For more pictures (and some of the same), see my Mom’s website – she also has a pretty great camera and was able to catch some events I missed.

Here’s the start of our day, at a blessing of the wings inside the special aviation chapel on base.  Behind us is one of the several glass showcases of the wings of aviators who graduated from the Naval Air Station’s Naval Flight Officer program.  Tobin left behind one set of wings that will be displayed in a similar showcase to be prayed for by anyone who visits the chapel.  It’s nice to know we might be in someone’s prayers at any time, and complete strangers at that!

Tobin volunteered to read the Scripture for the blessing ceremony.  Unfortunately, our camera’s automatic focus picked out the tall chandelier as the obviously most important part of this picture.  Thus the blurriness.  I apologize.

During the prayer.  Is it ok to take pictures during prayer?  Hm.

The priest blessing the wings (which are on top of the altar).  He also sprinkled water over them from a fancy gold thing, but I missed that part.  It was interesting to be part of a Catholic ceremony!  I certainly hadn’t done anything like it before.  To the left of the altar is the chaplain who is a really great guy and helped us out when the going got tough during training.  They call him Chaps, but I’m not sure of his real name.

Speaking the Aviator’s Creed.

Tobin’s wings are the set on the far left.  He left behind one of them and I put the other set on his chest at the next ceremony!

Not sure if these are saints or what their names are, but the one on the left is a navigator.  The one on the right has a plane in her hands.

At the actual ceremony inside the Naval Aviation Museum, we listened to a speech by a 3 star Admiral (yikes!).  Here is Tobin (the first to get his wings!) with me pinning his wings on.  I was so proud of him!

Look at those shiny wings!

Next, we went through a reception line with the CO of each training squadron Tobin has been through, plus the guest speaker & chaplain.  The man shaking Tobin’s hand is the CO of VT-86, the squadron Tobin just completed training with.  Tobin received a certificate stating that he had his wings, signed by a big kahuna in charge of training.  I also received a humorous wive’s certificate, plus a tiny pair of gold wings that I wore today on my dress.  :)  They are lovely, and a very nice gesture by the squadrons to appreciate the stress of training life.

If you took pictures at this event, please send me any you don’t see here!  We will put together something as a reminder of all of Tobin’s hard work.  He earned it!

Here’s the birthday girl on her first birthday, June 10.  This was during our picnic outside (in the backyard).  We grilled hot dogs and yes, the dogs each got one.  I know, I know.  But it’s once a year, really.

Here’s a mouthful of hot dog.  Mm mm!

Titus was there too.  But he’s the inside kind of dog.

The various sleep positions of Rogue.  Here she’s sleeping with her panda.

Sprawled in the kitchen.

The tile’s her favorite place, nice and cool!

And for the military side of things, check out the About Us section for an update.  Tobin is winging on June 25th at 10 AM!  It’s very exciting to be watching the culmination of all his efforts the past two years.

We don’t know how long we will be waiting before getting PCS orders (permanent change of station), but we know we will be going to Shreveport, Louisiana to report to Barksdale Air Force Base for the first 8 months at least for B-52 training.  After that, we may be going to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota or we will stay at Barksdale.

We may be here in Pensacola long enough to have the baby, but there are no guarantees.  I’m sure we will be finding out in the next couple of months.

Oh, and July 1st, as long as the baby cooperates, we will be finding out the gender!  We’ll let everyone know ASAP after we find out.

New haircut, new hair (it’s much straighter now that I’m pregnant, weird), and first maternity shirt!

Ok, on to the relevant stuff.  Tobin selected on June 4th.  Here he is after he opened his envelope.  B-52 for us!  (sorry it’s blurry)

Shaking the CO’s hand.  Unfortunately, I had no idea (nor did Tobin) that the CO was about to replace his name tag with an official WINGED name tag!  If I had known, I would have done a video instead.  Apparently, the tradition is to replace the name tag and punch the new one, sometimes pretty darn hard.  By the time we got out of there, Tobin’s chest was sore.  :)

Freshly winged!

Both of us after the winging:

For those of you who wanted to come down for Tobin’s winging, you didn’t actually miss it.  This was a surprise, and what they call a “soft winging”.  His actual ceremony will be later on, and we should have some advance notice.  It will probably be at the end of June, but we will let you know.

So, we have the B-52, with base options at: Minot AFB, North Dakota or Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Although it’s not the aircraft we were going for, the needs of the Air Force trump our little plans.  We’re excited nevertheless, and Tobin doesn’t have to wait for the T-39 to come back up, which is an answer to prayer.

Hope some of you can make it down for the winging!  Tobin also promotes to first lieutenant in July.

We’re pretty well into summer, but during April I took a bunch of pictures of spring blooming all around our neighborhood.  I was so excited!  We were tired of the cold.  It was an unusually cold winter for us down here.

Couple of trees in a neighbor’s yard.  The pink flowers looked just like tulips.

I assume these are daffodils?  They had yellow and white.

Here’s  a white one!

Flower boxes in a neighbor’s yard.  I loved the colors!

These are goooorgeous!

Same flowers, but shown on the bush.  Aren’t they beautiful??  I have no idea what they are, but there was an entire neighborhood that was full of these bushes…it was the best part of my drive to work, seeing all of these flowers everywhere.  :)  I’ve never seen a bush so completely covered with flowers until I experienced spring down here.

A dogwood tree.  This tree was absolutely stunning, but the picture doesn’t do it justice.  It was such a bright white, it glowed in the sunlight!  The neighbor was in his yard when I took this, and that’s how I found out it was a dogwood.  I’m not so good with plant names!

On the home front: I’m officially a housewife at the moment, taking a hiatus from work that involves paychecks for a while.  Here are some pictures of what we’ve been up to in our free time:

Strawberry picking!  Did you know sometimes these berries are available in JANUARY down here???  Crazy, huh?  And they don’t have two seasons, just one.  We barely got there in time to get some.

Sewing project again!  We sewed light-blocking material onto the back of our curtains, using Grandma Norma Jean’s sewing machine.  It worked like a charm!  Tobin did the sewing, but we cut the cloth and pinned it together.

Proof!  I was there helping.

And there are always the dogs.  Here are some pictures and videos of what they’ve been up to.

First introduction to a turtle.  Tobin found this guy in our backyard.  Well, Rogue did, and was barking up a storm until Tobin went out to see what was up.

They didn’t know what to do when the turtle took off.  We released him outside our fence soon after this video.  I don’t think the turtle or the dogs would have been happy about having the other around any longer.

Here are the rest of the videos we took, but the best 2 are linked above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuGnhFOJ9vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kUPJpuACfM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyg7AxqnZ8I

We got the dogs a new doggie door, one that fits into our sliding door frame.  We got rid of the one in our window, which keeps the study a lot cleaner.  We like this a lot better so far.

I made him wait to open gifts until some had arrived through the mail (he’s always trying to get me to let him open them days in advance).  So here are Tobin’s birthday pictures!

He also got a game, Call of Duty (World at War, I think) to play on the PS3.  The next day, another package arrived and he got a variety of things, including dinner at Olive Garden.  We used it right away!

For dinner on the 7th, we went out to a new Asian restaurant, 2 Stix.  It was wonderful, the sushi being the best part, although we sat at a hibachi table and that was very entertaining.

Happy birthday, Tobin!  Thanks for all the phone calls, cards, and gifts.  We will enjoy them immensely.

Sorry for the delay in pictures/updates about us!  We will be posting again soon with those kind of fun things.

Truth is, things have been kind of nuts around here the past few weeks.  Tobin is in his second-to-last block in training, meaning he is scheduled a lot and studying constantly.  He is doing a great job!  He should finish up within a month; maybe a month and a half.

I (whine whine, I know I know) will have worked 24 days in a row as of this Wednesday, so I haven’t even thought about posting recently.  In fact, I’m at work right now…but seeing how it’s Sunday, I figure I’m entitled to a break.  Speaking of breaks, this Thursday/Friday I’m taking vacation, so toodle-oo work!  Maybe I’ll have time to catch up on that housework that’s been waiting for me…sorry, Tobin!

We’re excited about the changes coming our way, including a winging ceremony for one hard-working airman.  Until then, just give us a call if you want an update, it’s faster that way.  Catch ya later!

And a youtube video: CLICK HERE

The dogs (and we) love it!  It’s already seen a lot of use, including barbecues and campfires.

Spring is coming to Florida!  We hope to see all of you very soon…come down and enjoy some warm weather.  It actually hit the 70’s today, woohoo!  Can’t wait for warmer days & especially nights.

Funny thing is, last year Tobin was in training so we only had time to go out to Olive Garden for dinner on the 23rd…this year, Tobin is still in training and we went to Olive Garden again!  Haha, but on the 22nd this time, because the 23rd was crazy busy.  In fact, we actually only saw each other for about 1 hour yesterday, mainly due to 5:30 briefs yesterday and today, lots of study time on base, and an evening volleyball game (for me…don’t I have it rough?  Poor Tobin…).

So….long story short, we’re going to celebrate for real another day, probably after Advanced is over.

Here’s the two scalliwags:

Here’s what they do when they get a soft squeaky toy:

Don’t worry, they got the squeaker out!

Also, I received my green belt in 6Sigma from Pall!  Here’s the green belt, certificate, and award to prove it!  I had to give a presentation at a “roadshow” Pall had at a local hotel.  There was a vice president there as well, and some other bigwigs.  I was in a group of about 13 other people who got green belts that day.  The presentation was supposed to be 1 minute long, so it wasn’t a big deal to talk for that long.  But I am very excited to be done with this project and to finally have a green belt.  :)

Tobin is doing very well in training, something like 13 events left.  He has a flight scheduled tomorrow, but has recently been canceled due to weather, so we’ll see if he gets to fly or not.  He’s been enjoying a few days off, although he’s studying most of the time and he also worked a night shift, so he didn’t really have time “off”.  We’re looking forward to the winging ceremony, hopefully coming up within a month’s time!