First Snow

We finally had some snow in Deutschland! I was so excited when I opened the windows and saw the snow on the ground. Of course, it was gone before noon! The cats got to enjoy it though and it was beautiful. Now it's sunny and in the 50's again.

Marsala, Sicily

This was by far the BEST TDY I have ever been on in my life! Weapons always treats each other rather badly and we tend to make life difficult for each other. It's the "I have to go do this boring thing so you have to as well" mentality. Well, once we got to Trapani and took the bus to the hotel we settled in for a free drink at the bar. After we decided on dinner plans the FA came over and said he didn't expect me or Heiner to show up the next day for mission planning! The mission planning room is really small and it didn't make sense to have us there if we couldn't do much to help. Heiner and I spent the whole day walking around and shopping and even walked to the ocean. Then we took a bottle of wine back to the hotel and drank it by the pool.

NEW NIECE

Julie Lynn Hutton arrived on Friday, at 21 1/2 inches and 7 1/2 pounds. Mommy (my sister Mary) and baby are doing great, and Daddy (Jim) is still breathing as well:) I'm so happy for Jim and Mary and they will have quite a housefull now with Andrea, Blake, Abby and Faith! Mary has been one of the greatest blessings of my life and to see her beautiful children makes me so happy. I have been so blessed with all my wonderful nieces and nephews, although if any of you are my siblings reading this, slow down with the kid making!!!! It just makes mom that much worse about asking me to have some:)

Gran Canaria

I went on my first TDY with NATO and I have to say, it ROCKED!!! We flew to the Canary Islands on a Friday and had all day Saturday to enjoy the sunny beaches. On Saturday night we had a crew dinner at a Go Kart park and I entered my first Go Kart race, I LOVE IT!!! It was so much fun and I'm working on setting up an outing here in GK as well. On Sunday we had to mission plan for the better part of the day and then I flew on Monday and controlled Spanish pilots, very polite (they called me Ma'am whenever I told them a turn). On Tuesday the jet had blue smoke fill up the cabin so they other crew didn't fly and on Wednesday we had a hydralic leak so my crew didn't fly. Thursday the instructors controlled so I didn't fly and then we returned on Friday. In between I ate at least 4 new kinds of fish and had about half my dinners with the Italian's in the group. The cows were in front of La Casa Vieja where we ate dinner. What a memorable trip, even the Nude Beach part:)

Karneval

Karneval was the most amazing experience and I will definitely be buying a costume next year. For all intents and purposes it is a chance for teenagers to walk in a parade, drink themselves senseless and do it again the next day. I have never seen young people drink so much, but have so much fun in the process!! Each town has a float to advertise their town, soccer team, local establishments, etc... These pictures demonstrate how they will decorate the "float" and then all the people with that float dress in the same costumes. Over the course of three days they travel all over to the towns in their region and take part in up to 3 hours of parade, culminating in a party at the local Hall.