100's Night!

Hundredths night (aka 100's night for all of us to lazy to pronounce the "th") is one of the most anticipated traditions at the Academy. 100 nights before graduation, the seniors all go to a big dinner where they are given their first assignments. Then they take off for the weekend while the freshmen "decorate" their rooms. Supposedly, the more they like the senior, the more they'll mess up their rooms--& if they really hate the senior, they'll clean his room to white-glove perfection. A little backwards, but it's sure fun! Since there was a track meet on 100's night, the track team held their own dinner for all the seniors & Coach was nice enough to let me come. So while we were chowing down on pizza & celebrating our new assignment...

...the freshmen in Matt's squad were busy making his room into this masterpiece that we found on Monday:

Those cups strung along the rubber bands were all full of FLOUR.

You can't see it in the picture above, but blocking the doorway was rows upon rows of paper cups filled with water... and stapled together so we couldn't pick them up. The "0" and "9" in the middle of the room were also stapled. Nice.

Cleaning it up was actually quite entertaining--it felt kind of like one of those spy movies where you have to be careful not to set off an alarm (except our nemesis was millions of tiny cups of flour that might spill all over us and we were cleaning, not saving the world... but close enough).

The best part, though, had to be the annoying music playing on Anthony's radio on the OTHER side of the room.

Those freshmen put in some serious effort! I think it's safe to say these seniors are well-liked.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, not only do we have less than 100 days till Matt's graduation but we also have less than 100 days till our wedding!!! It feels like it was just barely 384 days. Or 731 days. Time sure flies.

Roses are Red, Falcons are Blue...

When Air Force's track coaches talked to Matt about joining the team as a sprinter, we assumed he would spend a few months conditioning and then start racing when the outdoor season began at the end of March. After all, he was just getting over his hamstring injuries and hadn't run track for, oh, SEVEN YEARS. Turns out the coaches had a different time frame in mind! After just a couple weeks of training, they had Matt in an invitational, running sprints for the Academy.

It's been such a blast! Matt's been tearing it up on the track and I've had a lot of fun cheering for him. In fact, plenty of people have had fun cheering him on--Matt's had quite the fan club, thanks to the Hendricks fam and his buddies :-)

In his first race, his 60 meter time (they run 60M instead of 100 in indoor) was just one tenth off of what it was when he was the state champ as a junior & senior. Not bad, right? He's just been shaving time off in each consecutive meet. And while we're giving the update, Matt had another meet this weekend, where he took 4th in the 60M and 2nd in the 200M!

Last weekend was a busy one, with 100's Night (next post), a big invitational, Valentine's Day and Presidents' Day.
Matt and I got up bright and early for his races on Saturday morning...
...only to have the power go out at the meet! Hard to host an indoor invitational with no power. The meet was delayed three hours, so we went back to the Hendricks' and let Matt take a nap (compliments of the sleep mask that treats me so well on all of my flights). Back up at the Academy, Matt took second in his heat and made it to the finals in the 60M (out of 50+ runners)! So fun. The meet ended much later than scheduled because of the blackout, though. Luckily for us, we went on our big Valentine's date to the Cliff House two weekends before so it didn't spoil our plans.

With the big date checked off, we just laid low that night with Texas Roadhouse, serenades by Matt, and homemade fondue.

Hope you all had a sweet Valentine's Day, too :-)

California, Here We Come!!!

Well, the results are in and we’re excited, to say the least! We didn’t get our #1-Los Angeles or #3-Boston (props to those who know me so well!), but we got a pretty decent runner-up: Edwards Air Force Base—an hour and a half outside of L.A.

Apparently, we'll get to enjoy goreous sunrises and sunsets (in my case, sunsets...), as well as the occasional space shuttle landing.

Full disclosure: Back in August, when we were making our list, I only half-jokingly told Matt that if he gets Edwards, I’m not coming. When Jodie picked me up from the airport on Friday (since Matt was racing), I told her I’d be happy with anywhere on our list-just as long as it wasn’t Edwards. And then, when we opened up our base assignment and saw Edwards, I almost expected them to be kidding. For those of you who aren’t aware, Edwards is the one in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Thankfully, there’s WAY more to Edwards than meets the eye (literally). Turns out, Matt’s job will be pretty amazing there. Edwards is in the middle of the desert because they need all that space to test their new toys (it’s where they first debuted the F-22s and other cool things like that). As an engineer, Matt gets to work with that. According to a few high-ranking officers we’ve talked to since we got the news, his time spent working at Edwards will do incredible things for Matt's career in the future—both in the Air Force and out. Not bad.

Meanwhile, we’re actually loving the location. Obviously we would have preferred the big cities but besides those two, the rest of the locations on our list were also at least an hour away from the next major city. And if you’re going to live 90 miles from a big city, it might as well be Los Angeles! Within a two-hour drive we’ll have: a temple, the beach, Disneyland, Six Flags, plenty of college and pro sports, Broadway plays, and all sorts of shopping, restaurants and entertainment. Plus, some of our closest family friends are in Bakersfield, which means if I need a mom Tamara is just 80 minutes away. Oh, and home? A quick 8.5 hour drive, with my extended family three hours closer than that. And let’s not forget my most favorite thing since we’re in the middle of winter—the weather! According to the monthly averages, it's really similar to Sacramento's. Year-round marathon training, thank goodness.

We’ve now officially learned the whole “Needs of the Air Force come first” thing first-hand. The majority of guys with Matt’s specific job ended up at either Eglin AFB in Florida (two hours outside of Mobile, Alabama) or Wright Patterson in Ohio (an hour between Columbus and Cincinnati). So, we actually feel pretty darn lucky to be heading where we are. And while I'm sure there will be times when I just sit at home and wonder how we got there, at the end of the day it's comforting that the Lord knows what He's doing.

And let’s be honest: after spending 2 ½ years apart by the time our wedding rolls around, we’re happy to be living anywhere as long as we’re together :-)

The fact that I get to move back to California with my Matt is just icing on the cake.

Many adventures sure to come.

PS-Remember those track pictures I talked about? And Valentine's Day? And the infamous 100's Night festivities? I'll be home in Utah this weekend so I plan on actually getting caught up in life, including one months worth of laundry, wedding plans, taxes, and this blog. Stay tuned :-)

Guess where we're moving!

No, really--guess!

Matt & I don't find out until Friday night and (as a planner who at age 14 had her life mapped out through age 20) the wait has been driving me CRAZY! So I figured we all might as well have a little fun with it :-)

We submitted a list last August with the top 8 bases we’d like to move to ranked in order of preference. When Matt did this with his job, he got his #1 pick so we’re pretty hopeful we’ll at least get one of our top 3. Although we’re happy to go anywhere as long as we’re finally together (and we want to eventually live in a few of these places), we're crossing our fingers that we get to go to our #1 or #3 pick pick this time around (#2 got its ranking for the job description). Technically, though, the Air Force could send us wherever they want –on our list or off—so this is way up in the air!

So… back to the little game. Feel free to make two guesses (and say why!): 1- What our #1 & #3 are (let’s see how well you know us!) and 2- Where the Air Force will actually send us.

In no particular order...

A: Georgia
We'd be smack dab in the middle of Atlanta and Savannah.

B: Los Angeles
Matt would work downtown and we'd live in the base housing, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

C: Florida
We actually have 3 different Florida bases on our list, giving us a 37.5% chance of moving there.
When we made the list, this is what I had in mind...

Now I'm thinking more along these lines...

Yes, that is an ALLIGATOR on the doorstep. Anyway.

D. Boston
We'd live just outside the historic and very expensive city.

E: Vandenberg
In between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, Matt (the engineer) would be involved in the west coast shuttle launches.

F: Other
Colorado Springs, Utah, New Mexico, Middle of the Mojave Desert...

Results coming SOON!!!

A few snippets...

...from January:

• Matt and I celebrated our 2-year anniversary! We had big plans for that night, but after long flights and layovers, decided to scrap the date plans in favor of watching football in our sweats. Perfect.

01.01.07 ........................ 01.01.08 ........................ 01.01.09

• Once upon a time, Matt and I went ice skating at the Gallivan Center on our second date. That's when sparks really flew, so it was fun to reminisce when we went back a few weeks ago.

• We all enjoyed the last few days of April & Alex's visit. One event on our list was the big debut (for them) of the famed "Off Road Jam" & "Mission: Colorado" -- movies made by Christian, starring the babies.

• My fam also spent an afternoon bowling--again, always a treat with the babies.

• Now that it's *finally* 2009, it's actually time to focus on some wedding planning. Matt came home over Martin Luther King weekend and we checked another big item off our list--his wedding ring. We finally found the perfect one AND got a HUGE military discount on it (hence the excitement).

• Matt gave Disney Scrabble to Kaleb for Christmas, but Kaleb refused to play it without Matt. Needless to say, he was pretty excited when Matt came to town and he could whip it out.

• We (well, Matt, but we) got a new nephew! Baby Samuel, Dave & Monica's 7th. That makes 20 (soon-to-be 21!) adorable nieces and nephews that I'll get to officially call mine in--get this--less than 4 months. Can't wait :-)

• I scored a cheap flight to Sacramento so I could visit my "little sister" Jena for her 18th birthday. It was SO good to be back in NorCal, spending time with the Eppersons. I used to babysit Jena & Ben back in the day, love their parents, and basically like to think of myself as a part of their family (I'm sure you can see the resemblance...). A few highlights were shopping at my old favorite mall (Roseville Galleria, anyone?), going out for some delicious sushi, grabbing In-N-Out and playing plenty of Crazy 8's and Egyptian War with Jen. Just like the good ol' days.

  

• And... one of the most exciting bits of news--
  Matt started sprinting for Air Force Academy's track team in Jan. & is already tearing it up!
  Pictures and THAT update coming soon :-)