Honor Flight

A little over a week ago, K and I decided to spend our Friday evening at the airport welcoming home the local Honor Flight. We couldn't think of a better way to spend the 70th anniversary of D-Day than cheering on a bunch of World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans who were returning from a day in DC. Here's a link with some more info: http://honorflightdayton.org/

The best part about this is that the veterans don't know they will be getting this homecoming when they return. They get up at the crack of dawn, fly to DC, tour the memorials and return home after 11 p.m. When they get off the plane they are shocked to see people cheering and clapping as they get off the plane. It was sweet, I cried. You had guys who wanted to go through and shake every single person's hand - and there were hundreds of people there. And then they enter the lobby and there's even more people. :)

We had a great time at the event and both of us hope we can do it again. I wish my grandfathers would have lived long enough to have the opportunity to go on one of these flights.

 Color Guard marching thru the entrance of the airport

 My attempt at taking K's picture was poor, he was on the opposite side. So here's a shot at people marching in formation.

And some of the veterans as they entered the lobby area of the airport.



Nashville

In early October, Karson and I headed to Nashville for a weekend of football and friends. He's from the KC area, so Mizzou playing Vanderbilt the same weekend as the Chiefs playing the Titans is a perfect storm. One of Karson's college friends is coaches for the Titans and was kind enough to get us a room at the Loew's Vanderbilt which is a beautiful hotel in the Vanderbilt area of Nashville. The weekend was also Karson's best friend's birthday. Since we were going to tailgate, I made Ryan cupcakes and used these cute football cupcake holders.

Friday night, we went out to dinner on Broadway and then hit up some honky tonks. I think catching some live music is a mandatory thing in Nashville and always a lot of fun! Saturday morning we went to the Parthenon and the Opryland area before tailgating. In between the two, we hit the grocery store as we needed supplies for our tailgate. Karson had asked me to make buffalo chicken dip, I had brought a crock pot. So after the grocery store run, I'm lugging the crock pot into the hotel and carrying it in the elevator. There's an 60something guy in the elevator making polite conversation with me.

He pushed his floor button, and then said: "You don't really need a key card to get to the top floor."
Me: "I bet the view from the top floor is really nice."
Him: "Is that a crock pot??"
Me: "Uh, yeah. We're going tailgating today and I need to make a dip for it."
Him: "Oh. Okay." Weird look on his face. Secretly thinking I'm making something illegal with my crock pot.  I don't often cook with a crock pot in a hotel, but when I do, I try to do it at the nicest hotels possible. At least I brought the one with the damask design on it. :)

Missouri won, so the husband was happy. The weather the next day was not so great, but we had ponchos. The Chiefs won so again, the husband was happy! We had fantastic seats, which we were very lucky to be given.

 Karson at Opryland

 Me at Opryland. I LOVE this show. DVR it every week.

Go Chiefs! View from out awesome seats. P.S. Check out that guy's mullet. Ha!

 

 



Nashville Flea Market

At the end of September, we headed South to visit Karson's brother and sister-in-law and their cute kiddos. I had never been on an Army base before. It was fun to see the differences/similarities between the Air Force and Army bases. His sister-in-law has been great with my transition to military spouse life, answering questions, sharing stories from when she and K's brother first got married and moved, etc. It has been beyond helpful!
We spent time grilling out, playing Scrabble, going to church and having a movie night watching Tangled with the kids.
When deciding what to do with our Sunday afternoon, my sister-in-law mentioned there was a flea market in Nashville that happens monthly and happened to be that weekend. Karson's interest in going was not much, and his brother's was even less. The kiddos were even less excited. So off the two of us went in search of something fun. I must admit, I've been to many garage and estate sales over the years, but never a flea market. I'm also not a good negotiator.
We arrived and began wandering around when I spotted a chandelier painted blue and turned into centerpiece. Originally $40, it had been reduced to $30 because it was Sunday. I mentioned I liked it, S-I-L thought it was cute. She knew her husband would hate it if she brought it home. I figured K wouldn't really care one way or another. S-I-L went to work. I paid $22 for it! Score!
Here's a link to the Nashville Flea Market if you're ever in the area and want to go check it out. It's supposed to be one of the top Flea Market's in the country. http://www.nashvilleexpocenter.org/expo/fleamarket/dates.asp

Here my find on our dining room table. Need to buy candles for it

Past Year

Since my last post we have....

• -Gotten Married

 Me with my bridesmaids

 Me with my parents

Me and K just after the ceremony.

• Honeymooned in Aruba. Highly recommend it, especially if Nebraska happens to get a freak snow in May while you're gone.
• We left Omaha and moved to Ohio in July.

Omaha skyline from Council Bluffs before 4th of July Fireworks







Our rental house in Ohio.

 

• We also sold my condo in Omaha and I'm looking for a job here. I was not able to transfer my job when I moved. Being unemployed is a weird feeling, but I'm adjusting. There are some perks. We have done some traveling. I am less stressed out, my acne has improved greatly. I starting to get out and meet people, so that is helping with the transition.
• We like Ohio, but we tend to make the best of whatever. One of the best things for us, is Karson and his oldest brother have not lived this close together since 1995 (only five hours away). So we've made a trip there already. They will be coming here in two weeks and again for Thanksgiving.   



Houston Day 2 & 3

The primary reason for heading to Houston was for an annual Fourth of July party held by Karson's friends, the Browns. With the 4th being in the middle of the week, they moved the party and opted to have it the weekend before. They've got both a pool and a hot tub and had a massive amount of food and beverages as well. They were great hosts!

Some of the food for the party

There were 5 dogs at the party. This was the biggest dog there, but she was very well behaved.

Getting ready to hop in the hot tub with Matt's awesome homemade margarita. :)

On Sunday, Karson and I headed out to be tourists at the Johnson Space Center. We were going to do some other outdoor activities, but it kept raining and that put a damper on plans - so after a few hours at the Space Center, we went back and spent some more time hanging out since we were taking off for San Antonio the next day.

At the Johnson Space Center. I don't think either of us is cut out for a life in space.

Texas 2012

Omaha to Houston

The day of our traveling was mostly spent getting to Houston. We left the Omaha area after work on Thursday and drove to Wichita, primarily on two lane roads. Being the planners that we are – and since we’re experiencing a heatwave in the Midwest, we brought along a cooler of water bottles. It was a godsend. I also made a ziplock baggie of trailmix to cut down on gas station snack purchases. We encountered some road construction, but nothing awful on our way to Wichita. After getting to Wichita and paying the toll, we went to our hotel. We arrived around 10 p.m. tired and ready to call it a day, there were two vehicles from out of state in the loading area. Karson went in to check us in and I waited in the car. A little over five minutes later he came out shaking his head. The people ahead of him had not booked rooms and were trying to pay with cash.  They didn’t understand why the hotel still wanted them to put some type of card down for damage purposes.

Friday morning we set a goal to leave Wichita by 8 a.m. – so we were up and going by 7 and on the road by 8 a.m. We were rolling along just fine, we decided to stop in Norman because I was jonesing for an iced coffee – I needed my fix, we both needed a bathroom. We gassed up, decided we’d wait a bit longer to get lunch and got back on I-35. And by got back on I-35, I mean that we then sat on the interstate for an hour or more, waiting. There had been an awful accident at 6 a.m. that morning and 5 hours later they were still cleaning it up. So, our schedule got messed up. We’d hoped to get to our friends’ house in Houston at 5, we arrived around 7,  STARVING.

Karson had been telling me for two months that when we went to Houston, we would would go to the best Mexican restaurant EVER. He would then go on and on about it. Eventually, I told him he needed to quit talking about it because I was a afraid it wouldn’t meet expectations. It reminded me of when people build up a movie and then you see it and your opinion is, “That’s it?”  Fortunately, El Tiempo was not the overhyped movie. http://www.eltiempocantina.com/

After freshening up at his friends’ house, we headed out to dinner at El Tiempo. I don't think I've ever been to a Mexican restaurant with a valet before. The place was busy and apparently there are multiple locations throughout Houston. If you're ever in Houston, I highly recommend it. The drinks and food were both quite tasty. After that, we headed back to the Browns' and it wasn't too much later before I called it a night.

Post 4th update

I know, I've been absent. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some pics up from our Texas adventure (Houston, San Antonio and Austin). Karson does most of the picture taking, not me. Here's one of of from the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio. We went there for drinks and appetizers at sunset - which I totally recommend for watching the sunset - it was really cool. We're in the lounge area - the hostess told us there was a 3 hour wait for the restaurant - however we noticed plenty of empty tables. The restaurant rotates around - the lounge didn't - our view was still amazing.

In wedding related news - we've purchased invitations, thank yous and Save the Dates are on the way to us, or at least the first batch of them. And when we were in Austin, we went to IKEA and got some cute laterns for our reception centerpieces.