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

Things I've learned:

As the ..military business trip... has gone by, I've learned a few things. 

It's been a good little trial run of a longer trip, for sure, and I can't wait to see the goodies C (or rather... Hochi, now..more on that later) is bringing back. Regardless I'm certainly firmly in the "ready for you to come home now" camp. I won't say much more than that, for OPSEC, PERSEC and all the SECs purposes. (I could not resist, I am so sorry.)

Now, to what I have learned so far. 

1. Take Sunglasses, especially if Hochi is flying one of the jets over. This serves two purposes. Shielding your poor sensitive eyes from the beaming rays of the sun. They also hide the fact that you're basically sobbing, from everyone else around you. Don't worry, they cant hear you over the A/B. 

I have never been so happy for sunglasses. 

2. Having family there makes it a lot easier. Granted, I knew this from all of my Dad's deployments, but it is arguably different when your spouse deploys instead of your father. We had a lot of fun, and a full house (7 people, including me)

3. Dogs are great, but probably don't rely much on them for conversation after everyone leaves. 

Also, you know you have reached adult status when you are super stoked to finally have a fence installed in your yard. 

4. If there is a chance Hochi will be gone for your anniversary, He definitely will be. 

No big deal though, He sent me a lovely gift (365 reasons he loves me!) and some beautiful flowers, and we can celebrate when he gets home. 

This is less of a thing's I've learned, and more of a super sneaky random update on how things have been going while he's gone. 

Tricked you. 

Fly Safe,

Barb

The Apartment:

Remember when we first moved to Cola and lived in a short term lease apartment? Remember when I said I would upload pictures of said apartment?

Well, when C was coming up to go on a ...military business trip... I ended up taking a break so I could spend some time with him, and while he has been gone my hands have been a bit full. I am not one to break a promise, the day has finally come... pictures of.. what I have now dubbed.. the SWAT apartment.  

 When you first enter the apartment. Living room and balcony to the left, dining room to the right.

 

The Kitchen and Living room. The kitchen had two entrances, the one you see in the first picture, and one in the hall. 

The hallway, and second bedroom. It was the only floor plan available, we just used it to hold some boxes of our clothes.


This floor plan had two bathrooms, one had an entrance from the master, and the other from the hall...but the real treat was that they both had an entrance to each other...ya know, in case you get lonely while you're pooping.


Master bedroom, which purely existed to hold our air mattress...the air mattress that decided to get a hole into it two weeks before we would move out. Poor C tried everything to keep that thing inflated all night.

Looking back at these makes me so happy to have a Home. It was cute, but it was not dubbed the SWAT apartment for no reason.

Fly Safe,

Barb

Air Show:

Today was the second day of the Shaw Air Expo or Thunder Over the Midlands.
I worked with the OSC yesterday morning, but C and I wanted a chance to go and actually watch, so we decided to go today. We got really....really sunburned.
We ended up riding in that rapid strike you will see in the background of the first picture, we ate air show food, and ran around looking at all the static displays, but the best part was watching the show form the top of an old fire truck that the Gamblers have.

All in all, it was a great day for watching planes, and we definitely had a blast!

Fly Safe,

Barb