll start) to get requalifed for his recreational license. Of course, that assumes we have monneyyyy!

Pretty sure that's all I can possibly ramble about for today.
Enjoy!

Unpacking

Our furniture arrived (with only one additional delay..) Friday morning.
I've unpacked about 3/4s of the boxes, and all of the furniture is in place. We have a brand new bed being delivered tomorrow, thanks to Daddy's Christmas spirit.
Mike and I have been wandering around the apartment trying to decide where to hang all of our art/pictures.. I think at this point we're down to the boxes we don't feel like unpacking because nothing inside is crucial. Will post pictures when the place is not such a mess.

I fly to Baltimore Friday early afternoon for another wedding planning weekend.
..fabulous..

Enjoying Dayton so far, and the apartment.. from the floor still.

Carrier said he would be here Monday, call Sunday to confirm. Never called, never showed up on Monday. Got a hold of him Tuesday, said he would be here today (Thursday) and that he'd call Weds to confirm. Never called. Isn't here. Called him today, says he'll be here 8:30am tomorrow, Friday.
If he isn't here by 5pm tomorrow, he gets in trouble.. I kind of think it'd be worth the extra day's wait for us to be able to file a real, official complaint.
Not to mention the guy's helper.. who has fake/real? prison tattoos. The tear drops. And is creepy.
Had to reschedule a relatively important time-crucial doctor's appointment on base that was supposed to be tomorrow morning, to next week. He beeettter be there.

Ick. Just want my furniture, so I can get real 'work' done.

Dayton

We spent our first night in our new apartment last night. It's very cute, not as big as the house in Enid, but not bad.
Furniture etc should show up Monday or Tuesday we hope.

Dayton is suuuuch an improvement, as far as restaurants and stores go, as compared to Enid. Yesterday we went to Target :-), Home Depot, Lowes, Chipotle, Panera, and several others we've been missing. My new favorite, however, is the Meijer. It's the little things..

We got into the apartment in the morning, and with the blinds open it was so light and airy! And then it got dark.. and we realized that there are no light fixtures in the big rooms.. just in closets and bathrooms.. so we went out and bought lamps. It's still not light enough at night, but we have some more lamps coming with our furniture, so hopefully that should do it.

I'm looking for a job/jobs, working on wedding planning, grad school application, getting apartment ready to really live in, etc.


Mike found out today that for the 6 months he has before school starts at AFIT, he is going to be a commander! He is the new.. let me get this right.. 88th MSS (Mission Support Squadron) Section Commander. Apparently he has 6 people directly below him, and then numerous others below each of them. A little intimidating the first day on the job, but I think he's excited. He has an office of his own, which is nice compared to his desk in the middle of the JAG office at Vance.

Bedtime soon, goodnight!

As you can see... Mike has apparently not been given enough moving-prep chores..
Situation to be rectified in a moment..


..really is a funny line though, in george lopez..

Hey, what i Chingy doing here?

Too much furniture!

Yikes! We will not have room in Ohio for our furniture.. Only by 2 or 3 things, but still!
Trying to decide what to do with it. We shall see.

And NO, I'm not getting rid of the green couch!

Almost back to Enid

Well, Vacation is over.
We are sitting in a Motel6 in Columbia, Missouri with the cats (but the front desk only thinks we have one cat, so shh..). Leave tomorrow morning for our last leg of the trip back to Enid.

Vacation went well! Aside from our stomach virus, that is. Mike and I were both knocked out for a couple of days, but are finally back to eating normally.

The wedding is officially at Grammy's house on the shore, and the ceremony itself is at Christ Episcopal Church in St. Michael's. Met our caterer, she is wonnnderful!
Next to decide on is music (have a few options we like), flowers, photographer, and a cake!
Working on hotel rooms, etc. Secret details to be revealed to those who need to know!

Our house in Enid is all set to be rented the week after we leave, and this morning in Dayton we found a wonderful apartment and put in our application. We will be all ready to move in on January 15th when we arrive back in Dayton.

The next few days, after lots of sleep tomorrow afternoon at home, will be getting ready for pack-up day (Jan. 12), working on little things before renters move in, etc. Also loving on the kitties so they don't get too screwed up with all this car travel.

Hope all is well!

Our first snow of the year today! Quite a bit later down here in Oklahoma than it was in Colorado.
Very exciting!

Christmas Pictures

Hey all!  The tree is up, the mantle is decorated, and so is the porch.  We're all set for christmas, and only a little ridiculously early.  We'll be leaving for home on the 20th, so we got started early in anticipation of cleaning it up before we leave so that people can come see and hopefully rent our beautiful house!  here are the highlights:

First, a throwback to thanksgiving.  Our menu consisted of a Butterball Turkey Roast with light and dark meat, Stove-Top Stuffing (because if I'm not stuffing a bird, I'm darn sure not making it myself), Green-Bean Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, apple sauce and gravy.  The roast took 3 hours, the rest took about 1/2 hour, so it was about the easiest thanksgiving dinner ever.  Here's the table all set and some action shots:

Moving on, we also got our tree and decorated the house.  We drove all the way down to Oklahoma City for a 'choose-and-cut' tree farm.  It was adorable, but apparently all that grows down here are Pine trees, no traditional fir trees, so we end up buying a pre-cut fir that was brought in from North Carolina.  The tree itself is gorgeous, but it was still amusing.  We brought it back, gave the cats a little time to get used to it (they spent most of that time learning to protect it, like last year) and the next day took to decorating.  It's a little smaller than last year, so we have a bunch of unused ornaments.  Here, again, are the highlights (mostly):

     

Enjoy, there'll be one more coming once we get pictures of our obnoxio-dorable porch!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Normally I would refrain from putting this on here.. because I'm afraid of stalkers.. but it's so pretty!

(Yes, and thank you to Amy and John for doing most of it before we got there!)


http://www.militarybyowner.com/listings/tourplus.asp?F_BASE_ID=199&F_STATE=OK&LISTING_ID=93104

December

The next 2 months will be crazy, but in a good way. Let's ignore the next like 20 years for now ;)
Depart Enid: Dec 20th
In MD until Christmas Day
DE from Christmas Day until early on Dec 30
Eastern Shore Jan 2-3
Dayton 4-5 (look for housing)
Enid 6-12
Back to Dayton!

Our moving day is Monday, January 12th.
Put up our Christmas tree yesterday. It's super beautiful. Thank you to Kate and Eric for driving with us to pick it out and get a Chipotle fix!
I'll get some pictures up soon.

Gobble gobble..

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope you're all having a wonderful holiday! It has been a great day for Mike and I. My grandmother has said 'of course!' to our request to have our reception at her home on the Eastern Shore, and we have the church picked out and it's available. We're planning a nice long time back on the coast with family, and then a move not too long after that!
I'm very excited to finally be able to plan a wedding! Our 2+ weeks in MD/DE will be full of fun things.
Have a wonderful evening and holiday weekend!

RNLTD

We found out today that we have a report no later than date to Wright-Patt AFB in Dayton, OH of February 16th. We are authorized, however, to move up to 59 days before then.

We'll be driving to MD/DE from Dec 20th until at least Jan 3rd, and then to Dayton most likely to look at housing options, and back to Enid. Then we plan to move sometime in January, depending on how we do finding a renter for our house here in Enid.

As soon as Mike can get in touch with his new squadron in Ohio, he's going to ask about leave for the wedding, and if he gets an 'okay' we're sending out Save-the-Date stuff and going full-throttle into planning!

Very exciting for us! When we have made decisions about moving dates and wedding dates, etc, we'll post!

The AF Did It Again

Apparently calling to check on the paperwork wasn't enough. They had managed to ignore all the notes on Mike's packet and saw that he had an aeronautical engineering degree, and had already filtered him into the engineering track. Luckily, we were getting impatient again and he emailed his original contact this morning, who realized this problem and finally got ahold of the information she needed. So, we are still headed to Ohio, but it was almost a close call.
We aren't, however, leaving before Christmas. It looks more like January or early February, but no official date yet still.
Rather than stay in Enid, we are going to have a holiday road-trip adventure and drive back to the east coast from Oklahoma this year... wait for it.. with the cats, so we don't have to board them. They're going to stay with Daddy.
Vacation looks something like December 22nd to Jan 5th, but we might add a few days to the end.
More to come when an official schedule has been determined.

Our House

Pretty pretty house.

Still Waiting..

We are still waiting for word on a PCS. Called down to AFPC a few days ago to confirm they have Mike's paperwork. We didn't want a repeat of what happened when he graduated... they forgot to check a box somewhere and Mike ended up in the system as AWOL for 6 months, and lost his original pilot training date. They do in fact have his paperwork this time, they're just still working on it.
As soon as we get a date, we're going to have the realtor come and get pictures and put the house up online for rent. We'll also let everyone know, and try to get our Ohio housing figured out.
I'm getting antsy, want to get my application started for grad school, and work on more wedding planning, and a schedule for Christmas would be nice :-)
I suppose it's time to work on a Thanksgiving menu as well!