Snow!

A more apt title might be "The girl who once blogged but then her husband took her to pilot training and she fell off the face of the earth."  I should warn you I'm kinda grumpy today.  

March 25th.  Just over 13 weeks until the end of pilot training and I'm sitting here wondering where all the time went.  I can equate it best to being pregnant.  The days are really long and the weeks are really fast and we are fast approaching the point where we both want to be done with pilot training but are realistically cautious about what comes next.  More about that process as it gets closer but more about where we are now.  

The T-1.  The last phase of training for us and it hasn't been kind.  The juggling of family, studying, sleeping, and eating has caught up to us.  I keep saying us, because while I can't fly that plane I could run a mean "Before Starting Engines Checklist."  Brian carries the burden of doing his best in academics, quizzes, simulators, flights, check-rides, checklists, maneuvers, landings, patterns, etc. so we can fly a cool plane in a cool location - preferably not in Oklahoma.  And don't ask me what plane or location we want.  It's complicated.  

Chase and I have the burden of not killing each other every day.  OK it's not that bad at all, we get along great but I warned you I was grumpy.  We both have lots of great friends in our group and get to see them often and find more support than we ever could have asked for in their friendships.  I thank God for them almost every day.  Chase thanks God for trains and snow, and boy did we get snow!  Five snows and a blizzard and this kid is ready for Alaska, more than once I had to bring him inside because he didn't have a coat on when it was still snowing.  Sorry the computer can't figure out how to rotate this picture right, it's still awesome.

Ranger and Chase love to eat the snow together.

 The following are pictures of building a snowman with our friends.  Chase and Luke have been mistaken for brothers before and couldn't be better buddies.  

So of course Brian and Mike couldn't just build any snowman, it had to be the biggest in town!  If you are not familiar with building snowman, which I am not, you don't realize how heavy snow is all packed up.  This picture captures perfectly the essence of the afternoon.  Mike and Brian convincing Deborah and I that their plan to roll the 200 lb snowball over Mike and onto the first snow mound will work!  Chase and Luke thought they were as crazy as we did.  They had to build a ramp.  

  

But the snowman was pretty amazing, it would have taken 6 yards to make a snowman this big in West Texas.  

Brian got a few days and afternoons off  with the weather and it felt like a vacation!

 Chase has been plenty busy growing and loves to pretend.  One of our favorites is Fireman Chase because not only does he get to ride around on the fire truck, he gets a little water squirter to put out the fires.  

Another favorite is Cowboy Chase.  This typically comes with hat, stick horse, boots, a rope, and a gun (toy drill), but you can imagine it's hard to carry all that gear.  He likes to act out scenes from his cowboy book where the cowboy takes care of the cows and shoots snakes and black wolf.  Ranger always volunteers to be black wolf.  

We took Chase to ride go-carts in the city and he was screaming for joy before they left the garage!  Can you believe it - Chase is tall enough to reach that red line where all kinds of fun things can happen!  

Brian and I got a night off and went dancing and it was so wonderful.  We were able to remember the good ol days when we were dancing at 2 in the morning and not 9:30 at night.  Poor Brian did have a great time but he was so tired.  UPT is a great way to speed up the aging process.  If you look closely you can see the red pants :)

We were at the mall a few weeks ago and Chase was so excited about all the little rides!  Brian and I were almost got away with not putting any quarters in but when another little boy came over and his boat started to move and make sounds it took Chase no time at all the figure out something wasn't right.  

 Chase also hit a milestone into boyhood - busted head.  Of course it happened out in public but he was a big boy about it and we've seen almost all colors in the rainbow in it.  Now it's a dark shade of orange and he hasn't picked the scab in quite a few days.  He does continue to pick his nose.

These moments are my favorite.  Giggles and smiles and love.  

Hope all of our dear friends are well and hope to blog before June!