Santa!

Here's Evan's santa picture for this year. It was pretty stress free, because at one of the holiday parties we went to they were taking pictures for free. I thought it turned out pretty good. Santa gave Evan two candy canes, and Evan told him that he wanted a Christmas tree for christmas. I'm not sure why--maybe he panicked, like in A Christmas Story when Ralphie tells santa he wants a football. Usually he says he wants toys for Christmas.

I'm a pretty big fan of the patriotic tree--as you can imagine they're pretty popular on base. I've even seen a white artificial tree with all red white and blue ornaments on it. Nice.

Merry Christmas!

Christmastime

Yay! Christmas is in full swing in the Smith household. I finally got all of our christmas cards and presents sent off (today...) and I think our Christmas shopping is finished. Which is very nice, because I'm getting a little sick of the drive to Lancaster/Palmdale. Our tree is up, the few presents I've wrapped are under it, and I have been obsessively baking cookies.

Evan helps.

He ate a lot of sprinkles that day. Pretty much every morning when he gets up he asks me if we're going to "bake cookies today mama?". He's actually a pretty good helper too!

Mike put up lights around the outside of our house, and he says that he "officially" feels like a man now. Not career or fatherhood, but hanging up Christmas lights is what does it, apparently. We didn't have any outlets outside our last house, so he jumped at the chance to decorate this one. He put up 10(!) strings of lights, and sadly, we still have about a 3 foot gap on one side of our house. Oh well, they look awesome anyway!

Evan has met santa about ten times now (seriously!) at various holiday parties and functions, so they're pretty tight now. When he finally got around to talking to him, he told Santa he wanted a Christmas tree, even though we already have one. We picked up an artificial tree this year (pre-lit! Best idea ever) due to our desert environment, so maybe he was hoping for a real one...I'm pretty excited about not having to vacuum up any needles. I don't think a fir tree would have a chance in this dry air! As an Oregonian, I swore I would never have an artificial tree, but:

1) I never planned on living in the Mojave desert (thanks for the adventures, Mikey!)

2) Turns out they're pretty awesome.

At this party Santa arrived on a fire truck, and I can't say I've ever seen Evan so excited. He screamed like a little girl and ran around yelling about Santa, then followed him diligently inside.

On top of that, Santa gave him a train.

Grandma Jean is coming on Tuesday, and we're all pretty excited about that. Unfortunately, (and he's been doing this for a while) Evan has been calling every woman over the age of 40 that he sees "Grandma Jean", which can be slightly embarassing. I mostly ignore it, and hope the poor woman didn't understand what he said. Also unfortunate in this instance is the fact that his speech is really getting good. And usually, he's pretty easy to understand.

His imagination is pretty entertaining too--lately he'll come running up to one of us and say that he's scared. When we ask him why, he usually thinks for a minute and then says something like "elephant right there!" or "helicopter!". Generally, theres no elephant. He's getting pretty good at entertaining himself.

Mike has all of next week off, so we're looking forward to some relaxation. And Christmas. Merry Christmas!

We've Made It!

I can't believe it--we're finally settled at Edwards. Moving out went very smoothly, and everything got packed up and on the truck with no problems.

Evan even got to help!



We arrived Nov. 8, after 7 days of driving and a little bit of time visiting with family, and are very happy to be here. When we got on base and checked in at lodging we were expecting our TLF (temporary living facility) to be just another hotel room, maybe with a kitchenette, but were overjoyed to find that it was more like a two bedroom house--complete with fenced yard, full kitchen and plenty of space to relax. It was such a blessing to be able to be out of hotel rooms!

We only stayed there for a few days, and were able to move into our brand new (literally!) house Nov. 12th. Apparently we're pretty good at moving, because we had everything that needed to be in the house unpacked that day, and as I sit here now, the house is clean (mostly--it's amazing how filthy a house thats never been lived in can be), things are in their places, and the house feels like our home. We are very, very happy.


Mike has slowly been getting acquainted with his job, which is with the 31 TES (Test and Eval Squadron) and does operational testing on aircraft including unmanned aircraft, fighters and bombers. Most likely he'll be working on the B2 bomber , although nobody has really told him yet exactly what he'll be doing, and he's still mostly working on getting his boring inprocessing done.

Evan loves his new house. He seems to really like having so much more space to run around in, (much, much more--I think we've upgraded from having around 700 sq. ft. to a little over 2000 sq. ft!) and he really likes to be able to go off and be by himself. Ithink we all do! Our yard has some grass and a lot of sand, and he has been playing out there quite a bit with all his diggers and dump trucks. I like that it is completely fenced, and I can see him from inside so I know he's safe out there. Cody is enjoying the yard as well!




Edwards is a little remote, but not as bad as everyone made it out to be! There is quite a bit of open desert, but we can see mountains off in the distance which is really nice. To get to the freeway we have to drive for about 30 minutes across desert and a dry lake bed, which is a little weird because there is literally nothing out there. From our house to the kind of things that we might want to get to off-base (Costco, Target, etc.) takes only around 45 minutes, which to us is not bad at all! I don't see why everyone was telling us that everything is so far away (with dramatic emphasis), especially because once you've driven that 45 minutes there are more stores and restaraunts than we even had access to in Massachusetts. Plus, it only takes about two minutes to drive to the commissary and BX on base, so you won't hear me complaining!

All in all, we are pretty excited to be here, and for the most part, Edwards has exceeded our expectations. And yeah, it is exceptionally sunny here and the sky is blue beyond belief. Ha!


So, all is beyond well here. On another exciting note, we are planning on driving to the Corvallis area for Thanksgiving, and we can't wait to be home for a bit! We haven't figured out what days we'll be there yet, but we are definitely coming! Yay!


Also, I'll send out change of address cards as soon as I have the time to sit down and do it. :)

busy busy busy

Note: I don't feel like writing about these pictures, but want to put them on here anyway, so I'm just going to place random pictures throughout this post. Enjoy!

Hello! We are in a whirlwind of activity in the Smith household. The other day we were driving from errand to errand in the car and Evan was in the backseat telling me that we were "busy busy". With only about a week and a half before our big move, we certainly are!

We have a lot to do, but we are really looking forward to our move to Edwards. Especially since it snowed here yesterday, and I think it's still in the 70's and 80's there. Ha! See ya New England!

We are very thankful that movers are coming to pack up and take all of our things, and are mainly focusing on cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of things that don't need to move 3,000 miles with us. While trying to keep life as normal as possible for Evan. The movers will come on the 28th and 29th, and then we will stay on base until the 1st, so Evan can go trick-or-treating. He's going to be a construction worker, and he is very excited. On the 1st, we head out on our road trip! We are planning on taking 7 or 8 days to drive out to California, and hopefully they'll be short ones--around 6 hours.

We haven't been assigned housing yet, so the most challenging thing right now is deciding what we need to bring with us. We could be living in military lodging for a while (I have our room booked for a month-- hopefully we won't need it nearly that long), and even when we do get housing, you can never be quite sure when you'll get your household goods delivered. Needless to say, we need to make sure we pack lightly, but have everything we need to keep us sane for a month or so. I'm feeling optimistic that it won't be that long.

Because of all of this craziness, and the fact that we won't have our computer or a lot of internet access for the forseeable future, I have to warn you that I will not be blogging for awhile. Once we get moved into our house and settled, I'll be back! See you in a month or so. (hopefully less than two!)

By the way, everything is going great with the baby! She's moving around and kicking like crazy, and I am feeling pretty darn good.

Also, it's snowing again.

Guess what...

We're having a girl! I knew it.

Obviously we would've been perfectly happy either way, but we're pretty excited for a girl. Now I can start knitting.

Yay for promotions!

Congratulations Captain Smith!

You've paid your dues as an LT--and we're so proud!

In other news...

We finally found out when and where we are moving! We will be moving to Edwards AFB, California November 1st. We can't wait!
Edwards is in the Mojave desert, about 100 miles NE of LA. It will be hot and dry, and we are looking forward to the different landscape, climate and--we imagine--culture. We've enjoyed our stay in Massachusetts, but we are definitely ready to experience another part of the country.

Edwards is tasked with flight testing, among other things, and sometimes the space shuttle lands there when it needs to. Mike will (most likely) be with the 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron, which, um, tests bombers or something. Maybe. I would love to be able to say that I'm not allowed to tell you what he'll be doing, but really I just don't know.

They have a really cool patch though. Skull and crossbones--can't beat that!

So we are pleased. The timing of the move couldn't be better, with the baby due in February, and we're glad that Evan will get to go trick-or-treating with his friends and neighbors one more time before we leave. Now we just sit back and wait for the movers to come. Acutally I will be obsessively cleaning and getting rid of things, but other than that, just waiting!