June Update

Man, June is flying by! I can't believe the second week of summer school is almost done. (What a relief) I'm looking forward to sleeping in and not grading papers. I've been away from 6th and 7th graders for so long that I forgot what a "joy" they are. Full of farts and burps, not the hugs and adoring eyes of my 3rd and 4th graders. I'm looking forward to planning for the next school year and am going to change a lot about the way I have my classroom arranged. Our school is also looking into shortening our school day, which I'm all for. :-)

Mason went to the centrifuge June 8th-10th in New Mexico...and passed!!! Wahoo! All the guys from his class passed which basically means they are ready to fly the T38. They had to do a set profile that tests how many Gs they can pull for set amounts of time. Mason had to pull 4Gs, which is fairly standard, and then 6Gs, and the most was 7.5Gs for 15 seconds. Mason thought the hardest part was when he had to pull 6Gs for 30 seconds. Mason has to practice his G-strain, which is where he tightens all the muscles in his body to get better blood flow so that he doesn't g-lock or blackout when flying. Each flight they do a GX where they do a rapid onset of Gs to make sure they are up to flying for the day.

Mason got home Tuesday afternoon, and within the hour we left for Chicago. We laughed, we cried, we drove, and drove, and drove...the ride isn't that terrible, (and it was probably a good thing we hadn't seen each other a few days before the long ride) but it's just very repetitive. For anyone that's driven from Chicago to Champaign in IL, the ride is quite similar, only 15 hours long. We left around 3:30 in the afternoon and arrived Wednesday around 11am. We pulled over at a gas station and decided to sleep for 4 hours, which ended up being the smartest decision. It was great to see all our friends and family. This was the first time Mason had been home since moving to Texas, so I know he was secretly stoked to see his family.

I think that we each gained weight since we were stuffing our faces with delicious Chicago food that we just can't get down here. There's nothing like deep dish Chicago pizza...mmm. I think we've gotten used to our nice Texas roads and no traffic, because we both feared for our life, and our cars when we drove on the awful Evanston roads! Drivers are so rude, and all of north Chicago is under construction! It's great down where there's never really any "traffic."

After stopping in Chicago to see family and friends, we went to our good friends' wedding. We had a great time and it was good seeing old friends, especially those who are in the military too, since you never know when the next time is that you'll get to see one another. It's good to be home and back into our routine however. Mason and I have been working out almost everyday and studying lots. I take my last certification exam on Saturday, and Mason goes back to flying on Monday. The fighter pilot world is looking grimmer and grimmer with the planes that they are handing out, but Mason's got a great attitude about it all.

For those of you that have been keeping up with our day to day bug relations, we were able to get all the ants out of the house thanks to this AMAZING stuff called Terro. I think I bought every product they sold, but we didn't see one ant after putting it out. However, we were greeted back into our house the day after we returned by a huge roach that crawled up the bathroom drain while I was brushing my teeth...it was terrifying! EWWWWW!!! Mason saved the day, and the exterminator was out in less than 2 hours ( a great perk of military housing).

Anyways, other than that, we've had lots of tornado activity near us, but nothing too close by. We have lightening storms almost every night but only get the rain once in awhile. At least we're not flooding like our family in the midwest. The temperature has definitely leveled off in the high 90s and low 100s, so we stay in a lot, but have been enjoying night BBQs and walks! :-)