Time Sure Flies

This fall has flown by. I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving already. The beginning of October passed without much excitement. Justin worked every day but one for three straight weeks. He took leave at the end of October so they packed his schedule at the beginning. The weekend before Halloween we went back to Ohio to see Justin's family. It was pretty fun and we really enjoyed seeing everyone. I think we managed to at least visit for a short while with everyone. Robin and Ned came in from Columbus for the weekend. All the cousins have grown about 5 inches since we last saw them. Justin's brother Jared is probably a whole head taller. His sister Jessica got her driver's license and I have to say, she is a really good driver (possibly better than Justin haha). The weekend was great. As an added bonus, we went to Half Price Books, which doesn't exist around here, or anywhere the Air Force has taken us actually. We left with only 16 books between us, which was good considering more might not have fit in our luggage for the flight home.

The weather around here has been surprisingly good. It's cold, yes. But it hasn't really started snowing yet (knock on wood). The sky is really pretty at night. I was able to capture a fall sky a few weeks back. This was from our backyard.

The only downside has been the air. When we got back from Ohio the air here felt abnormally dry. I don't know if it was because of the change from the humidity in Ohio or the changing of the seasons. But either way, it is really, really dry. Every morning I woke up with a sore throat and my nose burned really badly. I thought maybe I had a cold but decided it was the dry air. So I got a humidifier. It has helped some which is good. I'm okay in the house, but when we go out for more than a half an hour or so, my nose starts to hurt and burn so I know it's the dry air.

The last two weeks my dad has been overseas for work. He went to India and China and literally flew around the globe. Apparently there was some security situation in India while he was there. There was supposed to be a terrorist bombing or something. Luckily, he made it home safely.

This month, Justin's schedule is slightly better than last month, thanks in large part to his crew partner going down on PRP. Justin has 2 less alerts because of it which is awesome for me! He has this week without much on schedule. He does have to work on Thanksgiving but that means he should (fingers crossed) get Christmas off. My friend Lindsay's husband is also working on Thanksgiving I believe, so we might have a little Thanksgiving with friends.

A few weeks ago I discovered that one of the cats likes to sleep in the sink now. Whenever I can't find her, I go in the guest bathroom upstairs and find this:

She loves it in there. The only problem is that she climbs in our bathroom sink when I need to wash my hands or brush my teeth and I have to pull her out of the sink so I can turn on the water without giving her a bath.

The kitties got an early Christmas present a few days ago. Our friend Nick built these for the cats.
They love climbing on them and scratching them. Hopefully this means less scratching on my recliner and sofa. The pillars make a good place to lay and look out the front window. The cats have also discovered that they can jump onto the bookshelves, which is a new place for them to lay. Speaking of bookshelves, we got another one a few days ago. We had a giant stack of books on the floor that are now in the bookcase. Here is our expanded library.

As you can see, there is a cat on top of the shelf on the far right. She loves to hang out up there but keeps knocking everything off the top. Seeing as both Justin and I feel like we need more books constantly, a fifth shelf is in our future, quite possibly after Christmas.

Overall, things are going well here. We're actually looking forward to snow so we can learn to ski!