A long overdue blogpost...

Mason and I love Louisiana! The whole move experience has gone smoothly so far. We haven't moved into our base house yet, but should be able to move in on April 3oth. We've heard of two families that moved out in the last few days, so hopefully we can move in a little sooner than expected. We're pretty sure that we know which house is ours, but we'll wait for the official word before sending our our new address. Until then, we're staying on base in a TLF (temporary living facility). It's nice, but small. There's a living room area, and a separate bedroom and bathroom, and a very tiny kitchen. It's nice to have a kitchen and small fridge, but meals have been getting repetitive. We've gone out a lot, tasting the local cuisine; so far we've been to: Full Moon BBQ, Dairy Queen, Coldstone Creamery, Hong Kong City, Chef Lee, Posados, BWW, and a few other places. All good so far, and most of them have military discounts!

For some reason our camera chip doesn't like to work with the laptop, but we'll post lots of pictures once we have our home computer set-up. Last Thursday there was a bit of excitement around base; there was actually a tornado that touched down. It was by far one of the scariest things I've ever experienced. The storm was pretty cool at first, it didn't even rain for a long time. Mason and I frequently just leave our TLF door open so we can get good air flow and we were just watching the lightning. We were monitoring the weather channel and the entire region on the map was red. Around 11pm the winds picked up and the rain started coming. The lightning was green! It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Eventually it was so windy that Mason had to slam his body against the door to get it shut. The power was out, and we had to take cover in the bathroom for awhile. The power remained out most of the night and the next day, but we found out that winds reached up to 11o mph on base. It was sad though, driving around the next day there were dozens of huge oak trees that had been uprooted and lots of damage done. Fortunately, it looked like most of the houses and buildings didn't get hit with any trees. The ironic part of the whole thing, was that when we first moved to Sheppard there was a similar storm, I guess if we move to Minot we should expect a blizzard!

Mason has been "busy" doing lots of random work. He spent the first week in-processing and searching for various people to sign off on his in-process checklist. I think he just has one left that will allow him to ride his motorcycle on base. He has to check in each day at 8am, and if there are tasks for him then he has to stay, otherwise he can pretty much leave before noon. Last week he spent time moving office furniture with other Lieutenants in his class. I think next week there will be more of that. On the plus side, we got a new office chair out of it. Also, humorous to me, Mason had to ground test several drugs for flight medicine. This means he had to test out pills to see if he'd have any side effects. He had to test 3 sleeping pills (worked great) and 2 go-pills (unfortunately, also worked great, he was up all night). Mason, also being the overachiever that he is signed up to begin his online Master's with Embry-Riddle College. He'll start classes next month and hopefully get a few classes out of the way this year. We've heard that this is a good time to start with a class and then deployments are also a good time to get some classes done. Basically to promote past Captain, everyone in the Air Force needs to have a Master's degree. Mason will be getting a Master's of Aeronautical Science, which goes well with his B.S. of Human Factors in Aviation.

These days, I'm basically the bum of the family, staying up late and sleeping in. I've been applying to schools and tutoring companies, but it's not the best time of year for either. I had one interview for a 6th grade ELA position and I'm still waiting to hear back from them. This past week was Spring Break for Louisiana, so I'm hoping that I'll hear something this week. There's also a job fair in early May, so I'm hoping that will help me get a position for the Fall. Mason's class start date was pushed back to June, which means that we should find out in August or September whether we'll be staying in Shreveport or going to Minot for the next 4 years. We're actually fine moving either place, we've got friends who will be here and there, so we'll see what happens. Other than that, I've been taking advantage of the library and the free time and getting in a lot of reading. It's so great! I just read a great mystery by J.A. Jance this week called Cruel Intent, I highly recommend it. I contemplated working on my Master's, but I decided to wait because of financial and wishy-washy feelings. I don't want to dish out a ton of money if I'm not 100% sure of what I want my Master's in yet. I've been trying out Rosetta Stone, to see if I can actually learn Spanish and have it stick with me, so far so good, but I'm thinking of trying another language to see if it works with something I'm not familiar with at all.

Mason and I really like Barksdale. That's the name of the base. The city we are in is actually Bossier City, but basically Shreveport is a quarter mile outside the front gate. The city is really nice, and everyone is super friendly. There's LOTS of shopping and wildlife to see. May 9th-10th there will be an Air Show on base, and we're really looking forward to that. We are so blessed to have friends here. When we moved we already knew 5 families, and we've met so many of their friends and people in Mason's class- it made this experience so much better than our first move to Sheppard; but we really miss our friends there! Today we explored the East side of base. It's huge! There are camping sites, lakes, forests, and it's all a part of base. We've heard that there are lots of snakes, alligators, and 400lb. hogs, but today we only saw ducks, deer, and several hawks. It would be cool to see an alligator sometime, but from a distance. The services on base are really nice. The BX and commissary are much bigger and nicer than the ones at Sheppard, and we've shopped there a few times already. The gym is about the same, but the classes they offer are free! Mason and I tried out a few, and will go back if it works with our schedule. Mason's got me jogging these days. I was pretty proud when I jogged a mile without stopping, it was a milestone for me. My goal is to pass the PFT, which is the Air Force fitness test...it's just my own little goal, and when push comes to shove, my larger goal is to just shed the pounds.

There will be more to come soon, pictures and hopefully our new address!