USAFA here we come!

As many of you know, we began praying this past spring that God would take us to the Air Force Academy (USAFA) for our next assignment. Some of our best friends, Sarah and Brandon Bernardoni and Corban and Katrina Bryant have gotten orders there. We wanted to be able to continue to minister and share life with them. It has also been a desire of Joe's for some time to be able to go back to USAFA to teach.

Teaching at USAFA is considered a special assignment because it is outside of whatever career field one is in. This summer when Joe began the process of applying, he had been told people weren't being released from Intel to go do non-intel assignments and that the chance of him being released to even apply were slim to none. He told his coordinator, 'well, I won't get accepted if I don't apply and I serve a big God.' This summer he found out he was released to apply to USAFA. God 1, AF 0. Then as he applied we found out in January the political science department requested him by name to come and teach. God 2, AF 0. Yesterday we found out Joe has officially been given the assignment to teach! God 3, AF 0. God is good!

We are SO excited for this next adventure!

January Happenings

Georgia continues to grow leaps and bounds. She is starting to sit up by herself and prefers to play most of the time sitting up now. She has started to combine consonants with vowels when 'talking'. It sounds like she says 'mama', but not really. :) Georgia has now discovered her feet and uses them to help grab toys and entertain herself. She's only put them in her mouth a few times. She continues to be quite the social butterfly enjoying time in the nursery at church, any time she's with other babies and our friends who love to hold her. Enjoy some of the latest pictures of her below.

People often think she's a boy when we're out and about (even if she has pink or purple on!), which bothers me, so I've started putting headbands and bows in her hair. Dad hates the headbands, but admitted he likes the bows. :)

My friend Sarah had a little boy Elliott, two weeks after Georgia. We've just started having them 'play' together. It's funny to watch them try and figure out what the other is. They 'talk' and grab at each other. It makes me think of the movie 'Look Who's Talking' and I wonder what they are saying.

Georgia's First Christmas

This year since Georgia was only about 4 1/2 months old at Christmas she didn't really get too excited about any of it or really take much of it in. But it was exciting for us and the extended family. Below are some pictures capturing the 'excitement'.

We started out Christmas morning by reading the Christmas story in Luke. By the end of it Georgia was passed out! She slept through all of us opening our gifts and eating breakfast.

Ready to start opening gifts!

Present from Mommy and Daddy. We thought she might tear the paper once we got it going for her, but she really didn't.

Bath toys

blocks

Sippy cup, she knew what it was right away and wanted to drink from it.

Sweet bib, it works great catching all of the spills from eating

Christmas Day outfit

Christmas with Family

This year we were blessed with lots of time with family for Christmas. Johnena's family came down to our house in FL. We had a fun time playing games, disc golf, watching Christmas movies, enjoying the hot tub, eating good food and fellowship. The day after Christmas we headed up to KY to spend time with Joe's family. We had a great time with his extended family celebrating the Meade Christmas, getting to see some snow, eating good food and sharing time together.

Christmas dinner (Joe is taking the picture)

Justin was gracious and let my family stay at his house while they were in town. He has a hot tub we got to use! :)

Grandma with Georgia

Uncle Joshua reading 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'

Papou and Georgia

While in KY we were able to go up to OH to visit my Grandma

The Brown family (unfortunately we kept meaning to take a family picture and this is the only one we got!)

Poppy enjoying Georgia

Uncle Tom with Georgia, she likes pulling at his beard

Nana reading to Georgia, Georgia got lots of books for Christmas

Tom, Katie and Joe

opening gifts with the Browns

Georgia Eats Cereal

So, these posts are a little out of order. I do have pictures from Christmas, but I'm waiting for pictures from our time in KY to do the Christmas post. I know the grandparents would want to see these pictures and video, so I'm doing this post first.

New Years Eve we fed Georgia rice cereal for the first time. Ever since middle of December she has wanted to be at the table with us when eating and started recognizing us eating and drinking and wanting to join in. With traveling I didn't want to start her on solids until after we came back to keep things easier. She drank out of a straw for the first time Dec. 20th and so we bought her a couple of cups to distract her with while we were eating. Well, she LOVED the cereal. She couldn't get enough and took to it right away. Thanks Uncle Joshua and Daniel for the bib. It was great in keeping the mess off of her clothes.

Georgia is 5 months old today and 1) I can't believe how fast time has gone by 2) it's really fun watching her grow and learn new things. I know things will continue to go by quickly as she starts eating more food and soon I'm sure learning to crawl.

Yum! I'm such a big girl now!

Hurry! Give me more food!

Hey, Daddy, give me the spoon! I can feed myself.

Enjoy the videos below!

Overnight to Pensacola

Joe and I were blessed with my parents being in town and able to watch Georgia for us while we went to Pensacola for the night. Thank you also to Grandma for the Christmas money which we used towards the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at and to the Bernardoni's who gave us gift certificates to the places we ate at.

It was the first time Joe and I left Georgia overnight. It was a great time for us and Georgia did great as well. We went to the Fish House for dinner and the Melting Pot for dessert.

Shrimp a Ya Ya, yum!

The fish special of the night with vanilla bean foam. The description the waiter gave sounded straight from Top Chef.

3 1/2 great years together!

The B & B we stayed at had a tandem bike. It was a lot harder to maneuver than you would think. We about crashed when we first got on it. The back handlebars don't move, they are simply something to hang on to and the pedals are connected. It was fun riding around the historic area.

They upgraded our room and it had a jacuzzi tub in it!

The balcony off of our room

The house was beautifully decorated for Christmas. This picture doesn't do the center piece on the tables justice. It was really pretty.

Working Out With Daddy

Joe is back safe and sound from his deployment. We've been enjoying having him home and doing fun things together. Joe has been waiting to be able to incorporate Georgia into his workouts. Well, he's now been able to. :)

I love the look on Georgia's face. She'e loving it just as much as he is.

Pull ups with 15 extra pounds.

We went running one day and it was only in the low 40s outside. This is how we bundled Georgia up. She didn't seem to mind all of the layers.