The Make A Wish Foundation-Puppy Style

I was at my office, working as normal, when the manager of Community Health and Animal Control came in. He said there was a recent donation of puppies that were super cute and he thought he'd just let me know. I didn't really think too much of it until I mentioned it to Stephen. He said he'd been thinking of getting a second puppy for Shadow, to help with his recovery and to give him a play-mate during the day.

So we made the trek to the pound once again to look at the new puppies. There was only 1 left of the original batch that I was told about, and we didn't have a good feeling about him (he would growl whenever we would get close to the kennel). But next to him was a chihuahua and 2 super tiny puppy mixes (they looked rottweiler/pinscher mix). Even though they aren't allowed on base, we decided we would get one of the puppies anyway! I went back to the pound after work to get her. She was super cute and curled up on the blanket on the way home and fell asleep. Adorable.

When I got home, Shadow was in the backyard pen, and Stephen was out at work. I left the little puppy in the truck while I went and got Shadow. I hugged him and kissed him and took him over to where his little sister was. He was SO excited! He would follow her around the house everywhere, and always lick her.

It was pretty tough, trying to take care of both dogs and get dinner ready especially since Coco had no idea when she would go potty. So that was pretty messy...  For the rest of the night, we played with the two puppies, gave Coco a bath, along with flea medicine, and spent most of the night pulling the dying fleas off of her. Shadow let her sleep on the big doggy bed in the crate, while he slept on a small blanket outside the crate.  Stephen also had to go to work early, so I had to take care of both dogs in the morning. Coco was still sleeping, so Shadow and I snuck out to get us breakfast. Once she woke up, she started to whine and cry. Shadow perked right up and ran to the bedroom to go get her. She stopped crying as soon as she saw him. It was precious!

I went to work, and got a call from Stephen less than 2 hours later. He was crying so hard, I had no idea what happened, but was very worried. Coco died. She had started to throw up all over uncontrollably, and we guess she asphyxiated on her vomit. Stephen heroically tried to give her CPR (mouth-to-snout) but it didn't work. While this happened, Shadow was hiding under the table, really scared.

I rushed home, had Stephen shower off with Shadow, and helped calm them both down. We cuddled on the bed for a while before we needed to get back to work. I was super sad for Stephen, but Coco was supposed to be his puppy. I picked up Coco and put her in a box, and we scrubbed the floors.  I went over to Bethany's (where I lost it) and she said she would go check on Shadow to make sure he was ok.

We were really glad that we were able to make Coco feel loved and more comfortable for her last day of life. We miss her, but won't be getting another dog for a while!

Shadow's near death experience

After only 2 weeks after having him, after his first trip to the vet, Shadow got super sick. I came home from work and he was just laying on the floor, struggling to breathe. Stephen was kneeling over him and looked at me with a face full or worry and concern. Shadow got up onto his shaky paws, walked a few steps towards me before collapsing.  I felt like I was dying! How could my little baby puppy be sick!?!?!

We hurried and called the vet and she said we needed to bring him in immediately...to Uvalde. Over an hour away. By now, I'm bawling and Stephen has shed a few tears, I'm in work clothes and he's in his uniform. We hurry and change and rush into the truck. Shadow is once again sitting in my lap, drooling and diarrhea-ing all over me. But I'm past caring. I mean, I hate poop and throw-up, but when it comes to someone or something you love, it's one of those things you get over.

Stephen drives, which is good because my eyes are still full of tears and I'm on the verge of hysteria. It seems to take FOREVER to get there. Our amazing vet is waiting for us along with 2 other techs. They hurry him inside and leave Stephen and I in one of the examination rooms alone. We're both just in shock. They took x-rays of his lungs, started an IV with medicine and got him on oxygen. I was so restless not knowing what was going on. I actually started to sneak to the back before Stephen caught me.

Once we were allowed back, Shadow is face down on the x-ray table with an oxygen tube to his mouth. He was breathing so hard. I felt so bad for him. His x-rays showed that his lungs were almost completely filled with fluid, with additional fluid around his lungs. Once that fluid completely fills his lungs, he'd be drowning from the inside.

Due to the severity of his condition, and the lack of equipment at their office, she gave us a referral/transfer to a San Antonio pet ER. This time, I drove. I'm a bit more of an aggressive driver than Stephen, and I didn't think I could handle the possibility of having Shadow die in my arms, not able to do anything to help. At least while driving, I felt like I was doing something. We probably averaged 10-15 miles over the speed limit the whole way, close to 2 hours of driving.  We are so lucky we never saw a cop, and they didn't see us.

We finally get there, run in, and they immediately take him back and get him set up in their nifty oxygen chamber. We then have to sit and wait and cry, while all the rest of the people around us slowly start to leave. We're the last ones helped, but we can't feel too bad, Shadow jumped to the front of the line and was taken care of first before all the other people's pets.  The dr talks to us. They did more x-rays and it showed that it was worse than what it was in Uvalde. He told us to prepare our possible good-byes to Shadow, as even with the treatment, he might not make it through the night. We walk back to the oxygen kennels. Shadow is face down still, not moving besides breathing. He did pick up his head slightly when he saw us, but that was all the energy he had.

That was so sad. Saying good-bye, not knowing if it was going to be the last time we saw him alive. I'm still a wreck. We drove to Stephen's friends house, Joe who let us stay there. He also bought us dinner from my favorite sandwich place, just trying to help ease our night. I honestly don't even know if I said anything at all though.

The next morning, first thing, the dr called us to tell us Shadow made it through the night, but without any improvement. We went down there to see him. This time when he saw us, he lifted his head and gave a small wag of his tail before putting his head down. We stayed with him for almost 45 minutes, much longer than the 10 minutes we were supposed to see him for, but all the techs and vets were super nice and never made us feel in the way. They brought us puppy food to try to get him to eat, and water, but the only thing we could get him to have was a little water from our fingers. It was so sad and scary to see him in such a vulnerable place.  The vet decided to up the oxygen concentration in his cage to 40% to see how that would help him. They could only keep it that high for 24 hours though.

We then had to leave, get some food of our own, and pass the day. I took a 3 hour nap while Stephen and Joe played Call of Duty or something...we went back and saw Shadow again, and brought him a pink dragon squeaky toy. We squeaked it for him and he perked up his ears and wagged his tail a bit more before getting too tuckered out. It was a vast improvement from the night before. We finally had a little hope. The problem was his lungs were still not clearing. There was still a good sized risk that he might not make it through the night. But we had to go back to Del Rio and go to work. We were very lucky to have understanding boss's. After an agonizing night, the doctors calling and saying no improvement, but he's still alive, then a full day of work, we were back on the road to San Antonio.

The bad thing was we were starting to get low on money. If he had to stay longer than the weekend, we weren't going to be able to pay. Thankfully, USAA extended our credit limit so we could pay for the weekend. We drive straight to the hospital to meet with the with his doctor. She happily had called us in the afternoon saying he was finally improving! They took him outside for a little, he was out of his oxygen cage to see how he'd do, eating all the food he could get, and barking his head off! We went in with high spirits, not even minding the new vet bill that was about half of my paycheck; by this point, we didn't even blink at a low bill like that. They took us to an examination room, where we were going to be able to talk to the vet in private before going in and seeing him. She came in with a surprise!

She brought Shadow in! We were so happy to see him up and walking around! And he was so excited to see us as well! Stephen and I both shed a few tears of joy! It was so nice to be able to pet him and play with him and hold him again! I didn't even mind him licking my face! It's crazy how the little things don't matter in the end when they are threatened to be taken away forever.  We took him outside to the grass for an attempted potty break and fed him some peanut butter as well as some puppy food. That hour was wonderful! As long as he kept getting better through the night, we would be able to take him home in the morning!

We were so happy! No new vet bills and we got to keep our pound puppy! The next morning, things were still going great and Shadow was coming home with us!  He met Sammy (Joe's cat) and then slept the entire way back to Del Rio, so did I (I was totally exhausted and Stephen was nice enough to drive).

The next few days he was still pretty weak, but luckily it was right before Thanksgiving, so we only had to worry about him for a little, before he would get 4 straight days of 24 hour care. After that, our challenge was to keep him from going crazy with his pent-up energy! Such a challenge trying to tell a 5 month old puppy to not run around and play after being on the brink of death!

A pound puppy becomes family

  This all started two and a half years ago when Stephen and I went on our first date.  It was during this night out that I knew that I could possibly marry him. On our way home from dinner, we talked about a lot of things including our personal life plans and goals. Amongst many other things, two things we had very much in common were: wanting to have 5 kids and wanting to have a dog.

   Fast forward to when we first got to Laughlin, this July. As we filled out the rental agreement for our home, the woman asked if we were planning to start a family at some point time while we were here at Laughlin. We both said yes. She then also asked if we were planning on getting any pets. Simultaneously, Stephen said yes, and I said no.  She laughed and said that she heard that a lot.

  Now fast forward to October, by this time I've realized that something in my body isn't quite right. Over the past year or so, I've had multiple cysts that have been super painful but have always gone away within a month or so, and we haven't really thought much of it.  But then I got a feeling I needed to go in and get everything checked out.  That has led to several doctor appointments with numerous tests and labs, the results of which I received on October 31st.  More or less, what the doctor told me is that it would take a miracle for us to get pregnant and a bigger miracle for me to actually carry a baby to term. She gave me a referral to see a specialist and said that we might have to look into fertility treatments and other options. Worst. Day. Ever. I was devastated and heart broken. As the little trick-or-treaters came by our home that evening I had to quickly shut the door after giving them candy to keep them from seeing the tears rolling down my cheeks. It made me sick to see those beautiful children all dressed up and excited, and not knowing if we would ever be able to partake in the joy and blessing of having children.

   The next Monday, the 4th of November, I was helping set up the new kennels/animal control facility for the City of Del Rio.  During my work there, I had to walk through the dog kennel area regularly. Being an animal lover, I couldn't help but feel bad for all these animals that had been abused or abandoned. Many of them were adorable and I was hoping and praying that some good person would take them into their home before they had to be euthanized. Since the kennel space is very limited, the animals have a short "expiration date" before which they must be adopted or they have to be put down to make room for new animals. There was one dog, in particular, that caught my eye. He seemed especially sad. I still remember where he was sitting in the second to last kennel on the left. I asked about him and found that he and his brother had been abandoned. Because he was very cute, the animal control officers had extended his expiration date in hopes that someone would take him home. A family had already adopted his brother, and ever since he had become very, very sad. Since I was still anti-pet, I didn't think much of it besides to feel sorry for him. But something about him sparked my motherly instincts, which had been severely hurt by the recent bad news.

   My job seemed to keep taking me back there over the next few days. I kept looking at this little guy when I would be there, and I always asked the officers if anyone had expressed interest in adopting him. It took me all the way until Friday to tell animal control that if they would have to put him down, to call me first so I could talk it over with Stephen to decide if we wanted to save him. By this time, Stephen had already heard once or twice about this sad little pound pup.

  During lunch on November 8th, Stephen agreed to go look at the pound dogs after work, just in case we needed to decide to save the little sad puppy. We had a strict agreement to "only look". We went in to the kennels, and looked at all the other dogs first before I showed Stephen my special dog. Another dog had caught Stephen's eye, but a sniff and a wag off the tail later, Stephen was pretty much sold on my sad puppy. Needless to say, our not buying agreement got broken. Since we didn't have cash in hand to pay for the puppy, the animal control officer allowed us to "steal" the dog for the night since he worked with me. The officer opened the pen and our puppy stayed in the corner to cower in fear. Stephen went in and picked him up while I hurried to the truck to get in so I could hold our puppy. As he sat shivering in my lap, a motherly connection that I had been longing for was formed as he calmed down and cuddled into me.

   First stop with the dog, HEB, the Super market, to get the necessities: food, dog dishes, a leash and collar, and poop cleaner upper spray since he was an "oops" puppy. We brought him home and it took him very little time to become adjusted to life with us. He has been very devoted and loyal.  We named him Shadow because he follows me around everywhere I go. When watching TV and  I get up to get some water, he gets up too, follows me to the kitchen, sits down on my feet, and 20 seconds later follows me back to the living room, instead of just staying with Stephen. Or, whenever he gets scared, he runs to me and hides between my legs. It's really cute!

   Our first weekend with him, we took him to Amistad Lake to play with him and introduce him to nature. We also took him to Seminole Canyon State Park on a 3 mile hike. Since he was cooped up in the kennels for almost a month, his muscles weren't very strong or conditioned. He was lucky enough to have Stephen carry him part of the way! It was also during this trip that we trusted him enough to take off his leash for a little while hiking and let him roam around, knowing that he would run back to us.

  I sort of feel like the guy in Marley and Me, I just want to blog about everything that Shadow does, like how proud of him I was the first time he chased a cat up a tree, chewing up his first tennis ball, having exploding poop all over his kennel and the floor and walls, finding broken off teeth on the floor, running into the screen door, the fun he has with plastic bottles (especially the milk jugs!), peeing a little by my side of the bed every night, trying to claim his territory from Stephen, getting kicked in the mouth by a grasshopper, etc. We have had so many good memories with him already!

What? We're together again?

So, once Stephen got back from IFS, things were a bit crazy! I have been living here in Del Rio for over 3 months, have my routine, park in the same spot for church each Sunday, watch my certain shows at night, and just do my own thing. Once he came back, he was trying to change all my routines as if nothing had happened, as if I weren't already established in my home!

But within a week, they have more or less hit "normal." We both go to work at the same time each day, we take our lunch at the same time, Stephen gets home about 45 minutes before me, and then we share our evenings. For lunch, we normally eat our sandwiches at a park that's between Del Rio and Laughlin. It's a cute little place, with the occasional drug deals, but hey, this is the Mexican border, what can we expect? It's really nice to meet up halfway through the day, sit outside on a park bench and just talk, watching the stream, and other picnic-goers. I love that quality time we get to spend together!

At home for the evenings, we started getting super fancy with our dinners. "Chef" Stephen loves to cook and wants to try all sorts of crazy stuff! Most of it has been good! It's crazy to think of what a normal dinner growing up with a single dad included, and now when I try to eat that food....well, let's just say my palate has improved. I had no idea how gross canned beef stew is until I tried to have it one night when Stephen was gone to IFS!

Besides all of our fancy dinners, we're also watching a series we got hooked on while on our honeymoon: Burn Notice. We both really like the action and the spy-ness. I love Fiona, she is my role model! I want to be like her! :)

Once we had been together for a month with this pretty constant routine, we started to feel that we needed to spice up our life and add something new..... see our next post!

IFS recap

Well, once back from Ukraine, I was supposed to head to IFS not 10 days later. As you can imagine, Jessie was super not happy about me having to leave again so soon. She prayed and prayed that I could somehow stay with her longer...and it worked! I was pushed back into a later IFS class, and got to stay home for 4 weeks. Which, was great!

Leading up to IFS I was getting pretty excited about getting to fly airplanes again. I did the powered flight program at the Academy and absolutely loved it, and the planes that IFS and the Academy fly are pretty similar (relatively). I had all the boldface and ops limits (certain emergency procedures and operating limits that are required to be know backwards and forwards because knowing them could mean the difference between life and death) memorized. I found out that a couple of my good friends would be going to IFS with me and so I arranged to room with one of them, and to drive up to IFS with the other one of them. I was getting excited, but Jessie was getting really sad again. I was going to be sad too, especially since I had just gotten back, but it was harder on Jess.

The day before I left Jessie and I and our good friend, Joe, with whom I was riding up to IFS, went to six flags in San Antonio. It was a lot of fun, and a good last day together. We rode almost all the rides, got some delicious fudge, and ate at the cheesecake factory to top it off. The next morning Joe and I headed off to IFS. It was a long drive, but we had lots of fun. We stopped in Albuquerque to see Joe's mom and grandma, which was awesome, they're so sweet. Then we made it the rest of the way up to Colorado Springs where we stayed the night with my family before heading down to Pueblo the next day to in-process.

In-processing was surprisingly easy, and we were the first people there that day, so there were no lines or anything so we were able to get all set-up and in our rooms and everything really quickly, which was really nice because it gave us time to become familiar with the 1 building (all the classrooms, study rooms, dorm rooms, and flying prep rooms (flight rooms) are contained in 1 building at IFS) and to go to gym and get some dinner. The food was really quite good there, which was awesome and awful. Awesome because it was delicious, awful because it was sometimes too delicious.

I found out that I was assigned to B-flight. I quickly found out that B-flight had a really bad rap for having the meanest, ornery-est, strictest flight commander at IFS. Which was true, to a 't'. The first day we met him we stood at attention the whole time he briefed us on how things would go in our flight, complete with loud "yes, sir"s as a response to his many questioning "is that understood"s. Needless to say we were all more than a little worried. As additional punishment for merely attending IFS, we were on formal release, which means that for the 12 hour duty day we had to be in the flight room or flying or in the chow hall, period, no exceptions. It sucked, mostly because when you have more than twenty 20 yr olds in one room it gets really hard to focus or concentrate really quick.  We made a sweet class patch though.

The class ahead of us was way behind so none of us even started flying for almost a whole week, maybe more. But when I finally got my dollar ride I was ready. I was stoked. It was awesome. I didn't get sick, but I did get a lot of opportunity to fly and got-a-hang of the plane and how it feels and flies. I had a blast.

My birthday fell during the time that I was at IFS, which really stinks because Jessie can plan a mean birthday surprise.  I was really sad that I wasn't going to get to be with her on my birthday, but I guess that's just the way it is sometimes.  Well anyways the days leading up to the weekend of my birthday was stressful both from flying and because something seemed off with Jessie.  She told me that she was sending me an awesome birthday package, and that it should get there on my birthday.  I checked the mail like 3 times that day, but nothing.  I was kinda getting bummed out, so I called my dad and asked if he could come pick me up so I could at least go hang out with him and my family up in Colorado Springs.  He said that he could, but then texted me back as I was waiting outside for him to pick me up and said that there had been a small emergency and that he wouldn't be able to come get me for a while.  That bummed me out even more, but whatever.  Just as I was heading back to my room my buddy Joe found me and asked if I wanted to grab some Dairy Queen.  I had my bag full of stuff that I was planning on taking to my dad's with me and so I told him that I'd just drop it off and then we could go.  He, somewhat suspiciously, told me that I should just bring it with and that he'd drive me up to the springs after ice cream.  I was a little suspicious, but I did as he suggested.  We were driving to the Dairy Queen when Joe got a call.  His phone is connected to his car through bluetooth and so the dashboard showed who was calling, and it was my wife...that's really weird I thought.  He awkwardly dismissed the call and we kept driving.  My suspicions were definitely aroused, but I was excited about that ice cream.  Shortly after we got there Jessie surprised me by popping out of no where and giving me a big hug and kiss.  I was so surprised to see her.  I was just shocked.  It was so awesome.  She really outdid herself this birthday I thought.  Well, the rest of the weekend was great.  We spent time with my mom and with my dad.  We got to spend some time alone on a date just catching up and enjoying being able to be together.  It was so surreal.  I was so sad to have to leave her though just a couple short days later, but I think it was perfect for both of us, to tide us over until I'd get home a week and a half later.  I was so happy that she did come out to visit me.  She really is the best.

I studied my butt off because I had promised Jessie that I would get home as soon as I could. The time and effort I was putting into studying and preparing for my flights though was putting a strain on our relationship. I felt so torn, I didn't know what to do, but I knew that I was so ready to get back home to her. The instructors I flew with were very good. Mr. Johnson, my first IP (instructor pilot) was very motivational and helpful. My second IP, mr. DeRay, took some getting used to, he came across as aloof and uncaring, but definitely pushed me hard to do my best, I soloed under his tutelage. My 3rd IP, mr. Hall, was awesome; he was part of the administrative and so he didn't get to fly too much so he was super excited to fly with me. He was really good and motivational and told me that I should try to get an Excellent on my checkride.

After what seemed like an eternity I was finally able to solo and then was quickly rushed into my checkride.  My solo was really fun, and uneventful except for the flock of birds that flew through the pattern, but they didn't bother me.  I was elated from my solo, but nervous for my checkride, but I felt like I had had a pretty good understanding of flying and the airplane for some time now, not to mention I spent numerous hours studying just for this checkride.  I was ready.  I thought.

I arrived 30 minutes early to my briefing with my check pilot, he wasn't there.  Oh and by the way, my check pilot was my flight commander.  You remember the real onry one.  Well, I waited for him and when he arrived about 10 minutes before the appointed time I asked if he wanted to start early on the briefing, a common checkride practice since the check pilot often drills you with questions during the briefing before you ever step out to the plane.  He responded curtly, "no".  when our scheduled time came he yelled for me to come into his office and it began.  He asked quite a few questions, but none that were really tricky, the way that I heard some check pilots did for checkrides.  Then after not even that long we headed down to the plane.  Once we got to the plane he was SUPER nice, like way nicer than I had ever seen him.  Cracking jokes, just trying to lighten the mood.

The flight was going pretty well, but I started to have some doubts when, after I completed my normal area work (steep turns, and power-on and power-off stalls) he told me to skip doing the ground reference maneuvers in the area.  Although I was a little worried I was also very glad because I wasn't particularly good at those.  We headed to the auxiliary airfield where we were going to do the landings.  My first normal landing was pretty good.  The second one was a landing simulating that my flaps had stopped working, so it's normally a faster landing without the flaps slowing you down.  The extra speed can kill you though because you half to land within the first half of the runway and with higher than usual speed that can be bad.  As I got close to the ground I knew that I could get the plane down before the halfway mark, but that we would be going WAY too fast if I did that and that wouldn't be safe, so I made the decision to go-around.  I was worried that I might have just hooked (failed) my checkride.  Instead my check pilot said, "that was a good go-around.  Let's make the next one a no-flap landing".  I flew the next one as a no-flap with no issues and then went on to the last landing, a simulated engine failure.  For this the IP pulls your power to idle and then you have to glide in for a landing, so it requires a lot of knowledge of when and where exactly to turn, lower the flaps, etc.  It wasn't my best landing ever, but it was safe.  As I was getting ready to turn and fly back to our base the check pilot took the plane from me and said he'd fly it all the way back.  I was confused, and worried, but I remembered hearing that some check pilots do this when you've had a really good flight and they've already graded everything that they need to and so they take the plane and fly it the rest of the way so you don't have an opportunity to make mistakes and screw up an otherwise great flight.  It was cool.

After debriefing he told me congratulations, and that I had earned myself an excellent.  He said he hoped that I would have lots more of those in my career .  It was a good feeling and a good challenge, and I was really lucky to have been able to do that, but I was super excited to get back home.  I stayed one more night with my parents in Colorado Springs and then headed back home to see my beautiful wife, Jessie, who was waiting for me.  It was an good experience, but most importantly I had gotten through it.

To be apart so soon...

is a travesty.

Last year, while we were both in school I applied to get into LEAP (Language Enhanced Airmen Program) and I got accepted, but for Ukrainian.  Whatever, I was okay with that.  So LEAP
   (SIDENOTE: I'm convinced the military chooses an acronym and then tries to come up with the words to      make that acronym work.
   "LEAP.  That sounds cool."
   "Ya, now what does it mean?"
   "Hmm...Language.."
   "Naturally"
   "Language...Empowering..."
   "No.  Ehat about Enhanced"
   "Ya that sounds cool"  etc.)
basically is just a program to help people in the Air Force who have language skills already keep those skills keen.  So they try to have you take a small continuing education class in the language all the time via the internet.  And then once every 3-4 years they try to send you on a trip to a country where they speak your language to study it more intensely.

Well, this spring I found out that I was picked up to go on one of the trips to Ukraine to study Ukrainian.  I was really surprised, and really excited.  The only bad thing was that it overlapped partially with the 60 days of paid leave that we get right after graduation from the Air Force Academy.  I talked to Jessie about it and she didn't seem as excited as I was, but that was to be expected.  She heard me out and said that it would be "okay" for me to go on the trip.  Well, I foolishly assumed that "okay" meant that she wanted me to go and thought it would be cool.  That's not what she meant, but more on that in a bit.

After our honeymoon we moved down here to Texas and I tried desperately to get settled into the house as best I could for Jessie's sake because I would leave her in about 4 days to go on my Ukrainian language trip.  I got a lot of the house put together, but there were still lots and lots of boxes.  I in-processed with the base and got ready for my trip.

When the day came, Jessie drove me to the airport and dropped me off.  As soon as we got to San Antonio she started to cry.  It broke my heart to see her like this and to leave her this way.  I didn't want to go anymore, but didn't have a choice at this point.  I felt awful as I boarded my flight to Kyiv.

When I arrived I was assigned a host family and given information about my lessons.  I had a pretty light load; only 2 lessons a day and then 3-4 days/week I had conversational practice with a "peer coach".  It sounded nice, and it was.  My teacher, Ilina, was awesome!  I learned a ton, about Ukrainian, Russian, the culture, Kyiv, etc.  I had fun, but something was definitely missing.  My excitement at the prospect of being back in Ukraine quickly faded somewhat.  I still worked hard and tried my best with my lessons, but it was hard being alone most every evening, and only being able to call jessie and not see her in person.

I tried to keep myself busy and I had fun, but I missed the love of my life, my princess, Jessie.  To try to stay busy, I found a fro-yo place (Dec 13: the location of the fro-yo place pictured below is not even 100 yards from where the protesting is in Ukraine right now), went to a couple soccer games, visited some cool parks, rode a nice train to Dnepr (where I served my mission), and admired some local architecture.

Luckily the time passed relatively quickly, and before I knew it I was on a plane headed home.  I was so very, very happy to be home with my love once more!  If only for a few short weeks.

Moving to Texas and Starting our Life Together!

After getting back from our crazy travels to London, Ukraine and Utah we were very glad to be home.  It was nice to be able to enjoy a great home cooked meal and have our own bed to sleep on and have my family around.  However, we knew that we had our work cut out for us.  We had most of our stuff packed up already, for months, out in the garage, but a lot of stuff especially wedding presents were all over the house.  Between Sunday night when we got back to Colorado and Friday afternoon we needed to finish packing everything, get a moving truck and load the truck.  We were gonna be busy.

Jessie was particularly interested in looking for furniture while we were still in Colorado Springs, which in retrospect was SUPER smart because we'd have to buy almost everything new in Del Rio, whereas in Colorado Springs we were gonna be able to benefit from the amazing-ness of cragslist.  We were able to get a couch, a nice wooden futon, a huge solid oak dining room table and a set of bed side tables for just ridiculously good prices.  So we just about doubled the amount of stuff (by volume) that we owned.  

So awesome story about the red couch you see in the picture.  The guy listed this "formal living room" couch for $100 bucks on craglist and said that it was hardly used.  We rushed over there and checked it out.  It was pretty nice, and was definitely worth more than the $100 he wanted for it.  We chatted a bit and I mentioned that we just got married and that I was in the military.  We loaded the couch up and headed back home to drop it off.  Jessie had a CPR class that night and so I was alone when I got another email from cragslist from this guy.  It said "Hey, can you swing back by.  My wife and I know how hard it can be starting off being married.  We'd like you to give $50 back."  I was shocked.  Amazed.  Stunned.  "Are you sure?  We agreed on $100."  I wrote back, and he said that he was sure.  I was so moved by that kind gesture.  I hope I never forget that.

My dad's retirement ceremony was that week too, so I dug out my officer service dress and stole a bunch of the accouterments from Jessie's old cadet service dress, because I couldn't find my stuff.  But eventually we made it.  It was really cool to go with all my siblings and see the office where my dad did all his "cyber security" stuff.  The ceremony was very nice, and my dad's boss had some really nice words to say about my dad's career.  At one point it almost turned into a cheesy version of Oprah when the boss would ask my dad to "tell us a little bit about...", but it was all good.  It was fun to be presented as Lt and Mrs Henderson!

We got the truck from Penske, which was a way better deal than U-haul for our move.  We loaded up a few things that night, but the majority of it we left until we had help.  The next day, Friday, we had some help come over: the family, the missionaries and Jessie's friend Emily Freeh and her fiancee, Stephen.  Ya, that was confusing, whatever.  We got everything all loaded up as not crazily as possible and we were set to go...or so we thought.

I mean driving a truck up onto the towing trailer can't possibly be that difficult and putting a couple things in the cab of the truck can only take a minute, right?  Ah, right!  Think again.  You're trying to baby the truck up onto the ramp because you don't wanna gun it and end up with the truck on top of all of our stuff in the moving truck, and also because the motorcycle is the back of the pickup truck (strapped down).  Eventually I get it up there with some help, but then the worst part comes.  Securing the truck to the trailer was a sinch, but putting the "few" things into the cab of the truck turned into quite the puzzle of where and how to arrange things because of course the last "few" things a) took up all of the space of the cab of the truck, b) were some of the most fragile things we own, and c)were also some of the heaviest things we owned.  That took some arranging.  But we finally got it done.  And we hit the road.  We climbed up into the cab of the moving truck and waved goodbye as we pulled out of the neighborhood.

Over the next two days we drove a little over 800 miles to our new home here on Laughlin AFB, TX.  We were having an enjoyable drive chatting, listening to the radio, and just being excited about being "big kids" now, until we got into TX.  The next morning we enjoyed the hotels breakfast.  I looked down at the waffle iron, and was like, man that's a weird shape, but it wasn't until the waffle came out that it dawned on me, "oh, deary...it's a Texas-shaped waffle iron".  Welcome to Texas.

We spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon driving through arguable the boringest part of Texas.  I mean, we're talking no cars around us and nothing around us but...well nothing.  Fields and oil wells.  Ya, not too exciting.  But as we got a little closer to Del Rio it actually got really pretty.  We drove along this river (not the Rio Grande) for a while and the vegetation got really thick and it was really neat.  Then we drove up and down all these cool hills, and then once we came out of the hills we got on the road, highway 90, that takes you into Del Rio, or San Antonio if you take it an extra 150 mi.  

We were both nervous about seeing Del Rio for the first time.  But as we drove down the main drag we were actually really impressed.  It was really very nice looking.  We made it to the base okay.  We checked in at the hotel and called it a night.

The next couple days were nuts.  Both of us had to check-in with our jobs, I had to do a ton of running around all over the base trying to do everything you need to do (like update your ID, file travel vouchers for the move, get medical screenings, etc.), we had to go sign the lease for our house, unload our moving truck, return the moving truck, go to church, get ready to go to Ukraine for a language TDY, get internet, go to work, unpack, etc.  You know, just a couple little things.  Although it was crazy at times, I was really pleasantly surprised how much we were able to get done before I left for Ukraine.

I'm super excited to be here in Del Rio with the love of my life.  It'll be great.  I definitely look forward to our life together, and it starts, for reals, here.

Utah - Honeymoon part 5

Well, we finally made it back to the states, which was nice, but sad at the same time.  We knew that our 41 day honeymoon was coming to a close, but we were determined to enjoy it to the very end.

We got into Utah and got picked up at the airport by Lynette around 1 in the morning on the 3rd of July.  The next day was the big 4th of July celebration at Dugway Army Proving Grounds where Jessie's dad works doing MWR stuff.  So we went out there to support him as he put on their 4th of July event and so Jessie could show me where she went to high school.  It was cool.  I met some of her friends that she'd gone to high school with and we snuck into the high school and saw their gym where she played volleyball and basketball.  It was cool.  After walking around pretty much the entire part of the base that isn't secured we enjoyed the BBQ, made it up the rock wall, and just hung out.

Then on the 4th of July we gathered up all of our things for camping and went up to the Uintah mountains where we had an awesome campsite staked out by a river.  It was just us and Jessie's parents the first night and then the second and third nights Jessie's sister, Brea, joined us.  We had a great time.  The first day we went for a hike along the river that ran past our camp.  Then we made a good dinner, played in the freezing cold river a bit and called it a night.

The next day we got to go see some AWESOME waterfalls, which we had to ride on 4-wheelers to get to.  It was so beautiful.  Then we went on a hike out past a bunch of little lakes.  That was really fun because Jessie's parents have a little Australian Shepherd - Peak, who came with us.  He loves the outdoors and is right at home out there and was a blast to hike with. 

That night we just hung out and caught up a little with everyone.  Out by the waterfalls we saw this really pretty lake and meadow and so the next day we decided to drive out that way and hike down there.  We made it down there, no problem, but realized that it was a terrible idea.  There were SO many bugs down there.  Mosquitoes and biting flies, and ugh there were SO many.  It was awful.  We hiked down and pretty much turned right back around and got out of there.  We then found a different section of the river to have lunch by. We spend the afternoon hanging out, playing with the dog and relaxing.  We also found a natural water slide down the river that was maybe 25 feet long that finished with some rapids before being dumped into a pool of water. Of course, this is Jessie's family, so without reservations of hidden rocks or crashing into the rock wall right next to it, we all slid down it, even Peak! It was really fun.  It was cool to just be out in the beautiful mountains like that.

The last morning when we were gathering everything up to go home I couldn't sleep very well so I got up and went on a little hike.  I got to the where I would have to cross the river, which I knew would be FREEZING this early in the morning, but on the other side I saw some gorgeous wildflowers.  So I waded through the river and gathered up a bouquet and brought it back into the tent while everyone was still sleeping and laid next to Jessie on my pillow and then snuck back out.  It was fun to do, and she really liked it.  We had a good ride home, and then we basically just got cleaned up, put stuff away and then headed to the airport.

We had such a good time, and it was hard to know that we wouldn't be able to come back to Utah for...well a while anyway.  But it was a great almost end to our honeymoon.

Ukraine - Honeymoon part 4

This part of the honeymoon was SO fun, SO spontaneous, SO relaxing.  We fly into Kyiv and made our way around visiting Dnepropetrovsk, Sevastopol', Yalta and Simferopol' before heading home to the good ol' US of A.

We didn't spend like any time in Kyiv this go around and instead hopped right onto an overnight train that took us to Dnepr.  We got there pretty early in the morning, but we were able to meet up with one of our friends there, Vova, who works in the mission office.  We chatted with him for a good bit and then headed out.  We took a leisurely stroll through Shevchenko park and along the embankment of the Dnepr river.  It was really nice.  It was fun to not have a schedule and just be able to enjoy ourselves.





Then we met back up with Vova and had a nice lunch at Puzata Hata, one of the few well-established chains of traditional-ish Ukrainian food.  They have good borscht!  After hanging out with Vova we went and walked around in one of the big malls that they've built downtown.  Then to round out the night we went to the English practice that the missionaries put on every week.  I was actually the "guest lecturer".  It was fun to see some people that I had known from the mission and just hang out.  Then it was time for another train.  This train took us down to Crimea, and was about 12 hours long.

When we woke up we were in the gem of Ukraine - Crimea.  I love Ukraine, but I LOVE Crimea.  After getting off the train, which is no small feat when you have a large suitcase each, as well as a backpack and other misc. stuff, I got us a taxi that took us to our hotel.  We couldn't check in until 1pm and it was only like 9 am. So we dropped off our stuff with the receptionist and went out to blow the morning before we could check in. We went to the park close to our hotel by the Panorama and ate breakfast. We then went to Center down by the bay to just walk around.  We ended up doing a sea excursion where we got to tour the bay, see the Black Sea Fleet from the sea, and go to the monument of the scuttled ships. We then went back to the hotel. The hotel was pretty nice and we were glad to be there.  I'm not sure, but I think we may have taken a shower and then passed out.  Travelling on trains is fun, but you always feel nasty when you wake up and the temperature is never "just right".  You're either freezing your buns off, or sweating like...what sweats a lot...a horse?



Anyhow, when we woke up we took a walk from our hotel back down to center enjoying the feel of the city and the old, rustic, buildings and boulevard.  When we got to the center of the city we were starving, but we knew just the place to go - Cafe MOMO.  We had been there for their opening in March and had loved it.  We had their hummus, which was amazing, and then Jessie ordered some kind of Ukrainian take on stir fry, which turned out quite well, and I had their pelmeni (pot stickers), which were delish.  Then we just took in the night life.

We were gonna stay in Sevastopol' for 4 nights and then 1 night in Yalta and then 1 night in Simferopol' before heading home.  But we were tired of our hotel.  It was fine, but we just wanted a change after 2 nights, so we checked out airbnb.com, which worked out GREAT for us.  We stayed in the nicest Ukrainian apartment for less than we were paying for the hotel.  It was great to have an apartment to ourselves because we could cook, wash our clothes, etc.  We were in walking distance from pretty much all of downtown so we went for a swim in the Black Sea.  That was cool, and no one "drownded".
























From our apartment we also took a day trip to Balaklava (a small mining town on the SW coast of Crimea).  We had been to Balaklava a few times already and so we just wanted to go on a hike there.  Well Jessie has a bad habit of not being hydrated (it's true, hon), and today was no exception.  So we start hiking up this "mountain" and by the time we almost reach the top, Jessie is done.  I had promised her that we would go skinny dipping in a small hidden cove afterwards and that was the only thing that kept her going. So I throw Jessie over my shoulders and...okay, not quite.  We sat in the shade of this ancient looking tree and recovered a little and then slowly make our way back down, and head for the cove. We had to do a bit of off-roading and rock climbing to get down there. Unfortunately there were some other people already in the cove, and that would be awkward to join them...so we made our way to the waterfront where we bought a couple big bottles of water to work on.  To be fair it was a pretty decent hill that we had hiked, I guess, 1100 ft of elevation in about a 1 mile, about half as steep as the incline in Manitou Springs, CO. And we didn't have water, it was 93 degree Fahrenheit and really humid, and we had been shopping right before and were carrying around our bags, but man was it beautiful.







While in Sevastopol' we also attended church, after spending 20 minutes in the rain trying to find it, and met up with Sis. Davidova and had dinner with her and her other guests, the former Sis. Kondrateva and her husband and their little baby.

After bidding farewell to Sevastopol' we rode a 2 hour bus to Yalta.  We grabbed a taxi from the bus station to take us to the hotel, and everything was all good, until we pull of the road and into the "parking lot" of this hotel.  I say "parking lot" because it was covered in construction supplies, was covered in mud, and the hotel was covered in scaffolding and was missing bricks and windows and I was just like "Oh no! this is not good."  We got out of the taxi and the taxi driver helped us set our stuff on the little porch and then he drove off and I was just thinking, this could be very bad.  I open the door and luckily enough there was actually someone at the receptionist desk.



She apologized for the hotel being such a mess, but promised that our room was all there and nice.  It was small, no, cozy.  It was fine for what we needed it to be - a bed.  After a brief scare where I thought the receptionist wasn't really a receptionist, but rather a sneaky lady who just stole my passport, we headed downtown.  She was actually the real receptionist and didn't steal my passport, and she was actually VERY helpful telling us how to get everywhere we wanted to go.  Downtown we found the cutest, most romantic little seaside cafe, complete with roaring waves, setting sun and live music to enjoy our 1 month anniversary.  Has it already been a month?!?!  It was a really great night.









The next morning we set out and saw some of the other palaces in the area. We went to Tsar Nicoli's, whose daughter is the famous Anastasia,  summer palace where the Yalta conference was held. It was absolutely beautiful! We then went down a jungle-like path and hung out at what used to be the Tsar's private beach and ate at another seaside cafe during a rain storm, before catching a ride up to Simferopol'.



Simferopol' turned out to be super awesome.  Which is way more than can be said about our flight home.  We grabbed some pizza at Chelentanos and then checked into our hotel.  As the receptionist took us up to our room she explained that there were two Henderson's staying at the hotel, and they had accidentally put the other guy in our room.  I was a little peeved, but kept listening.  She said she didn't feel too bad though because she was gonna put us in his room, which is the suite, for no extra charge.  I don't know if that guy's price got reduced, but I was happy for the upgrade.  The room was awesome.  We went out and walked around for a bit and grabbed some ice cream and then called it a night before our flight the next morning.

The flight was a disaster, not really from Ukraine, but from Istanbul to JFK.  There's no other way to describe it, but we eventually made it to Utah at 1am.  So that was good.

London - Honeymoon part 3

As a little background to this story we really wanted to go explore some parts of Europe that neither of us had been to before, France was out because Jessie's is prejudiced against the language and people, we'd already been to Germany a couple times, though there is of course more to see/do there, and we had been to Ukraine several times already, so we decided to go to England.  This gave us the great benefit of being able to stay with our friends while we were there.  Fred went through basic training with me back in the summer of 2007, and we had roomed together the year before he graduated in the summer of 2012.  So needless to say I knew him pretty well, as did Jessie because she was often in our room for some reason...oh ya, that's when we had just started dating.  And then Vanessa, Fred's fiancee at the time, moved out to Colorado Springs and we got to know her too.  Anyway, by the time they moved to England in the fall of 2012 we had become pretty close to them and we were excited to see them again.  Fred and I had been able to make it to each others weddings, but besides that we really hadn't see each other since last year.

We got into London and took the "tube" to the stop near their "flat" and met up with them.  It was so weird being in a foreign country where they speak English.  But it was really nice.  During our days there we went on some tours of the city, guided by Fred and/or Vanessa, and at night we hung out, chatted, watched TV, or played very intense board games.





We had a blast seeing Trafalgar Square, the Parliament building, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the old Naval College, Westminster Abbey, the square where Sir William Wallace was beheaded, the Tower of London and the crown jewels, the British Museum, some beautiful parks and the Greenwich Observatory.  We also enjoyed some fish and chips outside the Tower of London, took an obligatory ride on a double-decker bus, and looked for platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross Station, but apparently not hard enough because it's an actual thing.

Our favorite part was probably the Greenwich Observatory where in addition to taking a picture where we were holding hands with each other while we were in different hemispheres we also learned all about clocks and how they did and didn't work, and how important they were for nautical purposes, and cartography. Jessie really enjoyed Greenwich since it was so important in the history of geography. I waited and set my watch to exact Greenwich Mean Time.  That's pretty neat.

The next coolest place we went to was definitely the Tower of London.  There was so much neat stuff to see: thrones of various kings, armor and weapons from various time periods, torture chambers, the mint, etc. While we were at the tower of London it started to rain, in stereotypical British fashion, and we didn't have umbrellas so Jessie pulled us inside what appeared to be a small building, but something was off...everybody was going through the building in the opposite direction. Then we realized that we had just snuck past the Buckingham Palace guards and were in the Crown Jewels Museum, but going backwards, bypassing the 3 hour wait! We did our best to look casual as we circled our way through the rooms backwards without looking too suspicious. It was interesting, I can't even imagine how much each of those gold spoons, and swords and crowns must be worth.

Our third favorite place was probably the British Museum, which is probably equivalent to the Smithsonian Natural History and American History Museums put together...or something like that.  Anyways, it was MASSIVE!  We saw mummies, the Rosetta stone, samurai armor, statues from Easter Island, stuff from the Parthenon, stuff from Meso-america, and a ton more.  And we probably only visited...I don't even know...maybe 1/20th of the museum. It was super neat, but we were quickly done with it, since apparently everybody wanted to visit that day. We'd have to throw a few elbows just to get close enough to some exhibits just to see what was behind the glass!

The best part of the trip though was definitely just being with Fred and Vanessa.  We missed them and it was great to hang out with them.  We had some intense games of Carcassonne, but everyone was still good afterwards, although I almost had to sleep in the tub a few times after pulling a few moves that prevented Jessie for completing her road, city, or farm.  It was so nice to see you guys and we're excited for you guys to come join us out in SW Texas!