First Lieutenant Dean
Promotion Ceremony

May 23, 2008

Naval Air Station Whiting Field
Milton, Florida

Taking the oath...

"Pinning Rank"
Just like I was able to do for 2nd Lieutenant!

Congratulations Nolan!

Our New Grill!
We took advantage of Lowe's Memorial Day 10% discount for military members and bought a new grill; something that we use at least 5 nights out of 7 each week, and sod to !

In with the new, out with the old...
The old one went to a friend of Nolan's who didn't have a grill! :-)

Sod we put along the back of the fence...
Sandi had done A LOT of digging... thankfully that phase is over!

Fruits (well vegetables) of my somewhat green thumb...
That first, red tomato that you see...
it must have tasted okay because Sandi ate it right off the edge of the kitchen table the morning I picked it...

Sandi
(in the front seat of the truck)

A picture where she actually looks like a lab! ;-)

Me with my class' Relay for Life sign....
I had never been to a Relay for Life event, but I will definitely know next time to wear shorts...
Running/walking 2 miles in jeans was rather warm, but still fun...
I look forward to becoming more involved with Relay for Life!!

Sandi
following hand commands
of sit, down, sit, high five, shake

End of May...

The END of May will bring many new and welcomed beginnings...

My last day with students is May 30th... 8 1/2 more days of school... very hard to believe! I do have to go in on June 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for whatever wrapping up that is to be done, but for the most part I feel like I have reached the finish line...
I am grateful that it feels like, at least to me, the time from January 18th, which was suppose to be my last day, until now has flown by... In many ways I feel like I have simply put one foot in front of the other and eventually wound up completing my second year of teaching...

Looking back, I am glad I had this more than challenging experience, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it again. For a handful of reasons I am glad I stayed for the second semester (winning the penny war with my students, stopping to see the trees of good things/students that had become so lost in the forest of chaos and frustration), BUT overall things really didn't change, except me, and how I dealt with the situation, which turned out to be a good learning experience. Most days I did manage to leave all of the chaos behind when I got in the car to drive home. The 40 minute to an hour commute (depending on the bridge traffic) did me a lot of good! And on the weekends I learned to leave both my teaching work and my masters work alone and spend the entire day doing something with Nolan that we both enjoyed. (movies, gun shows, antiquing in Pensacola, Milton, and Mobile, and just hanging out) I am very much looking forward to some much needed time off at home with Nolan and Sandi... I will be looking for a new job/volunteer opportunities, but not just yet. I have a lot of what I feel like has been "lost" time to make up... so that is what I can't WAIT to be doing...

The end of May also brings excitement as Nolan is rounding the corner to finishing primary, which will lead us to finding out what type of plane he will be learning to fly next/for the remainder of his flight career... (well, I suppose for the most part... things do change) Right now he is back in the simulators for the next 4 days, and he only has 11 flights left... 6 of them will be accounted for when he makes a cross-country, hopefully at the end of May...

Selections (which is when he is told what he will fly) will also determine whether or not we move here very soon, or not. We are both excited about moving; it seems we are both ready for some place new, as well as the fact that we are in a routine of moving about every eight months and we have been in our current house for seven months now! haha

Sandi has been helping our vet pay his child's or future children's college tuition... we seem to make at least one visit a month with her allergies and chewing the hair off of her back. This time they gave us a strong shampoo to wash her with twice weekly, as well as put her back on an anitbiotic for the next three weeks. It has only been one day, but there does seem to be some improvement; let's just hope we can stay on this course! :-) Before bathing her last night, we took her down to the "park," which is really just a huge field behind the middle school near our house, and let her run around ( with Nolan ;-) )in all of the mud puddles.. it has been raining here quite a bit lately. The days of the week seem to fly by, so lately she has only been getting to run around two days a week... I plan to make it a daily activity for the two of us (and of course with Nolan if he is available) once school is out!

I am now officially at the halfway point of completing my Masters in Special Education!!! I started my 4th semester, of six, at FSU this past Monday. I am learning a lot, but am also confirming that it really is the "special" ones that I want to work with... For one of my classes this past Spring I had to assess and create an IEP (goals) for the student based on the assessment I gave. The student I worked with was a 7th grader who is selective mute. It was such an eye opening experience, and by far the best day I had at Bellview... and it was my day off! Getting to know this student and find out exactly where to begin to help him to improve his math and reading skills, in particular, was just plain fun, interesting and a challenge!


And because I really dropped the ball on this one... but better late than never...

Venture back with me to Friday, March 14th to...

Nolan's Tie Cutting Ceremony!

This is a tradition that occurs following a student’s solo flight in primary, as yes, Nolan had solo'ed before during IFS. This solo was in a T-34...

Nolan and Lt. Palmer (Nolan's "on wing")

At the ceremony, Nolan and his “on wing,” or instructor pilot (IP), exchanged a funny story about flying with one another... Nolan's on wing brought up the fact that he puked a lot there in the beginning and how one time the puke bag got caught when Nolan moved the seat and it ripped open, so next thing he knows, Nolan is coming back to the plane with a bunch of cleaning supplies... ;-) Nolan reminded him, Lt. Palmer, of the time when he passed where they were suppose to turn to take off, even after Nolan had asked him if he was just following the guy in front of him and he replied back, "No and something about always paying attention" Good thing Nolan WAS! ;-) These stories are then judged by a panel of other intructor pilots (Judge Almighty and Judge All Powerful) who then decide how good or not so good the story was and charge them a fine... (either way there is some fine) Then Nolan presented Lt. Palmer with a bottle of his favorite alcoholic beverage as compensation for his many hours of instruction.

Judge Almighty and Judge All Powerful and "the boot" that you had to "pay" the fine to...
Thankfully Nolan didn't have to pay too much!

Nolan headed into VT- 2's "line shack"

Oh and notice how rather "short" Nolan's tie is after being cut... supposedly the shorter the instructor cuts it, the better the student is as a pilot...
The longer tie would be so that the person flying with the student could still tug on it to make corrections to what the student was doing... (hopefully that makes sense)

Just a random extra -
Nolan and I really like the frozen tiramisu at Olive Garden... so Nolan had the genius idea of taking the ingredients off of the menu and trying to replicate it at home and we were successful thanks to an online copycat recipe! The only changes we would suggest to this recipe is quite a bit more ice cream, as the drink was good, but VERY potent! ;-) Oh and we forgot the biscotti, but it definitely needs that too!

FROZEN TIRAMISU



1 1/2 ounces Kahlua
1 ounce Amaretto
1/2 ounce Tuaca
2 scoops vanilla ice cream

Blend together and top with whiped cream, biscotti, and grated chocolate.

Spouse's Taxi Day at VT-2

was an amazing experience!

It is opportunities like this that truly let military families know that the military takes just as much of an interest in them as they do in the service members themselves.

Taxi day is where any spouse who would like to participate can taxi around the runway with an instructor pilot in the T-34, which Nolan is currently flying.

I wore one of Nolan's flightsuits, which was an experience in itself... I felt rather "dumpy," but soon forgot about that once we headed for the aircraft.

In the ready room, we had a short brief of the basics for being in the aircraft. Much of the information Nolan had shared with me previously as he has taken me out to the "practice bird," and to the simulators.

After the brief, they asked for volunteers.

Out of my usual character, I volunteered to be one of the first 5!
We heard that the spouses were going to be getting in planes that were already running, so Nolan said it would be fun to get to go through the whole start-up of the plane, so when they asked for volunteers, I shot my hand right up! I'm SO glad I did!

Lt. Johnson and myself

He was the instrutor pilot who "taught" me how to taxi!

Once we got out to the plane, we had been told that they parachutes had to be removed, so a guy came out to the plane and removed them, which basically meant that the back of the seat inside the cockpit was nothing but metal.

Once the intructor pilot climbed in and realized he would be taxi-ing wives around for the next four hours in a "low riding" leaning back position, he made a request to have his parachute put back.

Photo opportunity while we waited for the guy with the parachutes to bring back the instructor pilot's parachute....

Ready to taxi! :-) Feeling like I am in a War World II plane...
Notice the back of the seat, without a parachute.

View of instrument panel and view from aft (back) cock

pit.

The rudders and brakes that I used (for the most part) to control where we were going...
We also used "beta" to increase the speed.
(where my feet are is the rudders and if you pressed on the top pieces above my toes, you would brake)

About ready to go, canopies still open..
Lt. Johnson going through the "pre-flight" check list at lightening speed! It was really cool to hear this on the radio that we used to communicate with each other.

During the taxi...

Before we left, the lineman and instructor piloted saluted, giving the go ahead and the silly lineman made the sign of the cross to bless me! haha
Once we got the go-ahead from the tower (through the radio headset in the helmet I was wearing) the instructor pilot (IP) taxied the plane out of its parking spot and down the row past many other T-34s... it was almost surreal, as the engined "growled" and we bumped along down the tarmac.

After a brief taxi, to an open area, the IP showed me the yellow line I was going to try to stay on while I used the rudders and brakes to steer to the left or to the right. I did okay at first, but then would start a pattern of over sterring on way or the other, trying to over-correct.
We then made a wide right turn, to head back to a different area... still following a yellow line... well doing my best to. When it was my turn to try, the IP would say "you have controls" and I replied with "I have controls" and when I would give them back it would be vis a vis.

We taxi-ed to the "hill," and that was where I did a circle to the left... it was rather scary because I missed the part about needing to press the right break (to slow the plane) while pushing in the left rudder to turn left, so we went rather fast and I kinda freaked out and gave controls back... It was at that point the IP nicely mentioned the whole break thing (he may have previously, I just didn't get that memo) So then he had me try a right turn and that went MUCH better, so much he even let me do one more before we taxied in... :-)
Of course, following the yellow line in, I did better at staying on the line when I was going slower... we would taxi at two paces, one of how fast a man walks, and the other was how fast a man jogs... While trying to taxing at the jogging speed on our way in, I was going from side to side and there was a guy on a large mower mowing the grass, who the IP said he thought the guy thoguht I was messing with him since I kept turning the plane toward him and then back.

Although the fan, for the A/C was on, it quickly became quite warm in the cockpit with the canopies closed. I should also mention that the stress level was quite high for me, just trying to perform well if you will, so that contibuted to my sweating profusely too!

Successful Taxi around the tarmac!

Believe it or not, I think I have to say that this experience tops Warrior Day from TBS!
It was just too cool to see what Nolan goes through when he heads to work for 4 or so hours to complete a 2 hour flight and why he's so sweaty when he gets home! ;-) And all I did was TAXI - as the IP pointed out - not once did I look at the instrument panel (see picture above) or continually check inside and outside of the cockpit while flying!!!
I am even more in awe of Nolan and what he is doing, he is simply amazing! :-)