Crossing Over

Colum is now on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout! On Monday evening, his den, the Komodo Dragons had their crossing over ceremony. Ray wanted me to point out that Colum has also earned his first 'major' achievement in scouting, which is the Arrow of Light award.

The Carrier Teddy Roosevelt, TR, Pulls Into Port

The day after the fly in, we headed out to Norfolk to welcome the rest of the ground officers and sailors on the TR home. It was a neat experience to catch that first glimpse of the carrier returning home after a long deployment, with the sailors in white manning the rails. It's quite something to see a ring of white all around atop the carrier. The kids had a lot of fun playing with the other kids at the pier, and we chatted with fellow officers and wives while watching the festivities....
what was even better was going on board the TR later that day! Ray showed the kids (& me!) where he slept, ate, worked, and prayed while at sea. An interesting thing to me is that the carrier had that 'airport' smell, and you have to think it's quite impressive for these guys to live on something that inspires claustrophobia... (I don't even wanna think about the guys who live in submarines!!)

VFA-15 Fly-In

Today was homecoming day for the pilots of VFA-15. Even though Ray was not flying in, we went anyway to support the squadron and to participate in the festivities. It was kind of nice to go and enjoy the afternoon, without any of the stress or hyper-excitement... the only thing that I really missed out on, was the 'cool' factor of being able to see my hubby fly over in formation... and to see him strut down the line in his flight suit, flowers in hand, after 8 months away! After all, you pretty much deserve it after loaning your hubby to the Navy for 24/7 over eight months....

Easter Fun at Liesl's & Therese's Preschool

Liesl's & Therese's preschool hosted an easter party & egg hunt. Unfortunately, it rained all that day so the egg hunt was held inside. The kids still had a lot of fun searching from eggs amongst the chairs, tables, & fake topiary.