GRADUATION......JOE HAS HIS WINGS!!!!!!

Graduation was last week. It was a very emotional week, plus the pregnancy hormones are in full effect. Joe's mom came from AZ and his dad came from TX. I was in good company because they love Joe and are as proud of him as I am. This past year and half has been very intense and full of stress and studying. You know when something is over people say it is bittersweet because it was hard, but they will miss stuff about it? I have to say that, for me, graduation was not bittersweet at all. I felt very relieved that Joe was finally done. I'm pretty sure most of the crying I did was because I was thinking about everything that we have been through to get to this point, and that it is finally over. Joe EARNED his wings!!!! It's not all smooth sailing from here, but the hell (yeah, I said it) that is UPT is done with. I will say that through this journey we have made a lot of friends that we are going to keep in touch with for years to come. Plus we got to live in the South which I had mixed feeling about to begin with, but I really do love it here and there is lots of stuff I will miss about it. On to a new adventure, right?

The Air Force set up a few activities for the families of the graduates. First we went to the squadron to meet everyone and have breakfast. Then we took a bus to the airfield where they fly their helicopters. We got to see all of the gear they need to fly. Then they took us in a pitch black room to demonstrate the night vision goggles. Very cool, plus we got to see River picking his nose when he thought no one was looking, that is nothing new.

River with the helmet

Ezra trying it with the clear visor.

The fam, doesn't Ezra look happy?

There was also a display of the aircrafts that Joe trained on for us to look at. First the T-6 plane that he flew in Mississippi. Some of his instructors from Miss actually flew the plane over and Joe got to visit with them.

Joe and the boys on the T-6.

So the sad truth is if you see helicopters everyday, and you've already got to play in the one at your dad's work that you are allowed to sit in and push all of the buttons, seeing another one can get pretty boring if you're 7 or 4 years old.
Here we are, in the Huey, trying to get Ezra to smile.

At the graduation ceremony the boys and I got to go on the stage to pin Joe's wings on him, then we posed for pictures taken by a professional.

Here is Joe's page in the program. I was very honored that the boys and I could pin Joes' wings on him. I did feel like it was my right to pin those bad boys on Joe, but when I saw it in writing on the program I was very touched and got emotional about it. Did I say that I am so proud of Joe for working so hard, and that I'm glad it is over?

Later that night we went to dinner with all of the graduates and their families. Once again very boring if you are 7 and 4. Joe was awesome and made up a song that had the boys cracking up.

Isn't this a fun pic?


Up next for the Lasuras. We are having the ultrasound to find out if it's a boy or a girl on the 4th of April. We have to be in Albuquerque, New Mexico by April 15th to start the next phase of helicopter training. We are still waiting for official orders, so we can't really get the ball rolling on our huge list of things to do until we get the orders.

Joe here...Wow. The resemblance is uncanny. I can't believe Joan made me shave it. One weird thing is for the twenty one days I had it no one made eye contact with me. I wonder why.
P.S.(it's Joan) Joe cannot grow hair in the middle of his upper lip, he did not shave it to look that way.

Assignment Night Update

Ok, I accidentally lied about the more information coming soon in my last post. I honestly intended on posting about assignment night and sharing information about Wyoming, but it was a busy week.
Assignment night was exciting and to get their assignment the students harnessed the power of Albert Einstein's mustache that their instructor just happened to have in a jar. (Remember, mustache March?) It was funny. Joe wasn't concentrating hard enough, I guess he was hungry because instead of our assignment coming up on the big screen it was a picture of a burrito. He got it together and we were able to see that we are going to Wyoming.

Joe trying to get inspiration from a pickled mustache.
If you look close you can kind of see Joe's "stache"


We are excited to go to Wyoming and be in the West again. I didn't want to be a baby and put Wyoming first on our list, when there was the possible opportunity to live in some "really cool" places. I mean I never thought I would be excited to live in Wyoming, but this assignment is exactly what I needed. Plus it sounds kind of cool to say that we will be living in Cheyenne, it makes me think of country music and rodeos. Part of being in the Air Force is that you get to see different parts of the world, but I miss my family and it will be nice to be able to drive to AZ for holidays and summer vacation, if I want to. It will be about a 15 hour drive, much better than the 27 hours from Alabama. Also I'm hoping for cheap flights from Dever (about 1.5 hours from Cheyenne) to Phoenix. Everyone(other people in the Air Force) that we have talked to about going to Wyoming are happy for us and tell us that we will love it there. I am told that it is very windy there. I also heard that they have this stuff called snow, I'm not sure what that is but I'll let you know when we get there.
So, a little over a year ago when Joe told me he couldn't stop thinking about wanting to fly helicopters and that I had to give helicopters some serious thought and quit leaving the room every time he started talking about helicopters, he told me that one of the jobs that helicopter pilots in the Air Force had was to fly the space and missile guys from base out to where they work, which apparently is pretty far because you need a helicopter to get there. So guess what Joe will be doing in Cheyenne? Flying the space and missile guys, well he said it's not those guys actually, but the security forces guys (police on base) who work out there too. One of Joe's instructors was stationed in Wyoming and he said that it might be kind of a boring job for Joe, but he will have pretty regular hours and I will get to see him on a regular basis. I am super excited about that part. How boring can it be though? I mean he still gets to fly a helicopter everyday as his job.
We had graduation this morning but I will save that for the next post, I took lots of pictures. Thanks everyone for supporting us and making feel like you care.

Wyoming, here we come!

Joe had his assignment night tonight and we are going to FE Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We are very excited and happy with this assignment. More details soon.

Assignment Night, The Mustache, and Our Needs

Are you totally excited for Assignment Night tomorrow?.....I am
Have you been waiting over a year to get your first assignment?....I have
Are you totally sad/mad that the people in charge decided it would work better for them to have assignment night next Friday on the14th?......I am
Are you going to pout and cry about it?....I did

So we have to wait yet another week to find out our first assignment, I was pretty devastated. I know that there are worse things that can happen to a person, but it was a total shock to me . I know it's only a week.

There has been a lot of discussing our "list" and rearranging the order of our base choices. We did a lot of thinking and praying about what order we would put our base choices. It was very surprising what we ended putting on the list. I'll keep everyone out there guessing, just like I am.

We had a crazy thing happen here, our friends who I mentioned in the last post, got a change of assignment. They already graduated and everything, the assignment they were given was flying hueys in Wyoming. The short version of the story is our friend was at work, they asked him if he would like to switch from hueys to 6os. He said that he would, they told him to make a list of his top choices and turn it in. He called his wife, they came up with a list. He turned it in. They gave him his first choice, to Kadena Afb in Japan. Now I'm thinking there is an open spot to Wyoming and they will be giving it out at Joe's assignment night. I guess like a lot of things in the air force, we'll just have to wait and see.

So it's March. For student pilots and some other people in the air force that means Mustache March. In March they decide to grow mustaches to promote brotherhood and camaraderie, yeah right! Or in other words, your husband looks not so cute/creepy for the month of March. Joe wasn't going to participate this year, but there is a lot of peer pressure down at the squadron and obviously they didn't see him last year. The good news is we have graduation on the 21st and I have been promised that there will be no sign of a mustache on graduation day. Good thing, I'm sure we will be taking a lot of pictures that day.

Shall we have some fun to lighten the mood?

My friend Kelsey did this on her blog, when I saw it I knew I was going to do it for our family. This is what comes up when you type in our names into google and the word "needs". It was so funny and random.
Joe needs....
Joe needs a singer for his band
Joe needs food badly
Joe needs to go on vacation again
Joe needs a career coach
Joe needs some assistance

Joan needs...
Joan needs to have faith
Joan needs two points before she can graph a line
Joan needs a little redirection, but this comes with being an active child
Joan needs to plan her days around interruptions from people
Joan needs a man with money to give her the kind of life she desires

Ezra needs...
Ezra really needs to go pee
Ezra needs our support
Ezra needs to be smacked with the reality feather
Ezra needs to realize all's well that ends well
Ezra needs to get down from that tower once in a while

Not so much for River
River needs.....
Mississippi River needs a cleanup
Vanishing Jordan River Needs Global Rescue Effort
Gila River Needs Water to Run Wild
River needs a hero
Old Man River Needs To Retire