End of Summer

Since I am still stranded in school we are going by the school calendar which means summer is over. We ended summer with a bang though. After returning home from a week in Texas we both went our separate ways. I went north to Wisconsin and Lindsay went south to the Caribbean. Looking back I now see she got the better end of that deal.

I went for some military training for about 11 days. It was a lot of fun and I recieved some valuable insight from 3 pilots that went with us. The weather was great and we thoroughly enjoyed teh 60-70 degree daytime highs. We didn't do much sight seeing....as well there is not much sight to be seen. We did make our way 3 hours across the state to the Mall of America.......not worth it. It's just a big mall. If you don't excited about going to your local mall then you shouldn't get excited about going to that one. It's just bigger and has 3 old navy's instead of 1, as well as many other multiples. The roller coasters in the middle of the mall all seemed to be pretty childish so we didn't waste our money on them.

When we came home from that trip I spent the following two weeks working at the guard base doing odd jobs around there......basically whatever I could to delay going back to Wal-Mart. I started back there on Monday as well. I was ready to quit for good within the first hour of being back. I somehow made it through the first day and the following have been much better. It has turned into a very intense micromanaging enviroment which I can't stand. I think after the first day the managers remembered that it wasn't really my first day, I had just been gone for a month and finally began to let me do what needs to be done without them breathing down my pretty blue shirt.

School should be fun this semester. I have two real estate classes and two finance classes. I can already tell there will be a lot of overlapping information so that should help out. I am also only working 26 hours a week at Wal-Mart and am done by 4:30 mon-fri with weekends off. This semester will be much more enjoyable than the previous 6 years of schooling has been. Most importantly I will not be dealing with ROTC at OU.......That will begin another paragraph...

My time with the pilots in Wisconsin got the wheels spinnin to consider pursuing a pilot career in the guard. Long story short that is what I am now doing. I am no longer in ROTC and am now preparing to apply for a pilot at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base here in OKC. Once I get my degree this December the only thing I will be lacking is some flight time. Turns out I have several connections with flight instructors.....So beginning in January I am going to go full time flight school and get my private pilot certificate (license). Then I want to deploy and make some $$money$$. I will interview for a pilot position in September 2010.

Anyway that's probably enough about me for now. If anyone reads this and wants to know details about Lindsay then you should comment and let her know, because we don't think we really have people that read this thing so she doesn't take the time to update it.

Off to bed now.

Summer Time

Wow it has been awhile hasn't it. So that means the suspense must be killing you and I shouldn't let you down with a short, piddly update entry.....right? Well sorry that's what you get for now. This summer has been really great! I knocked out 6 more hours of school with "A's" which leaves me with 12 hours left in the fall and then I am done. Now that is suspense for ya, well for me I guess. You're probably not as excited for me to graduate as I am. Oh well, you had your time. :)

I am almost completely done with Wal-Mart. I only work about 12 hours a week now with the original intent of going back to full time after summer school, but I really don't want to. I have been working with Linz at the Sand Plum and enjoy that much more. I haven't quite decided what my work will look like next semester, but if it was up to me I would full time at the Sand Plum. It will take some more prayer and waiting to decided, but I will let you know what happens.

Linz has been busy, busy, busy! I haven't minded so much because I have been up there with her. She just experienced the worst wedding to date which ended with the cops being called. It's a long story though so you can ask her about it when you see her.

We are leaving tomorrow morning at 0300 aka 3:00 in the A.M. which leaves us with far less than the desired and much appreciated 8 hours of sleep the good Lord intended us to have every night. I am riding our GSXR750 at Eagles Canyon Raceway all day tomorrow and then we are heading down to Lindsay's parents house for a vacation of landscaping. That's only part of it though. It will be fun and we have both been looking forward to seeing them again.

Anyway this is already longer than I intended so I am off to salvage as much shut eye as I can before we have to get up before the moon. The truck is loaded, I am packed, the house is clean, breakfast is setout and ready, so now I just need to get my wife home so she can pack and get to bed. Goodbye.

Stupid Alarm Clock

So it is Tuesday morning and I don't have work or school until 6:00 tonight so I was going to "sleep in" (I use that term loosely) until 5:30 because I volunteered to help move some stuff at the church at 6:30. Well when I was setting the alarm last night for 5:30 I accidentally set the actual time ahead by 1 hour so instead of "sleeping in" until 5:30 I actually got up at 4:30 which is really only "sleeping in" about 15 minutes compared to usual so it doesn't really count for anything. I already ate breakfast and was waiting for my green tea (I think I may be getting sick and green tea is supposed to be loaded with little disease fighting ninjas called antioxidants so I thought it would be a better choice than coffee) to cool before I realized what I had done. By then it was too late to salvage a little shut eye so here I am updating you.

Yes school is out....well sorta. The spring semester is over but I just can't seem to get enough so I am currently taking an intercession class which takes up my evenings from 6-10 and my weekends from 9-5 so that is pretty exciting. It's a bummer right now but I get to graduate about 5 months earlier so it will be worth it come spring next year. I then have a summer class June 1-25 which is 3 hours a day Mon-Thur. I really don't mind these classes I am just really burnt out on wal-mart right now. 4a.m. wake up calls 4 days a week are just wearing me down. I am cutting back on wal-mart for about 6 weeks starting June 1st. I will only be working Thursday evenings and Friday mornings to ensure I have ample time to do necessary studying for class. I will work with Linz at the Sand Plum in my free time whenever that will be.

I really need to spend some time with my little bro also. I have seen him an average of once a month for the past few months and I am supposed to see him every week. My problem is that I have a hard time thinking of activities to do with him so I just don't do anything, but I am going to get over that this summer and actually see him on a regular basis.

I still have yet to hear anything back about a pilot slot. The 3-4 weeks I was told it would take has since turned into 6-7 weeks which I expected. I am still hoping and praying I will get a slot now. Linz and I got excited about filling out my (our) dream sheet for base location just because of the thought of living in Europe, but I would be pretty disappointed if I don't get a pilot slot.

Linz and Cheri started up P90X again. They are doing really well and seem very motivated to complete it. Way to go ladies!!! I decided P90X is not really my thing. For 1, it is hard. And 2 it is more designed for toning and weight loss which is not my goal. Explanation of reason #1. I understand exercising is supposed to be tiring and push your body to limits in order to break through those limits and that's all well and good, but I don't like working myself to near death in order to achieve a goal that is not exactly what I want. I can go to the gym and lift weights, which is also very difficult, to the limits of my body and not feel like dieing when I am done. I still feel like I got a great exercise and it's more in line with my goal of building muscle and getting stronger. I decided to try the workout plan I did while I was in Turkey. I put on about 18lbs of muscle in 3 months with this workout and I am hoping to do it again. It focuses on strength training and the workouts are only 30-40 minutes 5 days a week compared to 60-90 minutes 6 days a week. It does not include any cardio, but I plan doing that myself through swimming and mountain bike riding. As the summer progresses we will post up results.

Well I guess that is enough blabbing for now. I am going to go eat breakfast again and get ready to go to church and start my day.

Date Night

Linz and I took some much needed time to ourselves last night. We went out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. I think it is safe for me to say this is Linz's FAVORITE restaurant. I had never actually been there before last night and it wasn't my first choice, but I also didn't really care too much as long as we got some good food. We loaded up in Porsche and drove our somewhat dressed up selves to the restaurant. I dropped off Linz and then hid Porsche in the back of the parking lot. Last night was in the 20's with pretty high winds so I didn't waste anytime making my way to the entrance.

Once inside it was only about a 20 minute wait and much warmer. We enjoyed an amazing dinner without the distractions of homework, weddings, kids (kaitlyn), cooking or cleaning. We both had our fill of appetizer bread and then boxed up half of our meals including cheesecake. It made for a good lunch today. Here we are last night.

Not a whole lot out of the norm happened this week. Lots of work for Linz and lots of school for me since ROTC started this week. I am the Special Projects Officer this semester which should be much easier and less time consuming than my squadron commander job last semester. So far I have had ample time to do homework and odd jobs around the house so I am really hoping this semester stays this way, but I don't really look for it to.

Linz has been extremely busy this week with work from all of the bridal shows they have been going to. Lots of work means lots of money, but also means lots of weddings being booked which means a lot more work in the future. Linz is going to work on some kind of work schedule so she will actually have down time.

The semester is starting off good so far and hopefully we can keep it under control.

We knew it wouldn't last.....

the Christmas break that is. School has now started once again and once again our lives are filled with ridiculously expensive books that don't get used as much as thier price tag would warrent, hours of coffee downing lectures, more homework and group projects than we care to list and of course tuition and fees. This is all in addition to that little thing we all like to partake in called LIFE.

Yes this semester will be very busy for us both, especially since Lindsay is working more than ever and we are both attending two different Universities, but it will be the last one for Lindsay and I know that this too shall pass. We will just take it one week at a time with the support of our awesome lifegroup, family and friends.

A quick recap on the last week of events for us:
1) My knee is much better, but is still only at about 70% maybe.
2) I rear ended an Accord in the truck at a stop sign, but no damage was done and I have heard nothing from the owner so hopefully I am in the clear.
3) We have been keeping Kaitlyn for a couple days at time, giving us our first taste of parenthood.......I am soooooo not ready! Kaitlyn is an amazingly well behaved and smart child, but even she almost wears me out. 2 thumbs up to you parents!!(even though I know Lindsay and I were the most well behaved and sweet children EVER)
4) We really want to go on a mission trip this year but don't know where to yet so if you come across any good ideas let us know. We would like to leave the country, but are not necessarily set on it.
5) Lindsay knocked out 2 intercession classes worth 3 credit hours. Way to go her!
6) We have a problem of sorts with our plumbing. Our toilets just don't quite have the flushing power they used to so Jack (our landlord) is coordinating with the plumber to come take a look. Hopefully that gets resolved before our plungers need replaced. :) I hope that wasn't too much info for ya.
7) We bought the Louie Giglio "Passion" series dvd's and are discussing those at lifegroup. He tries to put in perspective just how INDESCRIBABLE our God is. I would highly recommend at least watching "Indescribable" and "How Great is Our God". I believe 268store.com is the cheapest place to purchase them.

That is about all we can think of for now and it's past our bedtime so I will end it here.

Oh, one more thing. The Lord has really been telling me that I need to work on establishing new relationships with people I am around on a regular basis but don't typically interact with. There are several co-workers that I would love to witness to or invite to church but I have never really talked with them before so I am going to focus on trying to establish a foundational relationship with them so they might have a more open mind when I mention Jesus or chuch in a conversation. This also applies to school. I need to at least build some type of relationship with the students around me so they would be more open to accepting a church invite. Please pray that I will be sensitive to the Spirit prompting me to talk with others and give me the courage to initiate that conversation.

Good Night.

I am too tired to proofread this so I apologize for mistakes.