Austin is here!!

YAY!!! we have beach plans, kite flying, touring P'cola & who knows what else on the schedule!

Its his first time to visit us, so we are excited to show my little brother our home :)

More to come...

mmm....

blueberries.

my favorite!

but soooo expensive! I normally just buy the frozen berries because they are much cheaper than buying by the pint. But still, frozen berries can't quite recapture that fresh taste...

Well Praise the Lord-- its blueberry picking season in Florida! Yes, we even have a festival to celebrate it! And although Ben and I aren't much for festivals-they can be good people watching venues.

Its always incredible to me how they can turn something so delicious into a chocolate-dipped, fried- trans-fatty masterpiece---(appealing to Ben, not so much to me)

But anyway, we skipped out on the festival because we kind of enjoy our quiet weekends, and instead we went blueberry picking!!

I was sooo excited about it all week, I could hardly contain it! I've never picked fresh blueberries before, I've never even seen them on the blueberry bush. And did you know that there are several different kinds of blueberries?

Yep, its true... there are tiff-blue, premier, brightwell, and others that I just can't remember. I confess, I couldn't really taste the difference between most of them, I guess its an acquired skill.

So, anyway we went to this local farm called Beulah Berries & picked to our hearts content! We picked TWO WHOLE GALLONS of blueberries for $10!! I have never even dreamt of having one gallon of blueberries in my house at a given time, and now we have two!

We saved some to eat fresh & then froze the rest to make smoothies, cobblers & who knows what else with! I am in antioxidant heaven :)

Jehovah Jireh- Our Provider

We have seen so much of God's faithfulness and provisions in our lives this week!

Ben has constantly been seeing the Lord's providing hand in flying- thank you for those who prayed for his headache to go away, because yesterday it was completely gone! He is going to be doing his third flight today, and is exhausted & pretty much studied out, but is making it through by God's grace. God has also provided some great instructor pilots for him to fly with--they can really make or break a ride for a student and thankfully his have all been very helpful, encouraging and down to earth.

Also, we have been contemplating moving to another apt, house or condo in the area to save money. We love where we live now- feel safe & love the staff, but kind of wanted to save a little more money if possible for upcoming expenses. Well, after much searching we really couldn't come up with much, but did visit one condo that was cute and well maintained and cheaper than our current rent. It was quite a bit smaller though & we were really dreading the thought of having to move, but were willing to do it.

I finally got up the nerve to tell our property manager that we would not be renewing our lease with them. I felt like I was breaking up with them, betraying them or something horrible! I seriously, wanted to cry--not because of anything she did, I just really didn't want to leave and didn't want them to think that we didn't like them or something. We talk to our property manager all the time & they are soo helpful. So it had nothing to do w/ them. Anyway, as I was telling her we were going to move, she exclaimed, "Nooooooooo, you guys can't move! Please stay! I'll give you one months free rent!"

My ears perked up with that one, what, free rent? Well, I will ask Ben about it and get back to you.

So Ben and I looked over that proposition, crunched some numbers, and really felt like the Lord was giving us a way to stay! He is our provider.

Also, for the past several weeks we have been praying about the possibility of me going back to school for Nursing. It is something we have really been excited about and have been taking the steps to apply and such to a couple of different schools. Hence, the need to save money!

Well on Monday, God also provided a way for me to get at least some of my schooling paid for through a career advancement aid offered to military spouses! How wonderful is that!

I am looking into an accelerated BSN program where I would get my bachelors in Nursing in one year! If it works out I would take some prereqs now and then start the actual program in January. Please pray that the Lord would work this all out! The university is actually in Alabama, but we are like 20 minutes from the state line so its really not that far away, AND I found out today that I would qualify for in state tuition! - Praise the Lord!

So, anyway, we will see what He does with that desire. I am just praying that He will open the doors if it is something I really am to pursue.

Just wanted to share a little bit of His faithfulness to us this week!

Miss you all (except for the ones that live here- glad I get to see you guys :) )

The Aviator

Yesterday was Ben's first flight as a Pensacola student WSO. (WSO= weapons systems operator- he is Goose in Top Gun).

He has been studying really hard and has had to memorize countless emergency procedures -which are very tedious & operational things like how fast you can fligh at this altitude, or how much gas you have to have to take off or fly. I don't think I can adequately describe how much he has had to fit into his brain & reproduce for his instructors. Its really incredible.

He has to be able to spit off all this knowledge to his instructor while he is trying to fly the plane, do maneuvers, call in radio calls and keep an eye on all the gauges! Talk about multi-tasking!

He has definitely been stretched. But is learning a whole lot & becoming more of a first class aviator every day :)

Yesterday, his flight & brief went really well. He passed and really liked his instructor (which is a very big blessing)! It was exciting for him to be in the plane and to attempt all the things he had been studying. They even pulled like 4 G's when he was up in the air! He loved that.

His stomach did get a little queasy & we think his helmet is too tight or something, b/c it is causing him to get these really painful headaches. So you can pray that God would miraculously fix his helmet. If you think about it, something like that can really mess you up-- being at so high an altitude, your brain is already going to be getting a little fuzzy and possibly dizzy, but to have a splitting headache on top of trying to fly a plane, listen to the instructor & make all the radio calls, that really throws a wrench in things!

But God is so gracious and he passed & still enjoyed it, despite the splitting headache. We are just praying for that to not be an issue/distraction anymore.

He has a few more flights to get through this week, so I am sure we will have more on this later :)

Fore!

This weekend I played my first game of golf EVER! (Outside of putt-putt of course, which I'm pretty sure doesn't count).

Ben has really enjoyed playing golf in his extra time while we've been in Pensacola. The base we are at has some really nice facilities and at a great price! I'll admit, I have always thought that if there were a list for the top ten most boring sports of all times, that golf would be on it. I really couldn't understand why people would want to walk around swinging a club all afternoon & call it a sport.

But my sweet grandmother gave me the advice to try to learn to play with Ben. My grandfather was a great & very avid golfer. He played just about every chance he could & he always wanted my grandmother to play with him, but she never learned. She told me that if she could do it again she would have learned so that they could have enjoyed more time together, doing something that he really loved to do.

So, with my grandmother's encouragement, I decided to try my hand at it this weekend. Ben was soooo excited!! We played a Par 3 course (shorter hole distance), and hardly anyone was out there to laugh when I swung & missed at least 3 out of 5 times. It was actually really fun. Really hot, but really fun! And Ben said that I did really well for my first time :) I think he had fun being my golf instructor & giving me technique tips :)

My own Tiger Woods.

I think it will be a good activity for us to do together on the weekend...relaxing, but active. At least we walk the course instead of using the golf carts, so we are getting a little bit of leg exercise in there!

Kite Flying

Ben and I are always trying to think of something creative and fun to do on the weekends. Admittedly, I really stink at this...my reply when he asks me what I want to do is always something like, "I don't know, what do you want to do?"

Its challenging too at times to think of something we could do without spending too much money all the time.

But thankfully, I have a very creative husband, who comes up with some pretty fun ideas...and if all else fails, we always enjoy a coffee date :)

So yesterday, Ben came up with the idea to go kite flying. It never really worked much for us when we were kids. The few times I remember having a kite, I am not sure if it ever was windy enough to really lift, and then when the kite would lift, it seemed like the kite innevitably broke within the first hour.

In Pensacola, however, we have great kite flying weather--its always windy at the beach! So off to walmart we went, to pick out our kite.

It was kind of a tough job, because for some reason all the kites are in the kids section and either have a picture of hannah montana or spiderman on them. Seriously, grown ups can play with kites too!

Well anyway, we finally found a pretty gender neutral kite- it had a picture from the movie "Cars" on it, a picture w/ the girl car & the boy car, so that was perfect for us, and at $3.50, not a bad deal either.

Off we went to the beach, and to our surprise & delight, we had some great success with the kite! We got it to fly really high and even made it do tricks in the air- it was exciting, I felt like a pro :)

And if you have ever seen the movie kite runner, you know that there are some pretty intense pro kite flyers in this world. It made us want to get another kite next time, so we can fight each other's kites! - maybe I'll invest in one of those hannah montana ones next time :)

Ben Update

Ok, well this picture is not quite an adequate description of what Ben has been up to lately. I am sure he would love for eating gummy worms & oreos to be his primary job in life, but probably a picture of him in a flight suit & helmet would provide a better pictoral description of his life at the moment.

I wish I had a picture of him in that helmet too, because he looks like an alien or darth vador. A really manly alien/darthvador, but nevertheless, it gets a little creepy with the heavy breathing and all.

But aside from all the fancy equipment he is getting, he is really working hard! He has one more week of "ground school" left before he starts flying. Ground school basically means that you are studying and taking tests all the time, and when he is not doing one of those two things, he is in a classroom listening to a lecture or getting practice time in the flight simulators.

Last week he was up at work from about 8am to 10pm every day! It was incredible how he persevered and still had energy to come home and hang out w/ me :)

He is doing really, really well.

We will see how this week turns out, it is sure to be busy, but hopefully not as many late nights as last week.

He should train basically all through the summer, so not many forseable breaks for him, but at least we got a nice, long spring break in before the madness!

I am proud of him-- I might just have to go get him some oreos and gummy worms for all his hard work ;)