Thankful

It seems my blog is seeing less of me these days.

But in sharp contrast to that, our dining room table is wondering what the heck happened to its former life of slothfulness.
It is so nice to finally be able to have family dinners on a regular basis!
We've always wanted to, but the last 5 years of operational flying made it almost impossible.

It is just so...nice...to know that Josh will be home at a regular time. Oh, and if I need to reach him during the day, I can! I can text. Or even call.
During our years of "ops" living, I called my husband at work one time.
Once in 5 years.
You see, he might have had a desk, but he was at it so rarely that he never even bothered to give me a number. And they can't carry cell phones because they spend time going in and out of the vault. It holds classified information, so you can't bring phones in. 

The one time I called him, I had to call the duty desk and have him paged.

I was about to give birth to his son, so I deemed it a good enough excuse.

Back to our current assignment--
Lo and behold, he gets breaks throughout the day. Even a lunch break!
I think Josh doesn't quite know what to do with himself.

This is what the last five years looked like:
Josh comes home from a 12-14 hour day at work. He walks in the door appearing like a ravenous beast. He proceeds to sit down and eat an entire 9x13 casserole dish of food.
He looks up halfway through and says:  
Is there anything else to eat? I don't think this is going to be enough.
I only had a chance to eat my can of pineapples during a debrief.

So yeah. This is kind of a nice change. For all of us.

It was another beautiful weekend on the Monterey peninsula. The weather here it seem is always the same. Sunny, mid-60's.
We've been told the warmest months are actually in the fall. But I love sweatshirt weather, so this is lovely.

We made the mistake of trying to go to a nearby state park on Sunday. We quickly remembered that we are lucky enough to be living in a location that people enjoy visiting and touring over holidays. We turned back around and decided we'll just let the visitors have it on the holidays.
It's ours to enjoy every day :)
At least, for now.

Today is Memorial Day.
Saying thanks sometimes doesn't seem adequate for what so many have sacrificed in our country's history. And in the present.

Several weeks back, I posted about the death of a pilot in the F-15E community. I've been thinking of his family today.
And there's not much I can say.

This is his little boy.

And his baby girl. 

      Photo credit:  (USAF Photo/Ken Wright)



 

A heartfelt thank you to all who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and to their families left behind.