Jackson is learning how to swim!

Yesterday was Jt's first day of swim lessons. He was so excited and couldn't wait to go. He is attending with his little buddy Hudson from school.
They had 3 objectives for their first day and that was to open their eyes under water, breath out through their nos and relax floating on their backs. Jackson has always hated floating on his back so I was really surprised to see him do it for Tiffany.

They were goofing off and Jackson was giving the teacher a run for her money!
Here he is floating on his back! Yay for Jackson! Good job buddy!
He is already bugging me to go back! He is our little fish!

Top Gun 2011

This week my flight commander who is a prior U.S Navy Top Gun graduate invited us to take four jets out to Fallon Nevada to fight against the newest Top Gun class.

There were all kinds of different jets out there and it was awesome. There were F-18's, F-18 Super Hornets, Eagles, Vipers, Navy f-16's , F-5's, T-45's, and even raptors were supposed to show up but currently they are grounded for some oxygen problems.
The Top Gun school likes to bring out other units to fly against their students to get some real world dissimilar aircraft training. They way it works is we all show up to a mass brief and go over some admin items then we were handed envelopes with a letter that gave us a Lat/Long coordinate, and a time to be ready to fight. We take off as single ships and go to our point and hold, and at a certain time we would be met by our adversary and fight till the death. I had no idea who I was fighting, an F-16? A F-18? A F-15? An F-5? A T-45? It could have been anyone. No one knows who they are fighting until you merge with that dude at a 1000 kts. I was extremely nervous!

My first fight I merged with a F-18C model which is a legacy hornet (older Hornet), but it was a Top Gun instructor in the cockpit. Our first pass was at 1000 kts and 500 ft apart, and I took the F-16 to its limits, rolled my socks down and pulled 8.4 G's. His jet cant turn like mine so I had an advantage after the first turn. I gave him hell for about 2 circles, then he kicked my ass all over the place. You could say I ate a piece of humble pie. This Hornet driver was truly a gifted aviator, and my respect for the Navy and their training program went through the roof.
We fought a few more sets till we ran out of gas and he brought back to the base and we pitched out to do a carrier style landing pattern, 800 ft and 400 kts. It was very cool to see how those dudes fly around the boat.


After I landed I met my instructor and after some high fives we went into a Top Gun briefing room and debriefed the sortie. I was so excited to have a Top Gun instructor take time out of his busy schedule to take some time to talk BFM (Basic Fighter Maneuvers = Dogfighting) techniques. I don't remember the dudes name, but thank you to whoever kicked my ass at the NSAWC EW South point at 1300 on Friday.

My second sortie of the day I met a Super Hornet at the merge. The Super Hornet is the Navy newest fighter and it is impressive. The guy in the pit was a Top Gun student. After we merged I did exactly what the instructor I previously flew with told me to do, and this time I kicked his ass. It was by far the most difficult fight I have ever been in. We went round and round for what seemed like an eternity, pulling sustained 7.5 G's just staring at each other as we jocked for position to take a shot. I got three shots on him and he shot none. Victory for OGRE!


I have never felt so proud to burn some dead dinosaurs with such great dudes and great pilots. I am so thankful to have had this opportunity to fly with the most elite pilots in the world. I found a new sense of motivation and learned a ton about flying and what it means to be a fighter pilot after spending a day with the bro's from my unit and drinking whiskey with our Navy buds, I had a great time and cant wait to go back.

11 Months Old

Our almost 1 year old! This really doesn't make me very happy, it actually makes me want to cry, literally!

This marks the last month of baby and we will head in to toddler years. Wait, are they considered toddlers when there start walking or turn 1? Shows you how much I remember! lol

This month he has changed so much to me.

*He is really trying to repeat what we say and will mimic any facial expression we do.

(example: This one is his favorite especially when he sees himself in the mirror. He opens his mouth as wide as he can and sticks his tongue out as far as he can pointing down towards the ground. Total KISS style and then laughs his little head off, so cute!)

*Sounds like he says "That" and "Points" to an object.

*I think he likes saying dada more cause I hardly hear mama unless he's really upset or really into me talking to him.

*Loves, Loves, Loves his brother. That's an instant smile for Tanner.

*He has become a little picky with food. Doesn't really like slimmy stuff and prefers me to hold him instead of sitting in his high chair during feedings. This isn't working out to well and we end up battling for a couple minutes and then he starts stuffing his face. But seriously hates baby food and has taken a liking for my food. I hope he isn't like Jeff when it comes to food!

*Isn't walking yet and doesn't really have any interest for it, he does perfectly fine crawling around at 10 mph! He is so fast!

*As of today May 20th, we are down to 2 feeding a day (nursing) and have 1 more week before I drop his 3rd from the day. So his typical nursing schedule is 8, 12, 4 and 8 and nurses for a total of 10 minutes. We are only doing the 4 and 8 o'clock feeding and I am convinced that he's almost done with it all. Tonight he nursed for 3 minutes total on both sides and got up wanting to play. So I made him a bottle and he sucked it down with no problems! I think he likes the independence of having a bottle, but it makes me so sad:( So we will see what the next few weeks have in store for him and I.

Other then that I really can't think of anything! He is just the sweetest baby and still loves to be held. I think this may be one of the reasons he not really interested in walking. I also made the comment to my mom today after we were both tired of holding him (I never get tired of holding him, but my back sure does) that I don't know of any 11 month old babies (ever) that still like the baby bjorn. He absolutely loves it and would be so content if I carried him around in it all day.

I wanted to share some extra pictures of our little ham. He is just so happy all the time and definitely a little wiggle worm! I do have to warn you about my photography skills! I have been playing with my settings and so some don't look that great!

This is his newest smile! Part of the face making skills he's developed in the last month! He's a total cheese ball, little goof!
He was just hangin out after we were done taking his 11 month pictures, so I decided to get some close ups of him. This one isn't to bad and luckily he was being still!

This being my last month of nursing and Tanner being a sweet little baby, all I can say is I have totally enjoyed this ride! It is bitter sweet and can't wait to do it again! He has made it that enjoyable and I thank him for that!

We have been blessed to the moon and back...........

Missing Daddy

Poor Jackson has been missing Jeff a lot this week! Thursday Jeff worked all day and didn't get home until 9:30 pm and the poor guy was asleep already. So when he got up on Friday he was so happy to see Jeff. The bad thing was that Jeff was on his way out the door heading back to work. So Jackson thought it would be a good idea to get his flight suit on and go to work with Jeff. He was literally telling Jeff he was going with him! It was so sad.

(I have been playing around with the setting on my camera, so some of the pictures are a little blurry)

Jeff and Jackson when Jeff was leaving
Jackson waiting for Jeff to leave
So sad to watch him doing this, it seriously brakes my heart to see him wanting to be with Jeff like this.

Officially on the road and leaving now

Yep, it gets worse. He watched him leave and turn the corner.