Our Time in Soda City (2017):

Back with another installment of updates and what we got up to while we have been living in Cola.
This was a pretty good year (by pretty good I mean amazing) I started Wing Woman Designs and fell in love with creating things for other people to enjoy. I also climbed the incline in Manitou Springs for the first time, served on the scholarship committee for the Shaw Officers Spouse Club (now the Shaw Spouses' Club) and we went to River Rat to watch the eclipse!

The best photo backdrop.

We did a lot more hiking and exploring this year, including more time at Congaree National Park. where we spotted a couple families of wild hog, several deer, some snakes and a lot of little critters. We really like it there.

I'm sensing a theme here. 

 I took my first Fini flight photos through Wing Woman Photography, they are my favorite, I get to take photos of the jets and capture priceless moments for a family.

"Rail"

Hochi took a few trips, one of them being to Florida to shoot his first AMRAAM, then we turned right around and went back to Florida so we could check out Universal Studios. I am obsessed with Harry Potter, so we spent a LOT of time in the Harry Potter sections. I rode my first roller coaster (yes, at 26 years old) and I am not sure I would do it again. I also rode The Mummy and it traumatized me, can you believe I am married to a fighter pilot? We ate WAY too much food, drank way too much Butterbeer and of course got a giant pink donut and some Duff Beer!

peep that patch!

Look, I really love Buffalo Wings, okay?

Hochi did a lot of cool stuff this year, including getting to do a flyover for his Alma Mater USAFA. A Thankfully One Mile High Photography caught some photos of him taking off and landing at Buckley and was kind enough to send them to me. 

McEntire had an air show this year where I took some of my favorite pictures ever, most of them you can see over on Wing Woman Photography but I basically have to share this one because *heart eyes emoji*.

Easily the best thing to happen this year though? Sydney, Australia. It was amazing, and we absolutely fell in love with Australia while we were there. We visited the Opera House and took a tour, we went to the zoo and aquarium, we went to a few museums (saw some airplanes, of course), toured the Royal Botanical Gardens (and got locked in after they closed..whoops), we drank some AWFUL rum (thanks Glock, never trusting your recommendations ever again.) and went on an amazing wine tour through the hunter valley. We ate at the revolving tower for the Fourth of July, and had a donut as big as our faces for breakfast, on the last day we went to Bondi and it is just as beautiful as you would expect. We ate so much, explored so much, and can not wait to go back to Oz as soon as possible (next year!) and hit up New Zealand too!

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary by going to Asheville! We explored Biltmore, checked out Wicked Weed, and then went hiking in Dupont State Forest (which is beautiful and I highly reccomend!). We fell in love with Asheville and it always makes me feel a little better when I am homesick for Colorado.

Hochi did a flyover for the Panthers...this time instead of being on the score board he was flying the Viper. My MIL came down to watch him too, so we took her hiking through Congaree and to the Greek Festival!

Go to this, get the baklava cheese cake.

Exactly one month (to the day) after I had surgery on my knee we did a Tough Mudder Half. It was amazing and I can't wait for us to have a chance to do a full together, Hochi has already done one, so he is a great coach to get me through them. 

We finished out the year with more hiking, a trip to New York to visit Hochi's family for Thanksgiving and then Texas to spend Christmas with my family for the first time in four years... It was so great to see them all, I missed them a lot. I am not sure Hochi will want to relive the experience though, since we made him do a polar plunge with us. 

 Whew, thanks for sticking through that. I did not update at all during 2017. so there was a lot to fill in, I promise none of my other blogs will be this long! 

Fly Safe, Barb

P.s. I got my braces off at the end of June in this year, YAY!

Our Time In Soda City (2016):

I am notoriously bad at keeping up with my blog. I admit it, I accept it, I wont apologize for it because life happens. I wanted to make up for some of our time in Cola that I have missed blogging about in a short update of sorts. So here is 2016, which I somehow missed a lot of even though I was blogging semi-regularly.

We came here ready to make the most of Columbia, but not with high expectations... and if I am being honest... a little let down because we were expecting to be going on a great German adventure instead of exploring (in my case, more of) the south. If you can't already tell... it exceeded our expectations.

We hit the ground running, we were house hunting to buy our very first home within two days of arriving and found a short term lease in the mean time (SWAT team apartment anyone?). We started exploring the city pretty quickly! One of our first adventures was going to St. Pats in Five Points, we had oysters for the first time, saw the fountains dyed green, watched some live music and started forming some pretty rad friendships.

We added a pup to our family, two years later and Moose is still mad at us and Loki is the size of a small child. He is still just as cute though. Pro tip: if you meet Loki be prepared to play a LOT of fetch, like... all the fetch.

We bought our first home, that was pretty exciting. We love our neighborhood, we have great neighbors and it's super quiet and small. 

We had two aviation filled days, where I really started to fall in love aviation photography, McEntire Family Day and the Shaw AFB Air Show. I really love air planes, y'all. 

Next Hochi left for a trip to Korea, our first time being apart on separate continents, but when he came home his stories made me really excited to eventually go to Korea (all roads in the viper lead there at least once...it was bound to happen.)

When he came back we bought our beautiful bike, went to the state fair, Patriots Point (highly recommend) and even drove to Florida for a Raider's game (Hochi's favorite team). 

We hosted our first thanksgiving, like real adults. My family came out and we all ate some amazing food (that smoked turkey though!!)

Hochi had a pretty cool opportunity... to help with a flyover for the Carolina Panthers... which meant I got to go on the field to help with part of it too. He had to stand on top of the score board, I do NOT envy him on that. 

We finished out the year with a trip to visit his family for Christmas, but not before he took me to a Christmas Tree farm to cut down a Christmas tree for the first time. (mine, not his). It was probably my favorite Christmas tree ever. 

 Thanks for checking out 2016! It's been fun to relive all of this again, especially as we are getting ready to leave by the end of the year. Keep an eye out for 2017 and 2018!
Fly Safe, Barb.


p.s. Notice how my mouth is closed in all of these pictures? That's because this was the year I got braces!

Joining the Wolf Pack:

It's that time again, when we get an assignment and start getting ready to move. We found out about two months ago we would be joining the Wolf Pack in South Korea. We hope to find out soon whether Hochi will be in the Juvats or Pantons.
Since Kunsan is an unaccompanied assignment, we will be taking to dogs to live with my family in San Antonio and I will be traveling back and forth between the two locations, among other travels. We are looking forward to a year of adventure, for sure, but will definitely be sad to leave behind our family and friends. If you are friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram this is all news you know and you probably clicked this link in hopes of new information. Well don't you fret, we have it.
When you get an assignment to Korea you also have the opportunity to request a follow on assignment, if you receive an assignment you like? Great! It goes on your orders and you don't have to enter the collective pool for the assignment drop come time for you to move again. If you don't like it? You just turn it down and take a chance on hoping for a better/different one in several months.

We liked the follow on we got assigned, so we accepted it.

For those of you who don't know what that tail flash means we are headed to Aviano Air Base after we are done in Korea. Three years in Italy doesn't sound bad at all. Things can always change, as we know from our Spangdalem excitement a few years ago, but right now we have a pretty incredible assignment to look forward to!

Guess I better start working on some new languages, so I can say Fly Safe in Korean and Italian.

Fly Safe,
Barb 

Patriots Point:

Yesterday we took a day trip to Charleston, and went a ton of places we have not gotten to go yet.
I have been talking Hochi's ear off about wanting to go to Patriots Point, and yesterday we decided to wake up early so we could!

Patriots point is home to the USS Yorktown which is an air craft carrier known as the Fighting Lady, the USS Laffey destroyer, the USS Clamgore submarine and various air craft.

Here you can see the Yorktown and Laffey, from the shore. I've never been on any kind of naval ship before, so I had no idea what to expect. 

I couldn't help myself with this, it is called Patriots Point, after all! It was a beautiful day, with a slight breeze, which was a welcome relief from how hot it has been lately. 

Hochi took on the roll of tour guide, reading and and explaining various things about the ships. 

They have a Tf-9J Cougar on display, and you can sit in the cockpit. It reminded me of how cramped the vipers cockpit is, but was set up a little differently. Hochi stood on the ladder to point different things out to me, and refresh my memory so I could compare the two.  

 If there is a Phantom (this one is an F-4J Phantom II) in the area, I'll find it. If you look closely you will see me in shadow there, touching the butt. For the uninitiated, I always hunt out specific air craft when we go somewhere that has a display. (See: our PIMA trip). If there is a BUFF, you can bet I'll make a bee line for it before anything else. The F-4 is one of the air craft my grandfather flew, and is usually around on display somewhere.

In standard household fashion, we spent more time getting excited about the air planes, than the boats. 

One of the most interesting points of the tour was coming down from the deck, they had a special escalator just for the pilots going under the deck for their debriefs. That was the butt of many jokes and endless teasing of Hochi for the remainder of the tour. 

The other interesting thing was seeing the difference between the enlisted living areas, and officer living areas.  

The Laffey had some newer exhibits that were very well done, meant to put you in the mindset of what was going on, complete with sound, visual, and feeling.

Going into the submarine was a little nerve wracking, its a tight fit, so if you have claustrophobia it is definitely not for you. It's mind blowing to me how many people lived (and still live) on these things and how tight of a fit they are! 

Have you been on a sub or ship? What did you think?

Fly Safe, 

Barb

TSP Korea Special:

As most of you know by now, Hochi has made it home from South Korea (and a brief moment in North Korea, as well). He brought back some super fun goodies for me, and some for himself!

As soon as I can get him to let me spend an afternoon taking pictures of him in clothing, I'll show you what he brought home for himself (so probably don't count on that in the next week or so).

First things first, I was perusing a list of highly recommended Korean snack foods for Hochi, and stumbled upon some Honey Butter chips. I asked H if he could find them, would he pretty please try to bring a bag back?

He searched all over, not knowing what I now know, they are incredibly popular, and most stores that have them don't even display them. 

He sent me a message saying "Hey, I didn't find Honey Butter, but I found something called Honey Tong Tong, and the bag looks exactly the same!" I'm all about trying new things, so I said "Close enough! I'm down!"

I opened them and tried them last night, and they are very good, interesting and strong flavor, but good. I certainly would not put away an entire bag of them on my own like I would BBQ chips... they are that ... sweet, almost. Hochi says they are kind of like the Lay's create a flavor, they are great and you like them, but you can't eat many at once and they don't really go with anything. 

I looked up what Tong Tong was for this post and came across some interesting information. These are actually sort of a "knockoff" of the actual honey butter chips, but by the same company. Tong Tong can translate to a hopping sound..or chubby, and since these are almost a fluffy chip, compared to the OG honey butter.... it makes sense that it would be chubby. 

10/10 recommend but share with a friend...or five. 

We kind of tasted a corn aftertaste, but that might just be because corn is on the bag. 

Up next we have Honey Butter Almonds (adorable packaging game is strong SK). 

10/10 recommend, don't bring friends, don't show them to friends, keep all the bags in the world as your own and fill your face with them. 

they taste like honey, butter, and almond. 

Up next we have the famous "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" tag key chain, only this one has a sweet Thunderbirds embroidery on the other side. 

Y'all, I LOVE the Thunderbirds. 

This is pretty self explanatory, BARB is my "callsign" and this is a name tag!

This is a luggage tag, swamp fox on one end, Viper on the other (recognize that view?) and my name in the middle, can not wait to use this for traveling!!

I don't have a lot of info on this one yet, cause I have not tried it. I am told that the one on the left (you know... that says energy on it) is an energy drink, and on the right is Soju (like a vodka) and in Korea its popular to mix the two with some sprite in a kettle, and then shots for errrone. 

Trust me, as soon as I try this, apparently glorious and dangerous mixture, I will tell you all about it. 

Last, but certainly not least:

That South Korea Louis Vuitton special, super secret squirrel like, ya know?

He picked it out himself, and did a great job if you ask me. You'll have to ask him for that story though. 

Now, if you don't mind, I am going to get back to watching Harry Potter weekend, listening to the dulcet tones of Hermine (the storm, not Hermione) and trying to keep Hochi awake, just a little longer to held him adjust to the time difference. 

Fly Safe, 

Barb