Pensacola and Mobile

We drove from Orlando through Pensacola - stopped at Milton to have dinner with a friend from Coastie Chicks (Brenna) and her hubby (Christian) - he's just starting flight school and had some questions about Naval Aviation - hopefully they'll be joining the 60 community soon!

We ended up in Mobile and used that as a jumping off point for a few of the things that we wanted to do: IE: the Naval Aviation Museum and visiting with another friend from Coastie Chicks (Amber!)

Jack really enjoyed climbing into the Blue Angels' cockpit and playing with all of the dials!

Piloting his own aircraft!

This is how we kept Jack from running all over the store! Worked quite well! (I'm only kidding!)

Here's a special picture for all of our Kindred Spirit friends! Can you spot the odd man out? We've named him Clyde and he really is enjoying all of the different stops on the trip! Miss you guys!

For dinner we went over to Amber's house (a friend from Coastie Chicks) It was great to meet up with her (she put on a wonderful spread with a yummy yummy strawberry dessert!) Jack really enjoyed playing on the Wii with Chase (and chasing Logan!)

Here's me and Amber. I'm hoping that she'll get stationed in Kodiak next! What a sweet chick!

Hanging out with Mary

I was very excited that we were able to stay in Orlando for a couple of nights before heading off on our long journey. This meant that I was able to spend a little more time with my BFF Mary! We've been friends for a long time (went to the same high school) and I'll be sad to be leaving her behind (BUT - she's getting married in October so I'll be flying into Orlando then for the wedding! YAY!)

Here's Mary and her soon-to-be Hubby Chris! We went out to eat at the only Indonesian restaurant in the Central Florida area (Asia Bagus http://www.asiabagusresto.com/menu.html )LOVED the food (but loved the company more!) - You guys will HAVE to come visit in Kodiak (Keep on Chris about it Mar!)

Our trip begins!

Well the movers have come and gone and we have left our home in Clearwater (I'm writing this a little late - we left the 23rd- but this is the first time I've had to sit down and get it on paper!)

We almost had to stay in Orlando until today (Tuesday) but thankfully we were able to get off on time...

Jesse and I drove seperate cars up to Orlando as we planned to ship his car (the CG pays for one car to be shipped if you're travelling out of the Continental US).

As Jack, the cats (yes, we're bringing our 2 cats!) and I were making our way up to Orlando I got a frantic phonecall from Jesse to say that when he'd cleaned out his car for the movers he'd had them pack his registration as well (which, obviously, he needed to be able to ship the vehicle!) The only option was for him to drive into town to go to the tax/tag/title place and wait in line for a copy of his registration! (If you've never been to the Orlando tag office then you have no idea what a hassle it can be!) There were 80 people in front of him in line (he arrived there at 12:30 and the car shipping place closed at 3.) 2:45 rolled around with no end in sight and so he called the shipping company who agreed to stay open late for him (until 3:30). One of the guys in line with Jesse switched his number so Jesse got bumped up a little in line. He finally got out of the tag office at 3:10 and raced to the shipping yard (he got there at 3:25).

Had that gentleman not exchanged his number with Jesse I don't know if we'd have been able to ship the car! It was Memorial weekend this past weekend and we knew that nothing opened until Tuesday! BUT we got it in! Yay! Needless to say that it was a nerve wracking experience and such a relief when we got it where it needed to be!

Our camping trip

We went on a camping trip with our church a couple of weeks ago -it was a lot of fun! We ended up camping with friends of ours that had preschoolers so it was designated the preschool camping area/nursery!!!!



Here is a picture of our tent, I think that we may have won the award for the smallest tent - we just used the one that Jesse's parents left us (I think it's a backpacking tent!)


Jack had a lot of fun with Daddy, I don't think I've ever seen him so dirty!




Hanging out by the campfire: L to R: Doug, Martie, Christy, Ed, Dena, George (baby) and Jesse

The kids had fun running about with each other! L to R: Tyler, Valerie, Matthew, Ellie and Jack

Here's Doug and Christy Doll. They're two of our closest friends here (we learned all about child training through them! Thanks Dolls!) They are also moving with us up to Kodiak with their two (soon to be three) kids - we are SO excited!

Me and Christy - please don't mind the wild woman hair!

Jack in his "pensive" mood

"I LOVE dirt Mummy!"

Jesse and Jack racing - I think that Jack may have won!

Jack and Tyler holding hands, I'm glad that they'll get to grow up even more together!

My strong lumberjack husband! We (by we I mean the men and Dina, not me :-P ) chopped our own firewood. Look at the muscles on this guy!!!!

Anson, our associate pastor chopping wood. Who knew that he and his wife Dina were such good lumberjacks?! Not me!

You can't have a camping trip without smores - or so I've been told!!!! They were very yummy and Jesse regaled us all with a great way to make smores!

"I LOVE these smores Daddy!"

"It wasn't me that ate that last smore, I promise, I didn't do it!!!"

YUM! Jack had his first smore experience - I think he liked them, don't you?!

It's official... well sort of...

Jesse got the official word today (though no orders to prove it...) that we are headed to Kodiak, Alaska for our next duty station.

We are VERY excited to reunite with our good friends Beth and Zach (and meet their two kiddo's - when they were stationed in Clearwater with us they didn't have any! http://kodiakkoehlers.blogspot.com if you want to read about them and see what life will be like in AK!) We are also very happy to report that 2 of our best friends from this station will also be relocating to Kodiak - their son and daughter (Tyler and McKalee) are Jack's best friends! (Jack and Tyler had their first playdate when Jack was 1 month old and Tyler was 7 months old!)

We have a LOT of planning to do but we're going through a busy time also! A lot of trips in the next month!

For those that don't know where Kodiak is here is the mapquest site!
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&cat=&address=&city=Kodiak&state=ak&zipcode=

http://www.kodiak.org/
http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/

Visiting with Jesse's parents

Jesse's parents flew into Orlando to speak at a supporting church (Pinecastle - the church where Jesse and I met!) We drove up to pick them up and got to have lunch with two of their dear friends (Frank and Chris Garland) --- I think Jesse's dad was just happy to be able to go to Panera again!
Jon got this shot right after we woke up one morning (can you tell we hadn't had our coffee yet?!)


Jack really enjoyed spending time with Nana and Papa


I think Jesse enjoyed spending time with his mom also (though from this picture it doesn't look like it!)

We took them to Honeymoon Island (the state park/beach) by our house for dinner one night. Took a little picnic and watched the sun go down - it was a lot of fun!

Christmas Day

Here is a Picture of Jesse and Jack after our Christmas Eve candlelight service at our Church. We've definately been blessed with an amazing church to go to - Jack has made many little friends in the nursery!

What a lucky little boy Jack was! Santa brought him some cups/plates, books and a computer game system. Mummy and Daddy were the big heroes and got him a wooden train set!

We were very lucky to have been invited around to Jesse's Aunt and Uncle's (his Mom's sister) for lunch on Christmas Day. Aunt Adell, Uncle Savas, Luca and Alicia live in Bradenton (about an hours drive from us) but we're all usually so busy that we rarely get to visit. It was a special treat as well because Jesse's other Aunt and Uncle (Aunt Linda and Uncle David) were visiting from Atlanta.

Here is a picture of their dog Joey. He is such a sweet dog and has quite a funny hairstyle!