Mom's Surprise!!!

A few months before Christmas, I asked my mom what she wanted. She gave me a couple of ideas and so I started my Christmas shopping. Nothing I saw really hit the spot. I did find a really cute snowman for her at Hobby Lobby. I figured she already has a bazillion, so she definitly needs one more! But I still needed something to go with it.... Well, I took one of my dogs to the vet to get her teeth cleaned and when I went to pick her up, one of the ladies at the desk asked if I wanted a puppy. I looked up and saw a really cute, really tiny chihuahua puppy. I told her no, that I already had 2 dogs and that was enough. I left and as I was driving home, I thought of my mom. I called her to kind of joke with her about the dog and at first she thought I was talking about getting it for myself. I told her that no I was thinking about it for her. She wasn't sure if she wanted a dog right now, or even what kind...etc.

I got home and was telling Wyatt about my idea to get the dog for mom for Christmas. We threw the idea around a little, but I wasn't even sure if the dog was male or female or anything else about it. So, I called the vet and asked to talk to the lady about the puppy. I asked her a few questions and let her know I'd call her back and let her know if I wanted it. So, Wyatt and I talked it over a little more and came up with a few more questions. I called her back and asked her the other questions. By the end of these questions, I had made my mind up. I was going to get the puppy!!!

So, I went and picked up the puppy and she was so sweet and loveable. All she wanted to do was cuddle and lay on my lap. I was pretty sure that would go over real well with my mom. It was so hard to keep the secret for almost a week - I got the puppy on Tuesday evening and gave her to my mom on Sunday afternoon. After I got home with the puppy, we decided that we should go get a little carrier for her. So, Wyatt dog sat while I ran to Wal-Mart to get a little carrier for her. Of course, my dogs weren't too happy with me for bringing home the puppy. I really wanted to wait and surprise my mom when we went over on Christmas Eve, but Cari came to visit on Saturday and then my mom was going to drive half-way over to meet us and drop off my cousins so we could take them shopping for their Christmas presents. I figured that would be way too much craziness in my house and it would also give mom some time to bond with her new baby before we all went over there for Christmas. So I decided to take the puppy with me and surprise my mom on Sunday afternoon (since I wanted to let my mom name her, I just called her Little Girl).

Little Girl only wanted to lay in my lap on the way to meet my mom and pick up my cousins. I was a little worried that she had already bonded to me. Anyways, we get there and are pulling into the parking space next to my mom and Little Girl is trying to climb out the top of my coat. I managed to keep her hidden. So Cari and I get out and go stand next to my mom's door, now mind you it is FREEZING outside. We chat a little and then I inform my mom that I am having a really hard time wrapping one of her gifts.... In the mean time I am trying to pull Little Girl out the bottom of my coat, but all she wants to do is stay inside! So, I finally manage to get her out and at just the right time, mom looks over at Aunt LeAnn in the passenger seat (Perfect!!!). I say, "So, I decided to give it to you today," and sit her on the door. My mom turns around and her jaw hits the floor!!! She was shocked and didn't know what to say. It was great!!! I hopped in the car and quickly told her the story and what I knew about Little Girl. She and LeAnn decided that LeAnn had better drive home so mom could bond with her new baby.

It didn't take long for Little Girl to bond with mom and understand that she was her new mommy. Now, anytime mom is out of her sight she whines a little and is really only content sleeping on mom's lap. Mom picked out the name Sassy Ann(after me) Sargent. I think it is a great name and matches her perfectly. Here are a few pics of Sassy while she was at my house.

Cuddled in the blanket sling I made for her

Dinner time!

Trying to get her to pose with the presents

Bath time

Isn't she pitiful?!?!?

Dallas Aviation Expo

On Friday, another instructor and I flew into DFW for the Dallas Aviation Expo. The second week in November there was a flying contest to determine which instructors got to go. Whoever got the most flight hours that week, got to fly one of Spartan's airplanes to DFW. So, I thought it would be fun to go and then maybe get to see Cari. I worked hard to get the most hours, but because of some cancellations, I was 0.9 hours short of winning. The instructor that won was trying to get more time in the seminole so he could get his MEI (multi-engine instructor license). Since I have mine and could sign him off, I got to go also. We met at the airport at 5:30 Friday morning (too early for me, especially since I had too leave my house at 5!). We eventually got everthing ready to go and took off toward Dallas. We were a little nervous about flying into DFW since it is such a large and busy airport. Usually, airports like DFW don't like it when they have general aviation arrivals because we are much slower than the commercial airlines and cause sequencing problems. We got to their airspace around 8 and luckily they weren't too busy... yet. The controllers were all very nice (not grumpy like we expected). They had us land on the far east runway and then told us unfortunately we were going to have to taxi all the way to the west side of the airport, which was about 3 miles. Needless to say, we had a pretty long taxi. When we finally arrived at the American Airlines hangar where the expo was being held, we saw several other airplanes.

This is an airplane taking off while we were holding short of one of the runways.

The C130 can actually back up!!! We were getting ready to leave, but the C130 was blocking us in. So, we just sat in our little seminole and waited until they left to start our engines. It was pretty impressive.



The expo was for elementary through high school kids in the Fort Worth area. There were a couple of recruiters from Spartan there that had a booth set up. We pretty much just hung out all day and answered any questions anyone had. When the expo was over, we flew to Spinks airport, which is just to the southwest of DFW. Cari and Calloway came and picked us up and we went to eat. Since my birthday is Wednesday, Cari bought me lunch/dinner and got me some super cute pajama pants. It was a lot of fun to get to see her and play with Calloway. I can't believe how big she is getting and that she is almost 1!!!!

This one is really good of Cari and Calloway.














She is so cute and I can't wait to see her again at Christmas!!!!!

Christmas Time!!!

Wyatt and I spent most of yesterday afternoon/evening putting the tree up. Of course, we had to clean the living room really well before he would let me pull the tree out. This included moving the furniture to clean behind and under it. I was almost too tired to decorate the tree when we finally got to it, but then I started pulling out all of the ornaments and got excited to get them on the tree. This is the second year I have had an actual tree, other than the little 3 foot one I got for my room when I lived at home. There is a whole story to getting the tree.

Last year, I decided that I really wanted a big tree after seeing some ornaments at Wal-Mart that I loved. So, Wyatt and I looked everywhere to find which one we liked and was the best deal. We wound up really liking a pre-lit tree from Wal-Mart. We made the decision at the Wal-Mart on 71st St, but they didn't have any. So, we went to the next closest one, the one on 101st St. Guess what, they didn't have any either. We went to another one (I don't remember which one) and they didn't have any either. We were getting pretty irritated by now. However, each one we went to I found more ornaments that I liked. So I had plenty of ornaments, but no tree to put them on! So, we went to the Wal-Mart closest to my house. We found the box and Wyatt pulled it off the shelf. I was thinking that looked too easy; either it was really light or an empty box. Sure enough, it was the box for the display. We thought, "We'll just buy the display." So we asked and they told us they couldn't sell the displays. We had seen other stores selling their displays so we asked for the manager. He confirmed that they couldn't sell the display, but he did check to see where the nearest Wal-Mart was with the tree. He came back and told us the Pryor store had 2. We asked if they could hold one for us and he said that they couldn't. So we got back in the car and headed to Pryor. This whole time we hadn't had dinner because we were waiting until we were headed home. Needless to say, we were starving! There is a Burger King on the corner, so we stopped there and that was the best tasting food we had had in a while (of course it was probably because we were so hungry). So we made our way to Pryor and they had one!!!! We were so happy and relieved. Our search was finally over! So, we brought the tree home and even though we were so exhausted, we put it together that night! We stayed up until like 1 or 2 getting it all finished. It turned out so pretty.

This year, it was a lot easier - just pull it down from the attic and put it together. Of course, it would have been a little easier if I had put the directions with the tree. I know I kept them, I'm just not sure where. The tree is in 3 pieces and you have to make sure to plug the cords in the right place in order for all the lights to work. We were on the second layer getting it all fluffed when we decided we had better try the lights. So, we plugged it in and only the bottom layer worked. We had to take the second layer off and try to figure out how to get everything plugged in correctly. We finally figured it out and put it back together. Then on to the top layer. We got it all put together and then Wyatt disappeared to the office. So I started decorating it. It turned out beautiful again, if I do say so myself!! I have always loved black and white, so it is only fitting that those are the colors, plus silver/gray, I used on the tree. Here are some pictures:

The corner for the tree

My helpers

Tree Skirt
I guess I wore them out!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

My baby is home!

It was a long week, well atleast the second half. Wyatt left on Wednesday afternoon to go on a 4 day fishing trip with 5 or 6 guys from work. Needless to say, I missed him a lot!!! Mom came over Wednesday evening because we had a funeral to go to on Thursday morning, so atleast she kept me company for part of it. I've gotten used to coming home and having someone here, other than the dogs, so it was really weird to come home to a dark house (and a little scary!). It definitly made me appreciate the companionship I have in Wyatt. Even though we aren't always talking or doing something together, just knowing he is here or in the other room is a great comfort. I gave him a big hug and kiss when he got home and told him I didn't think he was allowed to go on another trip like that.... he just laughed. I'm sure I'll let him go again if another trip comes up... if he's good!

On a different note.... I worked A LOT last week! For those of you that don't know how my job works, I'll explain it. I am a flight instructor at Spartan. We aren't on salary, instead we get paid hourly, and only for those hours we are in the airplane. For example, each flight we schedule is a 2 hour block of time. Within that 2 hours, we have to brief the student on what we are going to do that day, then go fly, and then debrief when we get back to let the student know what was good and what needs work. We are paid off the hobbs meter in the airplane, which is only ticking when the engine is running. So, what usually happens is you only get paid for about half, sometimes a little more, of the time you actually work. I usually try for 25 paid hours a week, which usually requires 40+ hours of work. The ratio of what you get paid for to what you work can be helped by having students that go out on solo flights while you are flying with another student. Unfortunatly I only have 1 student who is at that stage in the curriculum. Another thing that helps is when you do a ground lesson because you get paid for the whole hour, but there are only so many of those in the curriculum. So, when the weather is bad, like today, I don't get paid unless I do something like a ground lesson. Also, when the weather is beautiful, you become a workaholic because you've gotta work while you can. It makes it hard not having a steady paycheck, so I've gotta save any extra I make for literally "rainy days". With all of that being said, I get paid for 37 hours last week!!!! Yippee!! That's probably one of the best weeks I've had since I came back from the airlines. Of course, it did require me to work 6 days and many of them over 10 hours, but I am thankful that I was able to get it in. Well, hope everyone has a wonderful week and hopefully these thunderstorms will clear out and I'll be able to have another good week!

Katy's Wedding

It has been a busy couple of weeks. We've been trying to get everything organized. We both had so much stuff to try to fit into the house that I already had full. Needless to say, we're having a garage sale to get rid of a lot of it!!!

On Saturday, one of my really good friends, Katy, got married. I worked with her at the bank and she was a bridesmaid in my wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, especially the bride. We both had the same photographer and florist, yet our weddings were completely different. Here are a few pictures from her wedding.

Katy coming down the aisle

The whole wedding party

Sand Ceremony

The kiss

Katy and I

They weren't very nice with the cake

Leaving for the honeymoon

Not Much Happening

Well, it's been a week since I've posted, but there really hasn't been too much exciting happening in our lives. Most of you may not know Wyatt had shoulder surgery on the 24th of September. About 5 years ago, he dislocated it and has had trouble with it coming out since. For example, one night he woke up and was in a lot of pain. Apparantly, he had slept on it wrong and that caused his shoulder to come out of socket. He had to slowly work it back in but it took him awhile. So, he decided to go ahead and have them tighten the ligaments and get it fixed before it comes out while he's flying or something. Well, his first day back to work was Tuesday. He got pretty spoilt to being lazy and watching movies all day. Needless to say, I was a little jealous - not of the one armedness, but the being lazy! It was kind of funny... the day after his surgery, he got up and started cooking french toast 'cause it sounded really good. I told him maybe he shouldn've had surgery a long time ago if it meant him cooking breakfast! Really though, he is doing well. He still has to wear the sling when he's out and about, but can leave it off while he's at home and has very limited movements of his arm. There's one guy at church who made up a couple of stories to explain the sling. His favorite is that while we were on our honeymoon, a shark bit off Wyatt's arm. The shark had to be gutted to retreive his arm and then have it reattached while we were in Mexico so it would be cheap! It's not very believable, but it's pretty funny.


Like I said, there hasn't been a lot going on. We've both just been working and trying to get the house organized. Since I've lived in the house by myself for so long, I've pretty much taken over all the closets and have more stuff than I remember ever getting. Of course, I have to thank my mom for some of it!!! In my defense, the house was built in the 50's, so the closets are, what's the word... TINY! Now that Wyatt needs room for his stuff, we're trying to figure out how to organize everything so we can both have what we need. I've joked about just turning the guest bedroom into a huge closet, but he didn't think that would be a good idea. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. We both need to go through all of our stuff and get rid of a lot, so that'll help too. Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Getting Started....

Hey everyone.... I'm trying to get our blog up and going, so please bear with me. Hopefully over the next few days I can get it figured out enough to start posting stuff. If anyone has any tips, I could definitly use them!!