Combat Dining In 2017

Combat Dining In is often a once-in-a-career event. With budget constraints, low manning, high mission tempo, and overall stress that we feel in the military, it takes a lot to plan an event like this.

Luckily, we had a group of stellar NCOs who knew the importance of high morale. So they put together a Dining In with obstacle courses, great food, cheap beer, and water fights every few minutes!

Because there were water balloons flying, squirt guns bursting, and buckets dumping, there was no way I'd have my phone out of it's plastic bag more than a few seconds. But we were able to capture some fun times before and after!

My Senior NCOs (senior Enlisted) loved dumping water on their Flight Commander (me).

The Wing Command Chief, doing the course before the grog

The Airfield Operations Flight

The 436 Operations Support Squadron in Dover DE after a great water fight!

Women in Defense Conference

A coworker of mine and I had the opportunity to attend a Women in Defense Conference in Washington, D.C. in September. We heard from a range of speakers, many former military and now successful civilians. Both of us were able to ask a key female leader a question...I spoke with General Lori Robinson, the first female COCOM commnader (she leads NORAD and USNORTHCOM), and my coworker was able to speak with the Honorable Heather Wilson, the Secretary of the Air Force! 

Both were terrifying, we were shaking from nerves after. So after the conference, we went to Georgetown Cupcakes and stuffed our faces :) 

Speaking with General Robinson

Secretary Wilson speaking to the crowd

My coworker talking with Secretary Wilson

We loved our lunch dessert

Georgetown Cupcakes!

Orange Spinning Thing...Fixed!

You know that orange spinning tower plate you see at airports? Those are called DASRs, or Digital Auxiliary Surveillance Radars. They send and receive signals that tell the air traffic control team where airplanes are.  They need regular maintenance, which the FAA usually does. But my team is stellar in that they're too impatient, and decided to do it themselves! They replaced the joint that makes the system spin...a feat that has taken some teams up to 6 days! But THIS team did it in 10 hours! Talk about phenomenal....

Working hard or hardly working? They're waiting to pulley-up the new joint to it's place 12 floors above. 

The Seester Graduated!

Congratulations to my brilliant, feisty, kind, and all around amazing little sister on graduating from one of the best universities in California! 

She graduated from the Animal Science program with a minor in Agriculture Business...and she's already a bigger badass than me because her classes involved sticking her arm up a horse's butt, dissecting animal testicles, and other medical-type things that give me the heebee jeebies. 

She's come a long way from ten years ago when a horse bit her on the finger and she basically passed out while I washed the blood off, waiting for mom to come pick us up. She's going to do amazing things!

The whole family! Gramps, Aunt D, Granny, Uncle K, Mom, Meg, Dad, cousins Olivia and Jeff, and me! It was a full house.

The two that started it all!

Love it when the band is back together...

Meg, Gramps, and myself after the ceremony!

Dad is a moosh head <3

Paris :: Beautiful Happiness

April 9th: On our way to Paris, France! Had to admit, with the amount of terrorist attacks in this part of Europe lately, we were a tad apprehensive. But we both want to see the world, so if we're going to die, we might as well die doing something we love! A bit morbid, but we can't hide from reality.

Anyway, a few sights from the train are below. The French countryside is beautiful!

Once we hit the city, we immediately started our trek...after figuring out the maze that is the Gard de Nord train station. 

Part of the promenade including the Pantheon 

Le Jardin de Luxembourg (The Luxembourg Gardens)

Just like London, picnicking seems to be the go-to past time in the spring sun

After dropping our backpacks off, we began the 3+ mile walk towards the Eiffel Tower, stopping at Napoleon's Tomb and a cafe along the way. 

I say 3+ miles because it was too warm to wear a jacket, meaning I didn't have pockets to bring my external phone charger. Therefore I couldn't use my phone's map to show the way. So we essentially wandered and tried to keep sight of the tall pointy thing in the distance. We eventually got there. 

Napoleon's Tomb

A ham, pesto, and mozzarella sandwich with salad from a local cafe. Their sandwiches rarely come closed.

We found this while lost, so I'm not sure what exactly it's called

We found it!

We found a nice shaded spot in the Champ de Mars and people watched while enjoying the view.

 

The sun was on it's path downward, and hit the tower perfectly to create a gold glow

Underneath, however, isn't the most beautiful of sights, with all the people trying to get to the top. The park was much better.

 After some time in the Champ de Mars, we walked the River Siene to our side of the city. Again, this was a 3+ mile walk. 

That night, we were too exhausted to struggle through my butchered French to find a cafe, so we went to a local supermarket and bought baguettes, cheese, chocolate, and wine and called that dinner while watching French TV. It may sound lame, but dang was it a lovely night and the food was delicious.

Plus, we had a balcony view!

The second day we started bright and early (by French standards) and headed to the Ila de la Cite, home of the Notre Dame. We wern't initially going inside because we wanted to avoid crowds and costly admission fees. But when we arrived, there was hardly a soul in site, so we walked right in. 

 

The inside was quite breathtaking.

When we walked out, the line was about 100 people deep... we got there just in time!

After the Notre Dame, we started Westward toward the Arc de Triomphe, but stopped a few times along the way...

To the West of the Louvre was the Jardin de Tuileries, about 3,000 feet of lush grass, flowers, fountains, and statues.

 At the end of the gardens stood a ferris wheel, one of my weaknesses. Why? Because they grant us the best views of the city!

 

The Jardin de Tuileries, between the Louvre and the ferris wheel

After the ferris wheel and a sugary beignet, we finally made our way to the Arc de Triomphe (and hundreds of other tourists)

Instead of climbing to the top like other tourists, we walked a bit further into the city to find Printemps, a 9-story shopping center with a roof top cafe.

This isn't the store, just a nice building

And here we are, squinty eyes and 9 stories above the pedestrians...

The food was a bit pricey, so we skipped on the coffee and tasted some local Italian food down the street (I know, how dare we...we're in Paris!) But made up for it later that night with duck and potatoes (at least for me, Evan had a burger). 

Before you judge on the burger, let me tell you that there is a taste difference between Europe burgers and American burgers. The difference between grass-fed and grain-fed is quite noticeable.

The chips (fries), however, all taste the exact same in Europe. Perk of America- fries taste different depending on the restaurant.

Finished the day walking along the River Seine again, pursuing the Parisian market stalls. 

Finished the night eating more bread, cheese, wine, and chocolate only to wake up at 3:30 am to catch our flight back to Dublin then the States. 

It was a thrilling, exciting, and educational trip for both Evan and I. We have a running list of pros and cons for moving to Europe. Quality of food is high on that list. So is public transportation. We'll miss our time in Europe, here's to hoping we can visit in the near future.

Bonne nuit, Paris!