Sea World, San Antonio

Logen and I were able to spend the whole day together Saturday. We spent the morning around the base before heading out to Sea World. The park was offering free tickets for active military servicemen and thier famillies. A major savings for us. We took in the shows, watched the rides and spent more time eating. Logen is unable to walk and eat or walk and talk on the phone so we spent part of the day sitting. A big change from my normal multi-tasking of eating, talking and driving.We had a good time spending it together.

Here is one of Logen's fellow "Brothers in Arms" He and his family were also at Sea World along with many others. Logen was quite humbled by the handshakes and 'thank you's he recieved throughout the day. Many people stopped to say Congrats or Thanks for your Service.

Dorm Life for BMT's

After the graduation parade family and friends were invited to tour through the dorm the bmt's have lived in for the past 6 1/2 weeks. We got to see where they slept, polished, plucked, tucked and studied. There was a 'mini-mall' across the street from their dorm which they were allowed to visit to make thier 4 phone calls homes during the long weeks of separation.
This is the dorm Logen was housed in.

These are character drawings of the 3 Training Instructors.
Logen in front of his bunk.
This is Logen's bunk, notice the wonder hospital corners and how neat and tidy everything is. He is excited that he wont have to roll his socks from now on. He only has to fold him. His TI wanted thier socks so rolled tight that when thrown at thier wall lockers it should leave a dent.
Logen infront of his personal items locker. He is very much " I live by the core values of the AirForce" now and very proud of his accomplishments. I am very proud of them too.

These are "rainbows" gathering outside the mini-mall across from the dorm. "Rainbows" are first weekers. They are still carrying thier black portfolios and duffle bags of supplies. The next picture is of Logen at parade rest. This is how he always stands now when he's not walking.

Air Force Graduation For Logen

Here is Logen and I and him posing in front of some planes at the graduation grounds. It was a beautiful day. The weather was perfect and the whole ceremony came off without a hitch. I am so proud of him.

Airmen Graduation

The Airmen as they line up for the parade.

Here are the graduates as they march past us in formation.

I tried to find Logen in all the blue passing by, but to no avail.

Here are the color gaurd passing by.

Air Force Graduation Day

Here's Logen after the Graduation Parade. He was waiting patiently while I wandered through the throngs of people looking for their own graduate. He looks like a mini-uncle chuck. He is thrilled to be done with Basic and is looking forward to Tech School. His MOS is Aviation Transportation. Still no deployment destination after Tech School.

Hoofin' Nothin'~High Tailin' More Likely

My continuing saga turns from bad to worse. I am finally settled (almost) at 11:09 pm in my hotel. I will get back to the (almost)in a moment. From Grand Rapids to Detroit was uneventful, except some weather turbulance. No biggie. I was rebooked on a 2:30 pm connecting flight out of American Airlines from Northwest leaving Detroit. We landed in Detroit around 1:45pm. Plenty of time to make a connection with another airline, right? If no one knows the lay out of the airport, each airline has thier own "terminal"/ airport. I had to high tail it to ground transportation a good 1/2 mile away, then get on a terminal-to-terminal shuttle that took me to American. In to the airport I hustle and up to the counter. I get my boarding pass and it's now 2:15pm. I hustle then to security, undress down to socks, pants and shirts since the last two security checks I had too take of shoes and jacket which is expected, but also my watch, belt, earings...unload my laptop from it's case and then reassemble myself as i am walk/running to my gate. Every passenger has boarded for this flight already and I get the LAST seat. I mean the last seat in the airplane, next to the restroom and garbage cans in Row 32. It smelled like the grocery store recycleing centers. PeeeYewww. Now I have been going since 10:30 this morning with nothing to eat and no bathroom break. I settle in for my 2:38 hour trip to San Antonio, whoops, nope, I mean DALLAS. They routed me to Dallas with a continuing flight to SAn Antonio. When we land in Dallas I get off this plane , come the gate and ask where in the world I should go to connect to San Antonio. The attendant said "right here, you have 15 - 20 min, would you like to go get something?" I said Yes Please, a bathroom. I came out of the restroom and my flight had already started boarding. There were only 5 of us left to board. No Way was it 15-20 min!!!! Anyway, back on the IDENTICAL plane I just came off of, into the SAME seat I had just vacated. We should have landed at 6:15pm, but were 1/2 hour late getting into San Antonio. A major bummer because I missed Logen's phone call this evening by 4 and 1/2 min. GRRRRRR. Now my adventure at this airport starts. I go to baggage claim and Surprise, Surprise, Surprise....no luggage. I stand in line 15 min. to file a claim with American and while waiting, call my travel guru's Steph and Chuck. No answer there. I wait for another flight arriving from Detroit on American beacuase the helpful lady was sure my luggage would be on the later flight~NOPE. A quick call back from the guru's leads me from American to Northwest the original airline that I started with. This is no easy feat since it is once again outside from this 'terminal' to the other. I spend a good part of 20 min walking the length of this of this terminal to the next and end up in the parking ramps of American, United, Delta....sure wasn't Northwest where I wanted to be. I am in constant communication with Steph and Chuck as they look up the layout of the airport on thier computer to navigate me through this maze. Finally into the right terminal, to the baggage claim area and do we see Northwest Baggage Claim. NOPE. But I do see all the other airlines and when I inquire about where one would locate a human for Northwest, the nice lady at United states either that little tiny booth at the end of baggage claim or upstairs at the ticket counter. No such luck with someone in the little tiny booth, so upstairs I head. Rounding the corner to head that way I come up to two escalators, both heading DOWN toward me and two flights of stairs going up. It is now the stairs, rounding another corner to find ALL of the tickets counter CLOSED. Will this nightmare never end?????? I inquire from a security officer how to contact a human and he leads me to a white phone to overhead page a customer service rep. Ho Hum....15 min. later a woman appears. I start to let her know my dilema, no luggage and how would it be retrieved when she interupts me and says she needs to use the restroom, could I please excuse her for a moment.... ARE YOU KIDDING????? I haven't peed since San Antonio and still have not had any nourishment since my egg mcmuffin at 10am. Off she strolls and another woman comes to the counter. She is most helpful and locates my luggage for me. She says it's still in DETROIT. It will be arriving later tonight around 12:00am. Per policy they have to take it to American since that is the last flight I was booked on and once they transfered my information to a new airline it is thier responsibility. She must have seeen the desparation and heard my pleas about having to be a the AirForce graduation at 7:15 am and took pity on me becasue she said she will personally deliver it here to my hotel for me. I thank her profusely and leave my information for her. I am staying near the airport so it's not out of her way (too much). I now head to the rental car place, yes, this adventure is still a work in progress. The Avis man is very helpful and I am soon being shuttled to my Jeep Liberty. Major construction is going on throughout the San Antonio airport so there I am driving in unfamilar territory, under the guise of darkness, trying to navigate to my hotel. Another call from the guru's and they STRONGLY suggest I head to WalMart and find something to wear at tomarrow's graduation, plus other essentials. If my luggage does get delivered, GREAT, return the unused items and no loss. But this way I am covered if it doesn't get to me tonight. So onto the computer they go to navigate me street by street from my hotel to the nearest WalMart. I spend time shopping, hoping to not forget anything and looking so forward to food. I tell steph I am so hungry I could eat my phone. It is now 9:30pm TX time which is 10:30 MI/VA time. I finish shopping and find my way back to the hotel. Not as hard as I had imagined it to be... thank goodness. So now I am to my (almost) settled in part. It is 11:45pm TX time (12:45 my body time) and I am waiting for the nice lady/girl from Northwest to call me and let me know she is dropping off my luggage. So ends this leg of my saga....tomarrow is another day....

Let the Adventure Begin~GRRRRR

Here I sit at the GRR airport with a delayed flight of 1/2 hour....seems non-essential, except my connecting flight to San Antonio was only 31 min layover. Needless to say, but I will, I have already missed my connecting flight. GRRRRR in a major way. The airline was able to put me on another flight with another airline, but I am arriving 2 hours later than expected. This dashes any hope of seeing Logen for a few hours tonight. The most frustrating thing is that I have no way of telling him this. I am unfamiliar with the airport at Detroit, but have a feeling I will be hoofin' it quite a ways.

Headin' Out West

Hello all, I am writing on the eve of my trip out west to Texas to see Logen. As all of you know, he has been at Basic Training for 6 weeks. Intense training (at least I think so) and dearly missed we are both looking forward to spending some good quality time together. I leave on Thurs. morning and will be home Sunday night. I will be updating the blog through out the trip. Each evening he has to report back at 7pm so that will give me some 'working' time on my computer. Until next time...

SkyBox-Hunter Boy Blind Way Up High

We spent this past weekend up north working on Jerome's Skybox. Jordan wanted to conquer his fear of climbing up into the blind. We started with a ladder from home propped up against the wood ladder and that helped alot. He was very proud of himself. If anyone is wondering what happened to his hair...he dyed it jet black the week before school started. It is starting to grow out now and at we cut it shorter the red will be back. Jerome and I think two-tone is a better name for him right now, he doesn't think so







This is the view from the shooting window inside the blind.



We put up the inuslation and installed all the windows.




Here is the caution sign someone posted when they tried to climb up.
It truely exceeds 90*.


The days work pooped out Maggie and Kami.



This is the view from the doorway looking east.
It is a beautiful view from this perch!!


Jordan before his climb, you can see how far dow he is.
Regular lense vs. telephoto.

Kami, thrilled to be here, bored like any teenage girl, gotta love it!


This is a great trailer that Jerome's brother Gene had made to go on the back of the quad. It worked wonderfully! No more carrying out the supplies to the blind from the road. Thanks Gene!!