Mission Complete!

I am so very sorry for the lack of blog posts. I had to kind of prioritize my life for a week or two and unfortunately, blogging was not at the top. However, I did defend my thesis...SUCCESSFULLY. It went better than I could have ever imagined, actually. I passed and my paper is turned in. Of course, there will be revisions, but that's the easy part. It feels SO good to be mission complete. Grad school was a fun ride but wow...lots of work. I have my masters of science in aerospace engineering <-- that's so weird! How did that happen?! 

Then it was off to Minneapolis for my bridal shower/bachelorette party. There were SO many people at my shower and I was overwhelmed with all the love and generosity. It was wonderful to see all my friends and family (and some of the Viper Pilot's) again! I'm thankful for all the family time I can get before we move to Europe. Since I don't own a boat, "going home for the weekend" is about to become mission impossible...just keep swimming...

Alison, Kristin, me, Shelby, Bridget

After the shower, this lovely group of ladies and I went to Chino Latino for amazing food and drinks. It was such a fun and delicious place!!

R to L: Grandma, Sondra, Bridget, me, Kristin, Shelby, Alison, mom

Lest I forget the adorable bachelorette decorations Bridget made for me! Later that I evening, I also donned a feather boa and tiara. It most certainly was a fashion statement to say the least. 

Guess who else is mission complete? The Viper Pilot is now a real viper driver! We had a blasty blast showing the squadron to our fams and celebrating this momentous time in our lives!! I can't even say how proud of him I am. He is my hero and I am constantly wondering how on earth it worked out that I get to spend the rest of my life with this fella. I am so blessed. Like with all the other graduations, the actual graduation day is a day-long event. We had some "red carpet" time and went to see the jets on the ramp and got to watch a couple take-off. We also toured the squadron and got some time in the simulator. I took pictures. I do that a lot...

Anders, Shelby (the Viper Pilot's little sister), the Viper Pilot, yours truly

Side note on the above picture: yes, I climbed the ladder to the jet in a dress for this picture. It was probably less than graceful and I can only hope that anyone on the ground did a courteous "oh hey, look over there" and turned their heads in the opposite direction for me...ha.

The Viper Pilot showing off the"other" girl in his life. 

And we took another picture with "Pretty Bird" because I don't think we have enough. {Pretty Bird is a jet that is literally painted like a Texas flag. Yee-haw!}

Watching the F-16 take off in front of the C-5 was quite a show. The C-5 is huge. Just when you think he is standing on breaks for a stop during take off, the nose goes up. As he is climbing upwards, it is so huge and so slow that it literally looks like it might fall right out of the sky. I like the F-16 better, but it's still amazing.

That evening, we packed up and went downtown to the Riverwalk for the banquet. We got all dressed up for the occasion. Believe it or not, I did not have my Nikon with me (this is not like me) but I was just trying to focus on celebrating his accomplishment and decompressing from the stressful week (I had literally defended my thesis a week before his graduation.)

pa, ma, the Viper Pilot, me, ma, pa
(this was good practice for the wedding pictures!)

The boys wear "party sleeves" under their jackets. It is an AF tradition. You can't see it when they have their jackets on but once the party starts...game on. My grandma made the Viper Pilot's in honor of his Iowa heritage. He was born and raised in a tractor (okay, that's a stretch) but he is a true to the core farm boy and  so it was only appropriate for him to have corn sleeves. His shirt was supposed to make its great debut at the wedding, but this was a special occasion, too, so we made an exception.

Someone's mother: "Which one is yours?"
Me: "The corn."

Oh yeah...and the LDR? Mission complete. 


There will always be more missions for us to complete. This is just the completion of one of the many we will encounter in our lives. It's an adventure that we get to call our lives and I couldn't ask for more. It's a crazy life and I love it!  

Welpers, I gotta get back to packing. {ugh} We're in the process of moving the Mississippi house to the Texas house. This is only the first of 3-4 moves we have coming at us in the next 3 months (MS to TX, TX to AZ for a TDY and some of our stuff is going to IA to be stored, and then the big one: Germany). We are packing the tailer today and road tripping tomorrow and there is a lot of work and cleaning to be done so I will post about other fun things that have been happening another day. Stay tuned! 

CHEERS!