Copy Cat

I didn't really watch much of the Vancouver games. We did watch the Men's hockey final last Sunday though. Partway through the game, a kitty decided to watch the game too. He climbed up and sat in front of the television, watching the puck shoot back and forth across the screen.

After he got bored with that, the other cat decided she wanted to watch the game too. So, what do you know, she climbed up and sat in front of the television watching the puck shoot across the screen.


Lucky for me, I watched the closing ceremonies and NBC recapped most of what happened so I didn't feel like I missed much by not watching. Honestly, I'm glad the Olympics are over so our shows will be back on this week.

Last night, Justin and I were playing cards on the floor and one of the cats decided to watch from inside their little blue tower thing.


Of course, as soon as she got out of it, the other cat had to climb in.


As soon as one of them finds something interesting or exciting, the other has to copy the first cat. It's quite amusing.

Justin finally got a cat to lay in his lap. Usually, the kitties only lay in my lap but I wasn't on the couch so Justin got the blanket warmer.

Shoop, Shoop, Shoop

This past week Justin finally had some time off! On Tuesday he just had a short meeting in the morning so we went bowling in the afternoon. The bowling center on base has free bowling on Tuesdays so we were able to bowl three free games. It was fun even though Justin doesn't like bowling. I really enjoy bowling so he said he'd go with me every time he has a free day on Tuesday. On Thursday we went out and ran some errands. I picked up my new contacts so now I have a year's supply. We also got some cold weather clothes. Since spring is supposedly on its way, everything for winter was on sale. We got warm gloves, snow pants, and hats. Then yesterday we went skiing for the first time ever! It was so much fun. We went to Showdown to ski since its the closest place to Great Falls.

It took a little over an hour to get there. It was snowing on the way there and we had to drive through mountains but we just went slow and it was fine. Once we got there, we signed up for lessons and rented our equipment. The lesson we took was for beginners who have no experience. The class was full of kids but there were a couple other adults so we didn't feel too awkward. We learned how to put the skis on and how to glide and stop. This is the beginner area where our class was.

There's a conveyor belt called the Magic Carpet that takes you up the small hill so you can practice going down. We got the hang of it pretty quickly and decided we didn't need to keep going down the small hill. So we headed over to the beginner lift.

The lift didn't go all the way to the top of the mountain which was good, but it still went pretty high. I could feel the difference in oxygen when we got to the top. After a short lesson, Justin and I successfully made it down the mountain. Overall, I think I only fell maybe twice while actually skiing. I mostly fell trying to walk in my skis or while standing still, sadly. Falling on the snow doesn't hurt at all. I did get a giant bruise on my leg from landing on top of one of my skis. But other than that, no injuries to report.

We went down the different beginner areas a bunch of times. Justin kept trying to go down this more difficult part near the bottom. Every time I went by from the easy area I would see Justin laying in the snow with one ski off, or I would see him side stepping up the hill to retrieve his poles that were 20 yards up the mountain from where he was. But after a few times, he finally made it down without falling haha.

The weather for skiing was good, from what we heard. It was snowing all day but the sun was poking through the overcast sky. One of the people who worked in the rental shop said it has been snowing for two weeks straight. That explains all the nice fluffy powder. Here's Justin in the 5 or 6 inches of powder.

And here's me. You can't even see our skis. I'm really glad we got cold weather gear. I was warm the entire day until maybe 45 minutes before we left. Even though it was only 15 degrees or so and snowing, we managed to stay quite toasty.

We had a blast skiing and now have something to look forward to for winter time in Montana. At some point we want to try snowboarding, although I have a feeling that will be much more difficult to pick up.

Snow, Alerts, More Snow, More Alerts

Not too much new or interesting has been happening lately. Justin has been working quite a bit. He had 5 alerts in a row at the end of January and then a couple more in a row at the beginning of February so he has been gone a lot. His schedule lightens up next week and he's supposed to have a few days in a row completely free so hopefully that will remain unchanged so we can get out of Great Falls for a bit.

For my birthday, we got a new television for our bedroom. The one we had was really old and the speakers made a weird vibrating noise if you turned the volume up past a certain level. It was really annoying so we got a new one. It's a flat screen and the picture is really nice. A big upgrade from what we had in there.


The weather has been up and down the last month or so. We had lots of snow and then a week of 45 - 50 degree weather and most of the snow melted. But then it snowed again. The kitties like to watch the snow out the front window.


Here's the view out the front door. It's snowing and this is after we already shoveled 8-10 inches off the driveway. It ended up snowing another 7 inches or so. Montana doesn't understand the concept of light snow. The weather forecast one day said "no significant accumulation overnight." Well overnight we ended up getting about 5 inches of snow. So you can see what Montanans consider "light snow" haha.

Also, when it snows, a lot of times there are spiked crystals on everything. Here's Justin's car after coming home from alert last week.



It's kinda pretty to see the trees with this sort of snow on them.

Yesterday, someone rang the doorbell and delivered these for me from Justin!


One of the guys in Justin's squadron did this for a fundraiser for the squadron. His wife made all the arrangements and they delivered them to people who live on base. I was completely surprised. Of course, the cats were immediately interested in the flowers and were trying to eat them. I told Justin to make sure it was okay before I left them on the counter. Justin looked it up online and sure enough, baby's breath is poisonous to cats, along with about 400 other types of flowers. So I had to put them up on top of the bookshelves to make sure the cats couldn't get to them. Last thing I need is for them to get poisoned by my flowers.

Justin and I went out yesterday and ran some errands. I got new glasses finally and ordered some new contacts so I should be able to see better now. Justin also got new running shoes since he's been going to the gym more recently.

The inspectors are on base last week and this week. They keep doing exercises and shutting down buildings and stuff. Justin got stuck inside the gym yesterday for like 3 hours because of the exercise. Also, he was supposed to have a trainer ride this morning and he just called and said the building is shut down and he can't get in so his trainer ride is going to be rescheduled. I guess the vice-commander of the entire group is really mad that they keep messing up the scheduling for the missileers. Anyway, that's about all that's new here. Hope everyone is well :)

Home for the Holidays

This year Justin and I were lucky. He didn't have to work on Christmas! A lot of my friends' husbands did have to work so I felt extremely lucky that I got to spend the day with Justin. We had a pretty good Christmas (last year was better because we were in California). But overall, it was a good day. On Christmas Eve, Justin came home from alert and we put a few ornaments on the tree and set out the presents. I got one good picture of everything. Here's our tree:

Shortly after I took that picture, I left the room and heard a crash. I came back to find this:

It took the kitties all of 5 minutes to try to climb the tree and subsequently knock it over. After that, I took down the ornaments and put the presents in the closet until we made the decision to open them after dinner. Even though they knocked our tree over, I love the kitties. They're just so cute.




On Christmas day, Justin and I went to the movies. We wanted to see Nine but it wasn't playing at our theatre. Then we were going to see Sherlock Holmes but it was sold out. So we ended up seeing Up in the Air with George Clooney. It was pretty good. I liked it. I'm not sure it was Justin's style of movie though. Then the day after Christmas, Justin had to go on alert again.

The weather has slightly improved since my rant about how much I hate snow. The temperature went up to almost 50 for a few days and melted all the snow. Then it got cold again and there was a thick layer of ice over everything, including the roads. Then it snowed again, right on top of the ice. But at least it's sunny here most days. Makes the weather a little more tolerable.

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend!

Let It Snow

The last couple of weeks have been....interesting, to put it nicely. Justin had to work on Thanksgiving. At first, I didn't really care. Thanksgiving is probably my least favorite holiday (because of what it represents and because I don't really like the food). I figured it wouldn't be a big deal for him to be on alert. But when the actual day came, I was surprised by how sad I was that he was gone. I was comforted by the fact that I wasn't the only one without their husband on that day. My friend Ira invited me over to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. Her husband was gone too. She was determined to cook her first Thanksgiving meal and I was glad to not be alone. The food turned out really good. I was happy I could spend time with her and give her a hand, even if it was just holding baby Nik while she cooked. Justin came back on Black Friday and we had a huge "Thanksgiving" dinner with all our friends (most of whom were on alert for the actual holiday as well). It was a lot of fun, really great to see everyone, and the food was delicious.

Since we've been in Montana, the weather hasn't been that bad. This fall has been pretty mild. I've been waiting for the winter to come. Well, last week, it came. Full force. Justin went out on alert on Friday and of course, Friday night the snow came. It didn't look that bad out Saturday morning but the decision was made to leave the missile crews out on alert for an extra day. So Justin didn't get to come home until Sunday. He pulled his first "48" as they call it. I have a feeling it won't be last for this winter. Heck, it probably won't be the last for this month. Overall, we didn't get THAT much snow. However, the lovely wind blew snow drifts onto my driveway and I had to shovel 2.5 feet of snow. It took me over an hour to shovel our tiny little driveway. I couldn't even finish. It was so cold that my entire body was numb underneath my winter weather attire. I was so frozen I couldn't take a shower for 2 hours afterward because my skin was so cold and the water would burn it. Winter in Ohio was awful. But at least it wasn't this cold. Today, it's -24 degrees. It's been at or below zero for almost a week now.

For longer than I have been alive, my grandparents have lived in Arizona. I remember when I was little I always wondered if they missed living in Ohio, with the changing leaves in the fall, waking up to a light powdering of snow Christmas morning. I asked my Grandma once if they missed the weather or the snow and she said they didn't miss it at all. I thought, how could this be? Snow is magical and transforms the world around us, making even the ugliest things pretty. Snowy winters mean sledding and building snowmen and the occasional day of missed school. How could they not miss it? My 10 year old self didn't understand. Of course, at that age snow is everything good. At 10, snow doesn't mean shoveling the driveway. At 10, snow doesn't mean scraping ice off your windshield before you can drive to work or school. At 10, snow doesn't mean your husband gets stranded underground in a missile silo for longer than he should. At 10, snow doesn't mean staying in the house because you're too afraid to drive since people almost crash into you daily when the weather is nice. At 10, snow doesn't mean worrying your car won't start. Oh yes, this morning Justin's car wouldn't start thanks to the ridiculously cold weather. He had to take my car, which almost didn't start after sitting in the parking lot for 5 hours while he was at work. My grown-up self can see just how smart my grandparents were to move to Arizona. For the last 7 or 8 years, I haven't really liked the snow. However, my dislike has hit a whole new level living here. I HATE snow, absolutely hate it. If I never see it again, it will be too soon. And unfortunately for us, it's only the beginning of winter. We still have 3 more winters of cars not starting thanks to the geniuses who decided to build houses on base with one car garages. Of course, the new houses at Vandenberg have two car garages even though you don't need any garage space there. Vandenberg has no weather. People use their garage for storage, not for parking cars. And yet, here, where it's absolutely necessary for a garage, they build houses with only one space. It makes no sense, but it's the military so I wouldn't expect any different.

On a slightly happier note, we set up the Christmas tree the other day. The cats thought it was their new climbing toy. Here is one cat in the tree:

And here is the tree after they knocked it over:

I haven't yet decided if I'm going to leave the tree there and not decorate it or move the tree to one of the bedrooms upstairs and keep the door closed.

Even though the snow makes me angry and makes me wish we still lived in California more than ever, the cats make me smile on a daily basis. I'm not sure why she decided to sit behind the curtains but I saw her and it made me laugh:

The next few days are supposed to be cold but next week, supposedly, it's going to be in the 30s. Hopefully it will warm up enough to make going outside bearable.

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!

Catching Up

It's been a while since I've posted. This is a combination of computer issues, lack of what I consider interesting news to report and a lack of pictures to go with the post. But, I decided to write anyway. So this entry might be somewhat redundant since most of this was already shared over the phone.

Last month, my parents and brother came to visit. We had a great time showing them around Great Falls (which didn't take very long). We went down to Helena and went shopping since there is a severe lack of stores here. Probably the best thing we did was the Gates of the Mountain tour. The tour is a guided boat adventure down the Missouri river through limestone cliff walls and forest. The boat adventure was gorgeous. Halfway through we were able to get back on land and go for a walk. We hiked a mile or two. Justin and Stephen went off on their own and climbed up the mountain, almost to the peak. It was really scenic and had great opportunities for photos. Sadly, my camera batteries died halfway through. But I was able to get a few good pictures before that happened.

Here is the view down the river from the boat. We went through the mountains. We saw a few bald eagles and ospreys. They nest along the river up in the trees.

There were also in tact drawings from Native Americans from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. We had a really good view of the sketches from the boat.

Here is what Montana looks like in August. I thought this was a pretty landscape with the wheat and the big, puffy clouds. Some days the sky is perfectly clear and then other days the clouds are huge. The sky looks very different this far north.

The base had its annual inspection the two weeks after my family left. Justin got called in to do a test and did really well. A lot of people failed the tests during the inspection, but overall, the base passed. Justin also got a new crew partner, Capt. Bassman. His new crew partner is working out really well so far. Justin likes him a lot and they get along well. Granted, Justin gets along with pretty much everyone, but still. Not too much else is new with the Air Force.

My computer died again. Third time since I've had it and second time in the last month and a half. We went to Missoula yesterday to go to Best Buy and Red Robin and check out the used bookstore. The Geek Squad guy at Best Buy said that the laptop I have has known motherboard issues and that's why it kept dying. The laptop got sent off the get fixed again. But in more exciting news, I got a new computer! We got a desktop for me since my laptop has so many issues. That laptop will just be a backup now in case anything happens to either of our desktops. Also, if we need a portable computer, we will have that. We had to rearrange the family room area to fit another desk.

Here's Justin setting up my computer. We moved the couch and sort of sectioned off the room to make a TV area and then a computer area. Justin's computer is just out of the picture on the left side. It's strange for me to use a desktop since I've been using a laptop for the last 6 years or so. However, I'm really enjoying the huge screen and not having my computer overheating.

That's about all the news from Montana. I will leave you with a picture of a kitty looking down from the banister upstairs.

She's so cute.