No more scheduling!

It's official!! Travis is no longer the scheduler for his flight! This means, instead of having to stay two hours after everyone else goes home to work on the schedule for the next day, now he can come home when he's done flying! His job, along with flying, now involves testing the students in the classroom and giving general knowledge stand ups. Of course, his schedule still remains unpredictable and forever changing, but at least some days he can get home earlier! :-)

And what did we do with all that extra time today? We took a long bike ride to the airport in Del Rio, and then we took the puppies on a walk. It was a great afternoon. :-)

7 miles!!

I just have to be a little bit excited, because yesterday, for the first time in my life, I ran seven consecutive miles! It was amazing. No pain, just pure bliss and euphoria. Rio ran by my side the entire way and is such a great running companion! (We have been working up to the distance running...we walk almost three miles everyday, and she ran five miles with me last weekend!!) She runs right along with me and barely pulls on the leash. She really loves going on walks and runs and never complains. She runs a little faster than I normally do, so she is helping to motivate me along!

My friends and I are training to participate in the Adventure Race, a yearly event sponsored by the base. We are going to have to bike 22 miles, run 8 miles, and then row 2 miles at the end. The event is on April 10th, so we have about a month and a half left to get ready! We have six people on our team, and we are allowed to have four on the course at a time, so if someone needs a break, they can take it. We also will have a car and driver following along with the race, carrying our bikes, food, drinks, and change of clothes. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun! We have also signed up for a mini-triathalon (bike 10 miles, run 2 miles, swim 200 yards) in San Antonio on March 14th, and we are pretty excited about it too.

It feels pretty good to be back in shape and be able to express all this grace, agility, and strength! :-)

Winter Ball

Like I mentioned before, Travis was in charge of planning the entire winter ball for the base this year. He did a fantastic job, and the ball was a huge success!! We had a wonderful time on Friday night, and I was really proud of him for how great the event turned out!! Everyone seemed to have a great time, and they all loved the jellybeans! I had the chance to meet a lot of new people, as well as hang out with some of my friends. It was so much fun to get all dressed up and see all the guys in their mess dress (formal attire). What a fun night!!

Here are a few pictures:

Our friends Kirby and Emily and Clay and Lacey - both couples are engaged to be married! (And, you can't really see them in the picture, but there are snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. The commander's wife helped Travis plan the decorations!)

My handsome and wonderful husband :-)

I was really excited about my new dress! (Travis actually went shopping with me while we were in San Antonio one weekend and helped me pick it out.) And, my hair stayed curly the whole night, which I thought was great! :-)

And, another one of our self portraits...I think these always turn out so great!!

Jellybeans!

Travis' commander asked him to plan the Winter Ball for the base this year. It was a lot of work for Travis to do, and he has been busy for weeks planning and preparing for the big event. Over 100 people signed up to come, and he had to prepare tables, raffle prizes, and many other things in order to get ready!

One of the raffle items was a weekend in San Antonio with a free night at the Omni Hotel on the Riverwalk. (That's a great prize when you are living in Del Rio!!) We decided that the best way to give the prize away was to have someone work to win it. So, the plan was made.... We decided to fill a giant jar with jellybeans and let everyone guess how many were in there. First prize would be the free night at the hotel in San Antonio. Second prize? Definitely the giant jar of jellybeans! (Who wouldn't want that, right??)

Soooo.... we spent two hours on Tuesday night hand-counting jellybeans and filling up this jar. We did the counting in increments of 50, and sloooooooooooowly the jar filled up!

So, how many jellybeans do you think are in this jar??

Official count was seven thousand five hundred sixty eight jellybeans. That's right. 7,568 jellybeans. Did you win the trip to San Antonio? :-)

Double Quincinera

In Mexico, girls celebrate their 15th birthdays or Quincineras in style, dressing up in amazing dresses, practicing for months to get ready for the big day. (I have had several students missing class because they are preparing for their party...it's a big deal!) So, our friend turned thirty in January, and she decided to have a double Quincinera! The theme was "ugly dress party," because she wanted everyone to have a chance to wear a crazy dress and celebrate her birthday in style.

My friends from Austin were in town, and we all went to the downtown thrift store to find the tackiest, craziest dresses that we could find. Marc and Travis found some great hats to wear too! After eating a delicious dinner that Marc cooked for us, we headed over to the party. It was a blast!

My friend Carson in the green dress teaches science at the high school. Travis is wearing an authentic Mexican poncho...it was an exciting find, along with the amazing hat. I felt like a giant cupcake in my dress!!

Group shot! Marc's hat is also an authentic, made-in-Mexico hat!

My friend Sarah and me!

Kristy (loving the poofy sleeves!), Carson, Snow White (aka Heather), and me

(Kristy also teaches science at the high school!)

Update

I just realized it has been forever since I posted an update, so I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still alive and well in Del Rio! Things have been really busy the past month. Travis and I are both working on our Master's degrees; he has to write a LOT of papers, and I am in the process of reading four books for my two classes this semester. If we aren't traveling on the weekends, we are studying, writing papers, and cleaning house! At the base, the flights are all behind because we have had such bad weather lately (clouds, fog, etc), so Travis has been working a lot as well. They have even mandated a few Saturday workdays to try and catch up. At school, the TAKS test is looming on the horizon, and tension is beginning to rise. I was told that, in order for my students to do well enough for the school, I need 65% of them to pass. That's about 85 students. No pressure. Oh, and here's a list of the 33 that we want you to focus on........ What a fun next couple of months this is going to be. I wish there was another way to rate the schools besides this test!! (My personal goal for passing is 50%, and I will be overjoyed if that can happen!!)

The puppies are growing still, and they enjoy their walks everyday. The cat (who I believe is currently locked in a closet somewhere) is so sweet and cuddly, and we love having him around! Nothing else exciting is going on around here. I am anxiously awaiting spring break and summer, and Travis is just hoping for good flying weather!

Have a wonderful day! :-)

Skiing in Colorado!

For the first week in February, we had the opportunity to join Shane, Kelly, the twins, and Kelly's parents on a fantastic trip to Beaver Creek, Colorado. We rented a little townhouse about 100 yards from the ski lifts spent four days there together. It was so much fun!! I had not been skiing myself in several years, and this was only my third time to go skiing ever. Travis, however, is an expert skier, since he spent four years in Colorado at the Academy; he went over 25 times a year for four years! Needless to say, we were both pretty excited to go. :-)

We had planned to leave on Saturday morning on the 6:15 am flight out of Del Rio. And, let me explain a little bit about the Del Rio airport. First, they have only two flights a day out of Del Rio - one at 6:15 am, and one at 4:30 pm. The only airline that flies here is Continental, and the only place you can fly to is Houston. Being such a small town, the airport is only ten minutes from our house. There's one parking lot that is about 100 feet from the entrance to the airport. Once you get inside, there is one ticket booth, a small waiting area, one security line, and a smaller waiting room past security that also serves as baggage claim for the incoming flights. It's really nice because you don't have to worry too much about crowds, lines, lost bags, etc. It is a very low stress place, and all the employees are really friendly and helpful. So, that being explained.....

On Saturday morning, Travis rolled over to look at the clock, and it was 5:53 am. We had both (somehow) slept through the alarms. We raced to the airport (ten minutes away), and we arrived just in time to watch the morning flight taxiing down the runway. Our only option was to wait for the afternoon flight at 4:30pm, so we didn't end up arriving in Beaver Creek until almost two in the morning. (We still aren't sure how we slept through the alarms!!)

This, however, did not stop us from waking up at 7am the next morning, renting skis, dressing out, and heading to the ski lifts. We could walk from our house to the lifts, so it was quick and easy to get there. We spent the next three days skiing all over the mountains. There wasn't a lot of snow, but enough to ski on; it was a little icy, though. I took one big fall down the mountain, only because I was tired and hit a patch of ice that I just couldn't handle. Travis skied with me pretty much the whole time, and I improved a lot! He thinks I'll be skiing on black diamonds with him next year....I told him it's going to take a little longer than one trip for that to happen! :-)

Here's our picture at the top of the ski lifts:

The weather was perfect, we had a great time, and we really enjoyed the vacation!