Best Halloween EVER

Monday, October 31, 2011 marks the best Halloween experience our family has had (unfortunately Matt had to miss it due to his 15 days of 12h shifts--but on the upside, his anti-motionsickness drug regimen gifted him an extraordinary flight).

The girls started out their day with festivities at Cimarron Montessori, which included a walk to a local nursing home, where the kids sang songs and put on a costume parade for, and then trick-or-treated from wonderful residents (and, having spent a semester of clinicals at a nursing home, I can only imagine what an absolute ray of sunshine this must have been for their day...I am such a sap, but it actually makes me tear up to think about how wonderful it must have been); then enjoyed an entire afternoon of pizza, crafts, partying, and movies.  The girls came home for a tasty dinner of mini mummy meatloaf, and then we were off to the base festivities!

I love a well-organized and safe event, and the base housing trick-or-treat was all that and then some.  The trick-or-treating hours were both stated and condensed (5:30-7:30pm), which I think inspired much broader participation.  An email was sent out instructing folks that did not wish to participate to leave their porch lights off.  Most folks participating actually sat on their patios/lawns to hand out candy, which gave the event a festive, friendly, block-party-esque atmosphere.

Heading out for some fun!

One of the commanders set up candy stations and a "pit-stop" with chili, cupcakes, drinks, and more; and the Enlisted Spouses Group served hot apple cider from a crock pot.  Security Forces and a team of volunteers, including McGruff the Crime Dog patrolled the streets and handed out safety coloring/goody packs to trick or treaters.

Thanks to a Halloween-day 50% off sale at Walgreens and no utility bills, giant inflatables garnished many yards...my kids are obsessed with these, so they were a huge hit!  It was such a fun and safe event.  The girls and I stayed out the entire two hours.  The kids walked a lot, but near the end of the evening, they curled up in our wagon with their favorite blankets, so it was a nice little workout for me, to boot!

Best decorated house of the night: spirited, but not scary...and that fence is not normally part of their yard--they really went all out (and I am sorry I did not capture the towering pillars they erected on either side!).

Thanks to Cimarron Montessori, Kenwood Manor Nursing Home, Vance AFB Family Housing, and anti-motionsickness drugs for a day of wonderful memories!  :o)

Weekends

Being employed once again REALLY has me appreciating the weekend.  The were times not too long ago (such as last week) where part of me entered each weekend with anxiety because it seemed like the competing expectations of all that "time" turned into crankiness/stress, but this weekend it was so nice to relax.  I did "movie night sleepovers" with the kids in the master bed on Friday and Saturday (never did it back-to-back before) so we could all sleep in and Matt could hit the sack early to recover from the week.  We still crammed a lot of activity in: a birthday party, pumpkin carving, decorating, unpacking (yes, still from our August move-in), and baking for the kids' school holiday parties (the girls will be wearing costumes to school tomorrow and walking to a local nursing home to sing holiday songs and put on a parade, before returning to their classrooms for a Halloween pizza party); plus Matt got in an afternoon of football/studying at the O'Club (Officer's Club--and the Giants won [yay/phew]) and still spent plenty of time with us.  :o)

Feeling very well rested and ready for the week ahead!!  This will be my first week at work without my predecessor, and I am very excited to get more of a handle on things.  Hopefully my base access card will be activated soon so I can actually log into the insurance and billing systems (otherwise I will be spending a *lot* of time collecting forms at the pharmacy).  :o)

Semi-homemade (as in, I used munchkins) Halloween cake pops for my youngest's class party.  Unfortunately, by the time I signed up for my oldest's, all that was left was the far less climatic vegetable tray.  Oh well, at least we are using a Mickey Mouse sectional serving plate and it includes whipped cream cheese for a dip (Big Sis' FAVORITE).  :o)

This was my first time making cake pops...and I am VERY glad I used munchkins because I messed up SO many times just with the decorating.  I can't imagine if I actually tried to make the balls, which are apparently even harder to get right on your first go-through.  There was actually a point where I had to wash off the iced-on faces with a paint brush because they started running, and another point where I had to redo the entire batch because a domino-effect ended up happening causing all the still-runny candy coatings to splotch together.  This is definitely a dessert I would like to get good at, though.  It is one of the girls' favorite treats and there are so many options in terms of just about everything (flavors, themes, etc.).

Community fish

Today we acquired two new members to our family of 6: goldfish.  A neighbor posted some free ones on our Student Spouse FB group and I jumped at the chance, thinking about how excited the girls would be--and I am all about low-maintenance, but fun, pets.  When I went to pick them up this morning, I learned that we would be their third family.  Fish are not the easiest pets to PCS (permanent change of station) with, and pilot students/families are here about 12-15 months, tops--so they have been bouncing about from one house to the next.

Social networking sites like FB make community-style offerings so very much easier.  The other day, the same family who gave us the fish picked up a stack of cardboard boxes from our garage.  Our neighbors just became the third owners of a giant trampoline.  And there are easily 10-20 freebies (everything from laundry detergent to fences to pets [this week alone included our fish and a puppy]) posted on our FB group each week.

Here are our two new little guys:

Little Sis has named the smallest one "Princess Susie" (she names just about everything "Susie", including all her "Ariel" dolls, lol).  Big Sis has named the larger one "Dorothy", but Dorothy is going by "Wanda" for the Halloween season, since it is "a witch name".

The scorpion flight

Today I learned that the different flights within each squadron correspond with different animal patches.  Matt's S flight is "The Scorpions".  The other half of his 12-15 class is the R ("Rhinoceros") flight--which I was slightly wishing Matt had been assigned to, given our youngest daughter's intense love of rhinos, but that desire quickly abated when we saw that flight's charging rhino door logo, promoting Little Sis to scream and bolt away from "the angry rhino".  The scorpion logo looks more like a big--but calm and nonaggressive--bug...or lobster, as the kids see it.

The girls and I were gifted this insider perspective this afternoon, as all the UPT T6 flights hosted trick or treating for pilot students' and IPs' kids.  Each class decorated their part of the hall, some more spookily than others, and everyone's kids dressed up to trick or treat and spend some coveted time with their busy moms/dads.  I thought this was such a nice thing for the flights to do, as the UPT schedule is very grueling on families, and can be confusing to kids, due to its lack of regularity.  While a good number of the students are fresh-out-of-college newlyweds, there seem to be only 1-3 students per class with kids, so I was very touched and appreciative that the squadrons reached out to include the families in this way.

The girls, as Princess Jasmine and "Princess Jasmine's friend the Purple Butterfly Princess", posing with their dad, who is sporting an elephant cap (for a very economical version of Abu the monkey in elephant form).  I sported a similar cap--a tiger for an economical Raja.  :o)

The girls posing by a cute penguin pilot at the squadron entrance:

Next month, we are also looking forward to a "day in the life"-style open house/tour to get a better picture idea of what our Matt is going through.  Speaking of Matt, the poor guy threw up more times than he could count during his flight today and is officially on "air sickness cap", which means he is progressing toward the 3- and 5-day spin programs, but first gets to enjoy 3 days of flying while using anti-motionsickness pills--a treat that will hopefully breathe enough passion and enthusiasm for flying into him to last until he overcomes the airsickness obstacle!

1st episode of airsickness

Sooo...Matt had his second flight today, boasting more advanced maneuvers and higher G's (5, as opposed to 2).  He threw up three times, twice in the same bag d/t a slight lack of foresight on his part (he is responsible for stocking his own barf bags for each flight).  The girls and I came home from a base housing Halloween shindig around 8pm to find him sprawled on the floor, moaning a bit, with puffy eyes.  The girls jumped on his belly a bit (he has extremely unusual/quasi-violent bonding rituals with them), which he said actually helped.

He did manage to muster enough energy to entertain his flight that evening with a large study/chitchat session at our house, collapsing, however, within about 15 minutes after they left...and pretty much ruining my attempt at watching "Grey's Anatomy" tonight as the study session was in the family room, and as he has also taken to sleeping there, in our oversized recliner--due to snoring/dry throat and GI issues that are severely exacerbated when he lies flat.  Normally I wouldn't mind, particularly as the kids wound down fairly quickly, even after realizing company was here, and still managed to go to bed nicely.  However, this has been a pretty crazy-busy week for me as well...and I was really looking to multitask holiday cream cheese on wheat ghost sandwiches with "Grey's", "The Office", and possibly champagne.

On a more fun note, these are the cute cream cheese ghosts!  My oldest is bringing these and carrot sticks in for her class snack tomorrow.  :o)

Halloween festivities

In addition to base housing offering a number of fun events for residents (one of which we will be attending tomorrow), the base also seems to have at least one or two really nice family events per month.  This month, we enjoyed Oktoberfest and a kids' craft and story hour at the base library (the latter of which is close enough to our home that you can see it from the street corner...we took the wagon there this weekend!).

Oktoberfest: Matt's quote about the event was, "I actually feel sorry for people who aren't here."  (Granted, this sentiment was probably due more than anything to the limitless availability of gluten free food: chili, pickles, onions, and burgers and hot dogs--available without the bun.  He was in heaven.  Base housing dining events are much more rationed, lol--though still generous and delish!)

McGruff the Crime Dog and Sparky the Fire Dog made guest appearances:

Big sis got her wounds (from tripping on uneven pavement) tended by the base fire crew:

Pumpkin painting:

Lassoing: 

Posing, big time:

Potato sack race:

Searching for rubber band bracelets in pasta:

Big Sis & her winnings:

Little Miss was OBSESSED with this fan-driven duck-racing game:

Rocking out:

Kids craft & story time: 3 cute Halloween activities and 3 fun stories.

Hard at work:

Big Sis is very particular about modeling her projects exactly as laid out in the instructions...

Little Sis, not so much.

...
And to close, one last "life on base" plus: one of the many perks to no utility bills...Petunia's guiltless indulgence in electric blanket warmth!

Dollar ride!

Matt's dollar ride went splendidly.  To start, he flew during sunset, so the view must have been spectacular--although he didn't mention it, noting only that he needed to be landed before dark as night flying had not yet been tackled in his intimidating syllabus yet.  The best part is that he did not get airsick!!  Considering everyone else in his class did, this is some strong evidence of the Barany chair's capabilities.  He said that he "dry heaved" a bit at the end, but the episode was mild enough to be classified merely as what is "typical" of one's first flight in a jet.

I am thankful I got some pix of another guy's dollar ride yesterday, because I really did not capture Matt's well.  I had the zoom lens ready to go, but I have yet to figure out how to take good pictures when both lights and motion are combined and the aircraft lighting really blurred up every pic.  Photos aside, I am thrilled Matt's first flight was in the late afternoon, so the girls and I could enjoy it together.  There were about 5 planes up in the air at that time, so I didn't know exactly which one was his, but I went with my gut and picked one, telling the girls, "That's your daddy up there...flying!"  They were both extremely excited and giggly about this.  Such a different feel in saying that and actually letting them see him in the air, as opposed to just talking about it.  I know they will be beside themselves (as will I) in a few short weeks when we get to observe his first solo from the flight tower!