Assignment Night!

Wow is it really already Tuesday?! Life has been a wonderfully exciting whirlwind the past few days. Let's go back to Friday... I was such a ball of nerves about getting our assignment which I'm sure you could tell by my last month of posts :) Everyone arrived at the Club on base just before 5pm and anxiously awaited the results. For those you who aren't familiar with AF assignment nights, they are basically a big party (and a VERY well deserved big party thats for sure!). Tons of people from base come to support the class getting their assignments and everyone is cheering and shouting as the guys take their roast before finding out their new assignment. The roasts can be pretty brutal and are always very entertaining. My friend Brittany was so nice to record Jake's for me... Here it is!!

And so the official assignment is....

C-17'S TO TRAVIS AFB, CALIFORNIA!!! We got our #1 choice :) And as you can tell by the video we were very excited and so happy with the outcome. In fact, almost every guy in Jake's class got one of their top choices - it was an awesome, awesome night! Here's a look at all the assignments and a group shot of the beautiful 10-13 spouses...

And it was a also a great surprise that one of my best friends here, Allison, is also going to be moving to Travis AFB!! Her husband got KC-10's and I am so excited that we don't have to say goodbye. And actually she's never even been to California so I get to show her around! Travis AFB is really close to Napa, San Fransisco, Sacramento and not too far from all my other favorite places like Yosemite, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and of course southern Cali :) But the best part? Travis is only 2 hours away from my family and friends back "home". It's such a great feeling to know that they'll only be a short car ride away and that I can go see them whenever I want.

On top of getting a great location, it was just really nice to see all of Jake's hard work pay off with him getting such a great plane to fly for his career. According to Wikipedia... "The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft.  The C-17 is used for rapid strategic airlift of troops and cargo to main operating bases or forward operating bases throughout the world; it can also perform tactical airlift, medical evacuation and airdrop missions." 

Here are some C-17 pictures and a video talking about Jake's awesome new plane...

So there it is! It's official! The hard part of all this is that we don't report to Travis AFB until the beginning of March 2011 so we have about six more months to wait until we actually get to our new home. The reason for the delay is that Jake has to go to training for the C-17 for four months in Oklahoma and also a month of survival training in Washington. But for now it's just exciting to know that our time in Mississippi is coming to a close and we are so excited to start a new phase of our lives back on the west coast! Thank you everyone for all your support and prayers - We are so happy and thankful :)

24 hours from now...

...we'll be getting our new assignment! I can hardly believe its really almost here. The anticipation has been almost unbearable. Thank goodness this has a been a really busy and fun week which has helped a little to keep my mind off it. Tuesday was my birthday and I have now reached the ripe ol' age of 23 ;) It was a really nice day and I felt pretty spoiled by the end of it. Jake had a beautiful bouquet of flowers sent to my office which was the best surprise ever and then I had a fun birthday dinner out with my friends (Jake had to fly that night so we celebrated my birthday dinner together last night instead. Hey, I didn't mind... Two birthday dinners? Oh yeah!). But the best part of all? I'm getting my new computer!! Like I said, GREAT birthday!

And yesterday was a HUGE day too... Jake completed his last flight of UPT! He is now officially done with the program which means no more ridiculously long days of studying for him and that I finally get to have my husband back (woo hoo!). It has been a long, long year of training and we are both so ready for this chapter of our lives to come to a close. Tomorrow is our Assignment Night - the night where all of Jake's hard work pays off and we'll finally get to know what's coming next. I'll keep you posted :)

The 10-13 Drop!!!

We got our drop of assignment choices yesterday and couldn't be happier with the outcome. Just about everything we wanted showed up on the list! Here's what we have to choose from (in alphabetical order, not the order we want them)...

AC-130 Hurlbert (Florida)	C-17 Charleston (South Carolina)	C-17 Elmendorf (Alaska)
C-17 McChord (Washington)	C-17 McGuire (New Jersey)	C-17 Travis (California)
C-5 Dover (Delaware)	C-5 Travis (California)	E-8 Robbins (Georgia)
KC-10 Travis (California)	KC-10 McGuire (New Jersey)	KC-135 Fairchild (Washington)
KC-135 Hickam (Hawaii)	KC-135 Kadena (Japan)	KC-135 McConnell (Kansas)
KC-135 Mildenhall (England)	KC-135 Seymour-Johnson (North Carolina)	RC-135 Offut (Nebraska)
RPA Creech (Nevada)	RPA Cannon (New Mexico)	T-1/T-6 Instructor (Mississippi)

So now Jake will turn in his "dream sheet" with the assignment options listed in the order we want. The hard part about this list is that it also applies to the two other 10-13 UPT classes at the other training bases. We know that those are the planes and locations available to us but we don't know how many there are of each assignment and which ones will come to our base. So for now its definitely still a guessing game but in just 9 more days we will know for sure - and those of you who know Jake and I can probably guess exactly which locations we are hoping for :) Well alright, fingers are really crossed now... say a little BIG prayer for us!!

UPT: Phase 3 (Almost) Complete!

I can't believe that this long year of pilot training has pretty much come to an end. As of today Jake only has six flights left!! Here's a reminder of the plane that Jake is currently flying - the T-1 (the AF trainer for cargo and tanker aircrafts)...

Unless you've seen it first hand, its really hard to even imagine what these guys have gone through to get to this point in the UPT program. They've done well over 100 flights (including navigation, formation, air refueling, low levels, etc), several checkrides, weekly tests and stand-ups, and of course all the "behind the scenes" study work that goes into each of those things just listed.

And speaking of checkrides, can I just take a second to brag? My hubby has worked so hard; he has a focus and drive to achieve his goals like nobody I've ever known. He studied his face off for both of his T-1 checkrides and I'm so happy that all of his efforts were rewarded - he got an E3 on BOTH of his checkrides! (For those of you not in the UPT world, that is an amazing score...) And on top of all his hard work, Jake never complains. When he gets thrown into random flights or double-turns multiple days in a row or gets told he has to fly over his entire weekend, he just sucks it up and does it - and does it well, might I add.

Can you tell I'm a proud wife? Oh yeah, I'm proud alright, and I know that August 13th (Jake's graduation) will be such a huge day for him. I seriously can't wait to see his wings pinned on. But before we can get there we have one more HUGE thing - something that makes my stomach knot up just thinking about it - Assignment Night (dun dun dun...) July 30th is coming up fast and while I am ready, I'm not sure I'm really ready! haha. For those of you not in this situation, just imagine the anxiety of a day where you find out where you will be living for the next 4 years, knowing that whatever location pops up on that slide by your name is where you will be going - no ifs, ands, or buts - and you have zero control over it. Yeah. It's scary and exciting and oh-my-goodness its next Friday!!!

I mentioned that we were supposed to get our "drop" on Friday... well it didn't come (no surprise there... Air Force...). We should hopefully be getting it on Wednesday but definitely by Friday. The drop is essentially the list of all the locations and planes that are available for us to get on our assignment night (basically if something is not on the list, there's a very little chance of getting it). Once we get the drop, everyone will fill out their dream sheet, listing those planes and locations in the order they most want. Getting the drop is huge because we can literally look at the list and say... "one of the assignments is going to be ours". It can really narrow our options.

I'm so excited to see what everyone ends up getting. Where will all my friends end up?? Most likely we'll all be scattered across the globe. The guys and the wives of class 10-13 have become like family to me and I'm hoping to see everyone end up with great assignments. 12 more days and we will know!!

Girl Time

Lately Jake and all of his classmates have been on overload with their flying schedule. Being just weeks from graduation, the instructors are trying to push everyone to get finished up early. The result of this? A couple of lonely wives. But we have come to the unspoken agreement that instead of sitting around the house by ourselves bored, we'll just have lots of girl time! I've said it before and I'll say it again - I am SO thankful for my friends here! This place would be miserable without them and I know leaving them will be the hardest part about moving.

On Tuesday after work we created a mini dog park in Allison's backyard (there are 5 dogs between us 3 girls!). We just sat and enjoyed a cool glass of wine in the humid summer weather and relaxed. So wonderful. Check out our pack...

Tonight we are going to Allison's fitness class (she's a personal trainer) to let her kick our butts in a workout and then we plan to stuff ourselves with frozen yogurt... I know that makes no sense really but it sounds fun right? Tomorrow night is girls night out and I am SO excited for that too! Six of us are going to get all dressed up and ditch the boys for dinner and dancing in Starkville. Then Saturday is a shopping day (woo-hoo!) and Sunday we'll start the week right with our weekly afternoon pool date. See, lots of girl time - and it is great! I refuse to be the UPT wife that sits on the couch, bored-to-death, waiting for her husband to come home.

PS - Only 2 more weeks until Assignment Night!! We should hopefully be getting our "drop" tomorrow (Eek!). More on that to come...