Today Liz and I celebrate our one month anniversary. Hopefully we'll celebrate by not doing any decorating today. Two weeks ago Liz came back down from VA with her parents and all of her household goods. I didn't know that she had that much stuff but then again I've been learning a lot about life since we got married. One important lesson is about pillows. There are two types of pillows in this world, decorative pillows (which look comfortable and actually do feel comfortable as well) and pillows that you can use. On our bed I counted 10 pillows of which 4 are open for sleeping. The rest are only for looks. I don't entirely understand the necessity of putting on so many extra pillows when making the bed but it's very important.
I had a few friends from OCF help us move all of Liz's furniture into the house. They enjoyed watching my reaction to all of the boxes labeled "teaching materials" and "decorative flowers/wreaths/PILLOWS." All of them had been through a similar experience when the house where they lived was fairly empty and bland until they were married, but it was a new thing for me. Liz's parents spent the week down in Pensacola with Liz and I, visiting some of their friends, the beach, and of course the Naval Aviation Museum.
Liz found the guy out front to be fairly good looking. Of course, who doesn't love a pilot?
We saw an IMAX movie called "Straight Up" about helicopters and by the end of it Liz wanted me to fly helicopters. We all enjoyed looking at the extensive collection of aircraft and especially the Coast Guard Aviation section, which was by far the coolest section of the museum.
We went out to dinner a few times with her parents and enjoyed their company. I told one of my instructors that I had in-laws in town and he said he could get me duty if I wanted to escape but luckily Liz's parents are great and that wasn't necessary.
The next week was uneventful except that the house was a little more decorated and organized each time I came home. I'm sure Liz will be doing a before-and-after post soon so I won't post any pictures of the apartment.
This past Saturday we went to the Blue Angels air show down at Pensacola Beach. It was, by far, the best show that either of us had been to. Last November I went to the homecoming air show, which is held on NAS Pensacola at the airfield. That show had more performances and was very good, but for this show we were on a Coast Guard buoy-tender right off the shoreline at the beach.
We boarded the tender down at NAS Pensacola and had about an hour ride out to the beach. They had breakfast for everyone on board (pastries, donuts, fresh fruit and yogurt) during the ride out to the airshow, and had ice chests full of water and gatorade placed throughout the boat. It was a perfect day for a boat ride, sunny, a slight breeze, and calm seas.
We arrived at our destination and we were about 500 yards from the beach. The show started with a Coast Guard demonstration of a helicopter deploying a rescue swimmer and then retrieving him. As you can see, the beach was a madhouse. Some of my friends were on the beach and they left at 7 am for the air show, which didn't start until 12:30! Not only that, but it took about 4 hours to get home because of all the traffic. Needless to say we were glad to be on the ship and not have to deal with all of the chaos!
They served us lunch and we awaited the start of the show. We thought the planes would be flying between us and the beach, but we were wrong. They were doing many of their tricks right over our ship! I don't think I'll ever be at another show where we have F-18's flying less than a 100 feet over us, flying upside down, crossing, etc. It was awesome. Liz commented that she'd never forget that air show and I don't think I will either. The only thing that would be more fun is to ride along with them as they perform....maybe someday!
