The Week of Thanksgiving

Mom and Dad Lund and Amanda came up to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. It was SO nice to have family in our home. We are so blessed they could come. We had a blast all weekend.

They arrived Wednesday afternoon so we showed them around the base. Half way through grocery shopping at the commissary the power went out. Thinking, "no biggie" we walked home only to find people on the street and cop cars all over. No one knew what was going on and the power was still out. We went out to eat and on the way back as we approached the base noticed the power was still not on! Frustrated, we asked the guard who informed us a squirrel jumped into a transformer and fried himself and the power. (Wow, what are the chances?) We ended up spending the whole night in the dark. Luckily, the power came back on in the middle of the night so we could cook the next day! We were definitely thankful for electricity on Thanksgiving!

Not yet!

Father passing along crucial turkey carving info to son.

And yes I made everyone write on a leaf, it turned out really nice!

Aw, our first Thanksgiving!

So apparently sweet potato killing jeans can be passed along from mother to daughter. OK, 1) The marshmallows are pink because and only because that's all they had at the commissary. 2) I made the potatoes a couples days before so there'd be less to do on Thanksgiving, so after I heated them up the marshmallows just melted on the hot pan instead of "browning" like they're supposed to. Then when I tried to brown them they ended up getting huge instead of crispy and they spilled over. Kinda like when you put a marshmallow in the microwave (very fun BTW). 3) Lesson learned, just make the potatoes on Thanksgiving:) The smell was making me have flash backs of when Mom set the oven on fire with the sweet potatoes a couple Thanksgivings ago...

It was their 26th anniversary too! Congrats!

The fam.

I am so addicted to guitar hero, I love it! It's the best game ever! Maybe except for DDR:)

Thanks Matt!

We finally got Dad to play!

The boys had a squadron basketball game last week.

Matt and Micah

Matt and Micah again.



Hmmmmmm...


We put the VT flag up so everyone will know who we root for!
GO HOKIES!!

This is for Julie mostly, I know she's interested in the wildlife. Matt found this little guy in the garden last week. I had no idea we had scorpion!

Oklahoma City

Flatness.

The Skyline. Oklahoma City is neat because there aren't too many high rise buildings. It reminded me of DC a lot in that respect. It's a big city, but most of the buildings were low and there was a lot of suburb.


So far for the fiberglass statues we have, Blacksburg = Hokie Birds, Winchester = Apples, Dothan = Peanuts and Oklahoma City = Buffalo. I'm sure we'll end up with quite a list.

We were in a part of the city called Bricktown. A very nice experience. This is a picture of the AAA Baseball Park. Matt actually had a tournament here in High School. He recognized a lot of this part of the city and was telling us about what he and his Dad did that trip.

This guy just looked like he needed help.


This is a local Brewery where we ate dinner.


The Boys.

I sense a little rivalry. The Thunder were playing the Rockets (from Houston) that night, so yes, we were the odd crowd rooting for the "wrong" team.

Nose bleeders!

Eventually we moved to better seats.

Military Wife

The guys come over and play XBOX 360...I watch.




So I had my first duty as a military wife last Tuesday night. Matt informed me that evening that he needed to wear his BDU's (the camo uniform) the next day and didn't have his rank sewn on. So guess who comes to the rescue??? Me! Above some pics of me handiwork...pretty good if I do say so myself.

Verizon Wireless

FYI the cell service here is not the best with Verizon. We don't get any Digital service, but I can still receive and send calls. I have a hard time checking messages too. I have a few on my phone now that I can't check so I you've called in the last week I apologize for not getting back to you. We looked into changing providers, but it will be way more expensive since we'd have to buy new phones. Most of the people we know are on Verizon so we'd have to up our minutes as well to be able to talk to family and friends. We've decided to stick with Verizon for now and if it gets completely unbearable then we'll switch. So please bear with our phone situation, when in doubt...email!

Life in Oklahoma

Things have been interesting here. Where should I start? How about we talk about the Brown Recluse Spiders? Julie you will love this story, props to you for telling me to shake my shoes out! When we first got here the word on the street was to watch out for the Brown Recluses because they are everywhere and they will hide in your clothes and bite you. I took the info in, but kinda brushed it off because we had them in Virginia (or so I was told) and I'd never had a run in with them. I go about my business at home as usual, cleaning, folding laundry, putting shoes on like a normal person, etc.

On Wednesday Matt had his medical briefing. During the Community Health portion they decide to scare the crap out of all the guys by showing them pictures of the spiders and bite wounds. They are very gross!





Needless to say it worked to scare Matt. I again was still a little skeptical, but decided to take a little more precaution since Matt and the guys were pretty freaked out. The next morning I went about my business as normal, but decided I should shake my shoes out before putting them on. Well sure enough there was a giant spider in them!!!!!! Ew! I was so freaked out! I was livid! How am I supposed to live a normal life if I have to shake out my sheets before I get in bed every night? If I have to check under all the pillows before I sit on my own couch? How will I do laundry? Ugh! Gross! I can deal with a spider crawling across the floor, but hiding in my clothes? Ahhhhhhhhh!!!
Needless to say I am a believer now. There are tons of icky spiders here. I immediately had someone come over and spray the house so I could at least function again.
I started asking people everywhere I go if they've ever been bitten. EVERYONE has a story. The lady at the barber shop, "Oh yea I have a giant scar on my leg where I got bit. I was in my bed!" The exterminator, "Yea I've been bitten 3 times!" An instructor pilot I met, "Yup I got bit on my leg!" Everyone has a story, I just hope I make it out of here without a bite story.


I mean look at this map of Brown Recluse habitat. It's all Oklahoma! Help! Matt and I couldn't sleep that night after the spider attack. Our minds were just playing with us all night, every little brush of the covers, every movement you think it's a spider and end up slapping and scratching all over. I'm getting the creeps just talking about it now! I gotta go shake out my clothes!

Stand-By

So you'll never guess where I am right now...
Apparently they do drills all the time on base and you have to stay where ever you are or limit movement outside. We're stuck in the family readiness building. We've been here for about 40min. We're on "Stand By" whateve that means. I mean what if I was at home and just decided to go for a run and didn't know there was a drill going on? Would they tackle me and take me to jail? All I know is I can't leave the building. And I'm starving. Welcome to the military!
Yay, we can go! Later!

St. Francis Xavier

This is our church in town. It's just as beautiful inside as it is outside!

State Signs

Here are a bunch of the state signs we saw in no particular order (I think maybe backward order). I always try to get all of them, but I never seem to be able to. I think I'm missing Alabama and Oklahoma due to lack of light and a lot of them aren't the greatest pics, but you get the point.

Tennessee!

Arkansas!

Mississippi!

This is just a road in the middle of Mississippi. There was so much of nothing most places we drove!

Georgia! Shortly after we crossed into Georgia we stopped for gas in Athens near University of Georgia. Matt went into the store to get some coffee and this is what some old guy said to him, "You lookin' fer sumpin' to jump start yer pace maker?"
That was one of the best lines of the trip!

South Carolina!

North Carolina!

When we finally got to Enid we had some trouble finding the road that went south to Vance AFB. When we got directions, we were told to just turn on x road and it would take us straight into the Base. Well that's what we did, except we drove straight up to an important looking gate. It was pitch black and the wind was howling. After about 1 minute of scratching our heads trying to figure out where we were supposed to go, 2 cop cars and the Military Police pull up to the gate inside the base! They spared no time getting to us! We explained our situation and they kindly (yelling because of the wind) told us where we were supposed to go. We somehow managed to turn our tank around (took about 5 minutes with the Mazda in tow) and headed to the main gate. Mind you it's about midnight, we'd been driving for 16 hours, Matt has an afro and a beard and I'm in desperate need of a shower! We stop for the security guys to check our Id's. The man is scrutinizing them and tells us to hold on and goes back to his little hut. He comes out about a minute later and hands me my ID. He looks at Matt, looks at the ID, looks at Matt again and says in a southern accent, "Sir, this doesn't look anythang like you!" Haha! We started rolling because in Matt's ID he's in uniform and clean shaven with a military haircut. What a mess! We just wanted to get to lodging and get some sleep! Needless to say they finally let us in after we assured them he just needed a haircut. We ended up making another wrong turn towards the flight line and the police stopped us again! The were very nice and understanding though, and they escorted us to lodging.
We'd finally made it! What a great way to start our journey in the Air Force. Exhausted, we showered and passed out til reveille at 0700...

Our little house...

As we're pulling up...our driveway is on the right.


This is the family room, my back is to the kitchen.


Slightly to the left of the previous picture


Just turned around from the previous picture.


Our bedroom! I love the bed we have! It's soooooo comfy, I seriously haven't slept this good in a VERY LONG TIME! Probably also has something to do with it being a Queen and I can't feel every little movement Matt makes throughout the night. Nothing like a good night sleep in your own house!


The "Man Room", Matt is extremely pumped about this room. It's turning out great too!


More to come as we get things further put away. I made a lot of progress today and things are really coming along. Love to all, miss you!