Miscelaneous Goings On

This week has been hectic. Let me take that back, the last 3 days have been hectic, the 4 before that were busy. Daniel and I have been working to move out of our very large base house. Honestly, our house was much too big for just the 2 of us to live in, and after the last several days we've decided that it was much, much, much too big for just the 2 of us to move out of. We had so many friends help us out in different ways with this overwhelming task. Of course we had the muscle that showed up yesterday to help load our belongings into the moving truck and then unload them into our storage unit, but beyond that, we had friends let us use their big garbage bins because we couldn't use ours, a friend loaned us her carpet shampooer, some other friends showed up today to help us transport some last odds and ends to the storage unit, people offered us dinner because they knew we couldn't cook since all our cooking gear was packed up, we even had some cleaning help. We have made so many wonderful friends here in Columbus! We will miss them all very much! They have made our last 18 months here a wonderful experience that makes us both sad to leave this place behind.

The next chapter of our lives will be a short one. Oklahoma. We are still going to Washington for Daniel to fly the C-17, but the training for C-17's is a 4 month long course in Oklahoma. We'll be in a tiny town on the west side of the state near the Texas border. Daniel's training will be mostly on very sophisticated simulators with only a few flights in the actual jet (it's a monstrous aircraft and very expensive to maintain and fly, so they limit the number of real flights). Daniel is anxious to get started flying (or simulating flying) soon as he hasn't flown since September and he's going through sky-withdrawls. :-) We'll get to Washington in April.

In holiday news: We spent a very nice Thanksgiving with some wonderful friends and mentors. We had a traditional Southern Thanksgiving meal with almost everything grown by our hosts or their friends, including the BEST cranberry sauce I've ever had in my life, bean salad, cornbread dressing, turnip greens, pickled beets, turkey and sweet potato pie. It was delicious!

In baby news: People ask me all the time now how I'm feeling. If you want to know, continue reading. If not, I'll never know if you quit reading here. :-)  I never had much of a problem with "morning sickness," although I did get tired, felt queasy at times, and had very little appetite for a few weeks. But when I compare my early pregnancy experience to that of most of my friends', I know I have nothing to complain about, so I don't. :-) I'm 16 weeks along now and am feeling AWESOME! Last week we had our first ultrasound and it was so cool to watch Tuck (that's what we're calling the baby for now) move all around. We did get some great photos, but I'm not going to post them on here, at least for now. The doctor was not able to tell if Tuck is a girl or a boy because the view was always blocked and it's still a little early to tell anyway. :-)

I hope you're all enjoying the official start of the Christmas season! I've enjoyed seeing your pictures and reading your blog posts about how you're decking your halls for the holiday. ;-) Soon I'll be requesting your updated addresses to send you a little Christmas happy in the mail. :-)