Dance Moves

Reese and I arrived back home in Germany Tuesday morning after successfully catching a hop out of Baltimore on our first try. I have to admit I was a little worried, they got to my category and after calling one name they said the plane was full but they were still waiting on some ticketed passengers (i.e. people on orders) to arrive so to wait around, lucky for us some people decided not to show up so we made the flight. When Nate picked us up we headed straight for the doctor to have Reese checked out since she'd had a horrible cough for a few days, turns out she had an ear infection so she's being pumped full of antibiotics now and other than being crabby randomly throughout the day she's doing well.
We had a lot of fun on the East Coast with Sharon and I'll be sure to write a whole post about it complete with pictures in a few days when things have settled down around here, if that ever happens. I actually jumped on to post that Reese has gotten some sweet new dance moves that I've yet to get on tape but DESPERATELY need to. Whenever the mood strikes her to start dancing she busts out the pelvic thrust!! It is hilarious!! Music will be on and she'll be standing and start throwing her hips forward, she'll even do it while in a crawling position or even while you're holding her, it's a dance move without requirements. Her only other move is what I'll call the squat, which is when she kind of bounces up and down while standing, but I think the pelvic thrust is funnier so I'll be sure to get it on film soon enough and post a clip of it.

Fun in the Sun

Reese and I have been in California for about a week and a half now and we've definitely enjoyed all the sun and 60 degree weather. Reese has discovered life in the backyard and loves to go out and play in the sun on the patio and pull the grass out. I took her to the park a few times and she really enjoyed the swings.
This past weekend we spent the day in Monterey and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Reese loves fish and the moment we arrived her eyes got big and she got very excited at the sight of the fish. The Aquarium had an area where you could touch starfish and Reese threw her hands right in the water and started touching them, there was also an area where you could touch stingrays but they were all sitting in the far corner away from where Reese was dabbling her hands in the water. In a few days we'll be leaving Sacramento and heading to the East Coast where we'll be visiting Sharon for a few days before we try and catch our hop back to Germany.

Space-A

Reese and I flew Space-A (that's a military flight for you non-military folk) back to the States so that would could recharge our vitamin D batteries. I've been wanting to try and catch a hop for awhile to see how it would work since tickets from Frankfurt to San Francisco are upwards of a $1,000 on average and I was not disappointed. My friend Sarah had said I would prefer it to flying commercial and she was right, though flying on a military flight has its downsides overall it was a nice way to travel.
The downside of taking a hop is that there is no set schedule and you only hear about possible flights 72 hours in advance. I'd heard of a flight on Wednesday and checked it constantly, but after getting up at 1am and getting ready to head to the airport the flight had been cancelled...luckily we hadn't actually left for the airport. There was another flight on Friday so we headed over to Ramstein and Reese and I got a seat on flight from Ramstein to Maguire (NJ) and then on to Travis (CA). It wasn't difficult to get on since there were 40 something seats on only about 10 of us wanting to get on the flight. We flew on C-17 which is a pretty large cargo plane; the center of the plane was filled with pallets and there were jumpseats along the walls that we sat in. The seats were nice because unlike on a commercial flight they weren't right up against each other, there was at least 4 in. between each seat so you weren't rubbing shoulders with the person next to you and there was nothing in front of us but pallets so there was plenty of space to stretch our legs. Once we were airborne I laid a few blankets out on the ground and Reese crawled around and played with her toys throughout the flight, which was a lot nicer than trying to confine her to her carseat for hours on end. The downside of the flight was that it was very loud and a bit cold inside the plane, they gave us earplugs but Reese's wouldn't stay in and I didn't want her trying to eat them if they fell out, also the flight was a bit longer than usual.

When we landed at Maguire they unloaded a bunch of the pallets and our flight from there to Travis almost the entire center of the plane was empty so Reese got to try and walk around (using my hands) and it made the time pass by a lot faster. When we landed in California the pilot opened the back of the plane and we got to look out on the sun and feel the warm air as we taxied off the runway.

Taking this flight made me feel really bad for my friend Abby and her story of traveling to CT with rude passengers. Everyone was so helpful the entire time. There was always someone who offered to help carry Reese's carseat for me and when we offloaded at Travis someone else offered to carry my bag so I only had to worry about carrying Reese. The pilot came down at the end of the flight and took a picture of Reese and I and talked about how good she was during the flight. Overall everyone was so kind and it was far less complicated than flying on a commercial flight, I mean I was able to go to the bathroom while a kind retired military personnel watched Reese for me and when we went through the security I was able to bring bottles of water which wouldn't have happened elsewhere. Best of all, the entire trip from Germany to California cost me a total of $8.25 which was for the two huge box lunches a bought at the airport to eat on the plane. I'm going to go ahead and say that we'll fly spac-A again, afterall I can a think of a lot of ways to spend the $991.75 I saved by not buying a ticket.

Tainted Puppies

Our band, the Tainted Puppies, competed in the Rock Band 2 tournament on base last weekend and won. I believe it's because we're awesome.