Some more of my favorite pics from Christmas

Mom and Erv--still as cute as ever.

 There are lots more pics on Flickr of course--I highly suggest checking them out!

Boys on the beach.

Walking the dogs--including the stuffie in the hoodie.

Petting the Sam.

Random doings

Happy to be eating cereal 

homemade soft pretzels--so good!

Can you see me now?

Sick Molly--a reprise of the Christmas uck.

Tour of Duty

Those gentle readers who get to see us in person with any frequency might know that Leo has spent most of the last six months having decided that he's planning to go into the Air Force, when he doesn't play some professional sport (usually football or hockey). 

Checking out the flight gear

Part of Leo's present from LauraLynn & Shannon was a tour of Tyndall Air Force Base conducted in part by Shannon and in part by one of her colleagues, LTC Richard "Pinz" Koch. Shannon met us at the visitor center and escorted us to the flight line, where Pinz showed us into the locker room (letting Leo try on his helmet), walked us past the briefing room (a classified area, so we didn't go in), and then over to the control tower. The week before Christmas, a plane had been diverted from Eglin AFB a little way to the west, and then had some mechanical trouble when it was time to get back in the air. We ended up being on the base just as it was doing some low approaches prior to landing after making sure the plane was in working order.

Getting an explanation of how an AIM-9 missile works

After the plane landed, we got to get up close and personal with one of the F-22s. We got to see an AIM-9 missile, along with an explanation to Leo of how it works. The flight line portion of the tour wrapped up with a walk through the maintenance hangar while we were en route back to Shannon's truck. One of the neatest parts of the tour was Pinz giving Leo his flight patch, taking it right off of his uniform.

In the Air Traffic Control tower, watching an F-22 through binoculars

Because this was Shannon's second tour at Tyndall, she took us back by the area where she had originally worked, training pilots in how to recognize the symptoms of oxygen deprivation. In addition to the main classroom "tank" (which looks like a really big metal box), there was also a flight simulator where they could hook the pilots' masks to a series of tanks that let them simulate a loss of oxygen. I found it interesting that fighter planes keep a constant "elevation" difference between interior and exterior of the cockpit, unlike civilian aircraft which maintain a constant interior pressure pressure (equivalent to external pressure around 6000 feet).

Not to be outdone by Pinz, Shannon also took us by her office (which, even she admitted, looked a lot like an office). We met most of her colleagues in the 325th Medical Group, and Leo walked out of that with both a 325 MG Squadron Patch and commander's coin.

At the very end, we went down to the base's primary beach access to the Gulf of Mexico. Tyndall turns out to have roughly 130 miles of coastline, once all the inlets on both sides are accounted for, a figure that I found only moderately surprising since military bases are usually a lot larger than most people think. Tyndall's beach area includes habitat for some species of sea turtle, and during nesting and hatching seasons, portions of the beach are closed off, even from the troops, by the Air Force's DNR. (Yes, the Air Force has its own Department of Natural Resources -- probably the biggest revelation to me of the entire event.)

On the base's beach, near sunset

Christmas in Florida

This year, we did the longest round-trip we've done for Christmas (although not for a generic holiday) by going to see my sister-in-law and her partner in Panama City, FL. It took us two long days to get there, each way, stopping over in northern Alabama on the way down and near Nashville, TN on the way home. Although the high temperatures were in the 50s and 70s the whole time we were there, it rained almost every day, so we didn't get to do as much outside as we (the kids) would have liked.

The kids walking dogs with LL and Shannon

 We arrived the night before Christmas Eve, to all of the in-laws present. The kids loved meeting LauraLynn's dogs, and Molly took a particular liking to Ida, the Jack Russell terrier who was closest to her size. (The other two are lab mixes). Both kids insisted on being present for as many of the dogs' walks as they could. Leo sometimes did an okay job of walking one of them by himself, but Molly was very upset that she wasn't allowed to walk Ida all by herself.

Molly and Ida

Our one serious-ish outdoor excursion was on Christmas Eve, to see the place where LauraLynn has helped open a yoga studio. We were able to walk from there over to the beach on the Gulf, where it was very windy, and the waves didn't look all that happy. We think it was about here that Molly acquired an ear infection.

J and L at the Gulf on Christmas Eve

We let the kids open presents on Christmas Eve, especially because Santa came to visit while we were out. We also had no interest in trying to keep the kids from opening presents until after Marge & Erv got there on Christmas Day, so everything worked out. The kids both loved everything they got, with Molly scoring more Hello Kitty art things than a stick could be shaken at, and Leo doing a pretty good job with the harmonica he got, although the big parts of his present didn't come until later.

Molly and her pile of presents

Grown-ups got to open things the next day. Kirstin's big present was a pair of ice skates (although we're swapping the ones originally received out for a slightly different style that we think will fit better). She's only been talking about them on and off since before her birthday, so I think she was happy. My big presents were a replacement coffee mug, a home root beer brewing kit (first gallon underway as I write this), and a shirt that ties into the impending release of the final volume of a book series I've been reading for more than half my life. (Thanks to my stepsister for starting me on it, and thanks to the kids for the shirt!)

The entire family

 We spent the day after Christmas hanging around the house while LL went to teach a class and Shannon was at work. As for the rest of the trip, that's the subject of another post, all on its own.

Kirstin, Marge, and LauraLynn

Cutest Badger fan