Christmas 2005--College Station, TX

Family Photos 2005

Thought everyone would enjoy our family photos a little early this year!

Hurricane Rita: A great reason for a visit from auntie Brianne!

As Corpus Christi evacuated on the 22nd, Brianne found herself heading north to College Station with cat, Abbott, in tow!

Thanks for coming up, Bri! We love you!

Shamu City

Thanks to the fine management at Anheuser-Busch providing free entry into their parks for military families, we recently took a little trip to......Sea World! San Antonio is about 4hrs away, but on the way there is Austin, where Tiina and Ilse live, so we picked them up on they way! As expected, everyone had a great time. (we had only planned on staying a few hours due to Lance being tired out, but--not surprisingly--he lasted the whole day: Noon--8:00pm!)
Here are a few pics from our trip on 17 September.

The fish were fascinating...

...and the rides were thrilling...

But when you play hard, you need some chilling!

The end of a long, hot day!

An enjoyable sea lion show!

Taa Daa!! (hands clapping)

Big Sky Get Away

While I was yelling, er, I mean "encouraging" cadets in South Dakota during the month of August, Tanja and Lance escaped the Texas heat with a trip north to Big Sky Country to visit my Mom, Stepdad, "Aunte Brynn" and "Uncle Bryant". Here are a few pics from their trip!

Outdoor water fun with Brynn....

Indoor water fun with Bry!

Lance loves time with Grandma!

This was Lance's first trip to the Fair! Finally, after months of looking at farm animals in books and listening to Mommy and Daddy make the animal sounds, Lance is introduced to the real thing! "Baaaa!"

"Baaaa!"

Building Confidence...

As you all may know, I've been at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota for the past few weeks. I'm working as an evaluator/trainer for 22 college Air Force ROTC cadets. Some will be pilots. Some missileers. Some logistics officers....all are attempting to become Air Force officers. This, their 4-week "Field Training", is the greatest obstacle in their journey. Here are a few pics from the "confidence course" taken on Friday, 5 August.














Me (with back to the camera, hands folded behind back) supervising my 22-member "flight" as they contemplate traversing an obstacle.

















One of my cadets low-crawling through a trench. My instructions for this obstacle were simple: "GET THROUGH THE TRENCH AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT TOUCHING THE WIRE. IF YOU TOUCH THE WIRE, YOU START OVER!" Water to make mud courtesy of the base fire department.

















Taking a moment to find some shade and call Tanja and Lance. That's a a B-1 Bomber on the flight line in the background--that baby can go 900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level), and is capable of flying intercontinental missions without refueling!

















It hasn't been ALL work here: I was able to celebrate my birthday on the 5th thanks to the senior staff giving myself and the other Field Traning Officers an evening off. Somehow my office mate found out I had a birthday on the 29th and so treated me to cake! Mmmm!

And while I was hard at work in SD, Tanja was hard at play in TX:

Well, that's all for now. I"ll try and post again later when I have updates. Thanks for your prayers for myself, Tanja and Lance!