7 Quick Takes-Books, Pilots and Parties

1. The day has finally arrived. And by "the day," I mean my copy of Something Other Than God will finally arrive! Jennifer Fulwiler (the Jennifer Fulwiler, who is the author at Conversion Diary and has hosted 7 Quick Takes since...I don't know. A long time) wrote this book, which has already received amazing reviews from all over the interwebz and the literary world. For those of you who have never read her blog, go do it. Now. I've found myself actually laughing out loud while reading her blog posts about child rearing, her conversion to Catholicism, scorpions, and the general chaos of daily life. I promise, after you read a couple of her blog posts you're going to want to run out and immediately buy her book. I'll make that easy on you; you can do it here.

2. Yesterday was an amazing, joyful day as well, as one of our dear friends fulfilled a dream of his own; he graduated from flight school at Fort Rucker, and is now a genuine pilot. And not just ANY pilot; he flies an apache. AND, not wanting to be considered the kind of slacker who just graduates from warrant officer school, and flight school, and scored high enough on his tests that he was able to choose any kind of helicopter he wanted...he also was the recipient of the Distinguished Honor Graduate. As in, the very top of his class. It was an honor to be there for his ceremony, and to celebrate his many accomplishments.

I think it's safe to say the bakers at the grocery store couldn't make it through the rigorous demands of flight school...they spelled "Games" instead of "James" on the cake. *side-eye*

3. I also need to shout out to James's wife, my good friend Maureen. She is the kind of military wife I've always aspired to be; a wonderful wife and mother, maintaining a spotlessly clean home while entertaining two high-energy children while her husband works insane hours. I seriously don't know how she does it, but she does it all with grace, humor, and maybe a little bit of wine. ;)

4. Did I mention James and Maureen are also Alessandra's godparents?? They weren't able to attend her baptism last June (because, you know, flight school), and I was finally able to get a picture of the three of them together! I'll show you the "nice" one...as in, the one where James isn't pretending to be Marlon Brando from "The Godfather" or Luigi from the Mario Bros video games. Seriously.

5. Do babies have some kind of radar? Specifically, special-event-in-my-darling-little-dress-that-my-parents-put-me-in-so-naturally-I-have-to-have-two-massive-poopslosions-radar? Because, umm, I think it's safe to say Alessandra picked up on that pretty quickly. Thank goodness we had a spare outfit, is all I'm going to say.

6. There are no words to describe how grateful I am for our military friendships. We met James and Maureen in Hanau, back in 2005. They moved there 3 months after Will and I arrived, and over the years the four of us got to be very close friends. They were there for me during Will's deployments, we've helped each other out with pets, babies, cars that aren't exactly reliable (I'm not naming names, but the car in question was a certain 1990 BMW that had a slight transmission problem), and a slew of other issues that popped up over the years. Right now, we're only 2 hours away from our friends, but we're about to get even closer, distance-wise. In just a few short months, we're all going to be stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado together. I am beyond thrilled, and excited about this recent development.

7. In completely random news, I've decided I'm in the market for a bike. Fort Benning has a ton of walking/bike trails around the base, and Colorado is the perfect state for long bike rides. I can buy one of those trailer things for the kiddos (to be used on the bike trails only; I'm a little freaked out about riding in the road with a bike trailer carrying my two wee ones), and I think it will prove to be a great escape during the day when we're all feeling a little bored, or cooped up in the house. Not to mention, I love riding bikes, but I haven't owned a bike in a very, very long time.

Happy weekend, everyone!