Wing Date:
2 July 09

All are welcome to come!
Let us know you are headed our way!

Nolan thought he would be done with his LFF (last flight flown - with HT-18 his helo squadron) between 10 and 11 last night, so we decided I would wait in the student ready room until he was done! Then Inga told me she was going to go up to the squadron when Ryan was done too, so we decided we'd go together! Kevin (who finished the night before) and Amy wanted to be there too and Nolan asked me to invite George (who finished earlier in the week), so we had a nice little celebration with cookies, beer (I brought a DP, of course), and great friends!

Nolan as he walked in the door! WHOOP!

GOLD Wings and Shiner!


The broken eagle statue 'gift' (Kevin's idea)
made for a good laugh! ;-)
Kevin first 'gave' it to Nolan and then played the same prank on Ryan when he came in from his last flight...


Us


Kevin, Ryan, George, and Nolan
"Gig'Em"


High Five to HT-18!
George - thumbs down - he was in HT -8


Me, Inga (Ryan's wife), Amy (Kevin's wife)
They will be going to New River with us!

Close up of the gold wings!
( will be pinned at the ceremony on 2 July 09 )

Up next...
Pictures of Nolan's winging banner!

ONLY 1 more!

Way to go Nolan!

Check back soon for (aside from one missing picture) a little recap in pictures of this amazing journey that we have been on together called... flight school! :-)

Edited to say - I found the picture I was looking for.. although... Nolan wasn't in the picture... I can vouch he was there when I took them! ;-) more on that later!

So close!

ONLY


more flights!

:-)

Hot Air Balloon Festival

Click HERE to see pictures!!

Concert Pics

The stage

Photographer on top of an old brick hanger...

Inga, me, and Laura!

JMM - if you look super close he is in a black shirt and hat holding a very light colored guitar...

This was quite the event - nothing like what Nolan and I attended 2 years ago!

We girls had a very nice time; we all knew many of the songs that he played! I was a bit disappointed in the beginning with the sound -it sounded like his mic was cutting in and out AND he had forgotten how he had recorded his songs... I guess it has been since the mid-90s though...

Listen and tell me if you think he's a little off...
especially at the end the mic cuts off and the tempo? seems different...

Still, overall a great free outing with great friends! :)

And sadly Nolan didn't get his flight in... so we are praying that in the next 6-7 days max that he will be able to complete his last 4 NVG flights so he can still wing on 2 July!

Free Concert Tonight!

WHOOP!!!

Nolan, sadly, will not be able to join me, as he will hopefully (fingers crossed) be completing 1 of his 4 remaining NVG flights!

So.... I am going with my friends, Inga and Laura, and will possibly be meeting up with a few others, down to NAS Pensacola in about a half hour!

CAT COUNTRY 98.7 Radio Station here in P-cola in cooperation with MWR are hosting this FREE event! CAT COUNTRY is and has been VERY supportive of the military since we have lived here! Love them!
Nolan and I went 2 years ago to this event (it was a lot smaller then - no tickets were needed) - when we lived on NAS Pensacola and it was so nice to walk over and hang out under the stars and listen to (at the time) artists we really hadn't heard of... and chat with the people we were sitting around... and of course - people watch! :-)
Being that I grew up singing along to John Michael Montgomery I think it will be even more fun! :-)

Come back for pictures! ;-)

3 month LASIK follow up

Today was my 3 month LASIK eye surgery follow up and I can't be more pleased with the results thus far. My doctor, Dr. Jennifer Murray at the Eye Institute in Pensacola, has been amazingly wonderful from day 1... and continues to be. (more on that in a second)

I am still seeing 20/20 in both eyes, just as I was at my 1 month follow up, but honestly I think I am actually more near seeing 20/15, but if you miss 1 letter you get bumped back to 20/20 - no complaints though! ;-)

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to have this surgery done. I have had glasses since the 3rd grade and it still boggles my mind to be able to get up in the middle of the night and not literally feel my way around/ close my eyes and 'see' in my head where it is that I am going! A huge thanks to my wonderful husband for continually encouraging me to 'spend the money'! ;-) For a while, I was going back and forth because it was quite a bit of money, but my job as a special education paraprofessional in Corpus Christi covered the tab nicely! ;-) Whoop for a great job and the financial aspect that has given me a daily gift of sight without contacts!

Aside from great results, Dr. Murray has continued to exceed my expectations. I had mentioned before that we would be moving in July and I would be needing to have my 6 month and 1 year follow up visits done by an eye doctor in the Jacksonville, NC area and this afternoon she called me to recommend someone! She continues to prove that she truly cares for her patient's continued care - outstanding! :-)

Nolan had his NVG (Night Vision Goggle) simulator today - his LAST - and now only has 5 NVG flights left! Sooooo close!

Pensacola Bucket List

As you know, in about a month we will be moving to Jacksonville, North Carolina, so Nolan had the great idea to create a list of things we'd like to do or like to do again before we leave and so here are some pictures from our most recent items on our "Pensacola Bucket List" and maybe a few extras as well!

- Visit Fort Pickens
In 2007, when we lived on NAS Pensacola, we visited Fort Barrancas, which is located across the bay from Fort Pickens...
Fort Pickens recently re-opened after repairs were made from Ivan in 04 and various hurricane damage in 05 (so the State Park pamphlet stated), and Nolan wasn't on the schedule yesterday, Friday, so we headed down to Pensacola check it out!

A while back we had tried to walk (along the shoreline of the beach since they were working on the road) out to Fort Pickens, but after about 4 miles we decided we were still WAY too far away and decided to have a picnic lunch before turning back... walking on sand was exhausting! We found out yesterday that it was indeed even farther than we thought... we definitely would not have made it if we had kept walking...

The entrance!

Close up of one side of the entrance

A self-portrait from the top of the fort... much like the one we took at Fort Barrancas

One of the three tunnels down to where they kept the gun powder...
you can see Nolan, on the right, coming back from going down to the very end of it..


This fort was a LOT bigger! It had lots of "rooms" with very high arched ceilings!



Across the water you can see NAS Pensacola...
to the right is a huge (tiny in the picture) white piece of fairly new artwork... it looks like a tiny V
and to the left of it/middle of the picture is the Officer's club...
Behind the Officer's club... in the trees was our 1900s Pensacola home!

Fort Pickens is the reddish spot on the bottom of the picture... and across the "channel" is NAS Pensacola where Fort Barrancas is...

NAS Pensacola - where Nolan did his helicopter boat practice landings...

- Tre Fratelli

This little Italian restaurant is located in downtown Pensacola, in Seville Quarter... It is essentially in an old house... the back of the house is the kitchen (where everything seems to be made to order, one portion at a time) and the front of the house is the very small dining room... This time we ate outside and there was a concert going on across the street in Seville Square - fun times!
The food is just amazing! We celebrated my 26th birthday there last year (with the Butlers - miss you guys!) and this year we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary there! We will definitely miss this great place to eat!

Deal of the Week!

Since I haven't had a "job" since we moved back to Florida in December, in May (after completing my Masters I was looking for something to do while Nolan was out flying and I wasn't having to work on homework!) I found the website slickdeals.net (and many other coupon blogs) and what a fun game I have found in using coupons (more specifically matching them to sales)!

It is amazing what you can get for free, or next to nothing if you have a coupon and the item on sale! So, for the past few weeks, that is the game I have been playing... finding deals to match coupons I have found, etc. (of course mainly for items that we use/will use, although if it is truly free or almost free ie .25 cents / .50 cents I donate it to the Milton Food Bank - which takes food, toiletries, etc.) So it is a win-win!

Of all the deals I have gotten, even items I have gotten for free, have not been as good as this one, so Nolan and I agreed it was blog-worthy! ;-) (and hopefully many more to come!)

The NEX ad I saw for $1 batteries
(after a $1 manufacturer's coupon - which I happen to have found and printed 5 of)
... must have been a misprint? but they honored it!

The 5 packs of batteries....

And what I paid... or rather what I didn't pay!
Paid $5 and saved $23.95! WHOOP!

Nolan Flying/Landing a Helicopter Videos!

On Tuesdays helo students have the opportunity to be scheduled to practice 'landing on the boat' which is down at NAS Pensacola...

LAST Tuesday Nolan was scheduled, but the aircraft has some mechanical issues, so he was rescheduled for yesterday!

Enjoy the videos!

Practicing on solid ground....

Landing out on the boat!
(landing "toes first" as Nolan put it)

Way to go Nolan! :-) I am so proud of you!

PS - Only 8 more events until he will be done! WHOOP! and today, June 10th, is our 3rd wedding anniversary! WHOOP to us! :-)