Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving we spent here in FL. Joe's parents and brother Tom came down to visit for the weekend. It was great to get to see them. Thanksgiving day we had the Jones', Bryant's, Adri and her daughter Lelani over to share in the feast with us. Each of us prepared parts of the meal. I did make the turkey!

Halloween

Once again the Bernardoni's hosted a Costume party at Halloween. There were quite the display again this year. It was a good time. The background for our costumes......when Joe came back he gave Rob Vogt a hat. As we were talking about it with whoever was there at the time the idea was thrown out about being Osama bin Laden for Halloween. Now, if you knew Rob, you would know he's a goofy guy and ridiculous about things. For him to be Osama, was hilarious. Thus, the idea was born for Rob to be Osama, Joe to be another dictator and for me to be an embedded reporter, because every terrorist/dictator needs their media outlet.

Joe as Fidel Castro and Rob as Osama.
Teddy and Lupe Batarao as Constantine and his wife.
Sarah and Berni as Clara Barton and some random dude. Most people guessed he was Jimmy Carter.
Kim and Andrew Finesilver as George Washington and Abe Lincoln.
They borrowed a fire pit where people made smores.

Air Commando Wives 10k

This Saturday I (finally!) ran the 10k/6.2 miles I had been training for while Joe was deployed. There wasn't one 'officially' happening in the area, so Joe created one for us. It was great. He came up with the route, made t-shirts, marked out water stations and even had a finish line. There ended up being 3 of us who ran in it; Sarah Jones-who I had been running with all summer, Sarah Bernardoni and myself. Here we are at the start of the race. (l t0 r: Sarah B., Sarah J., myself) We started out in the park next to our house.

Each of our husbands followed us on bikes, giving us water and directing us where to go on the route. (l to r: Kelly Jones, Joe, Berni Bernardoni)

Here we are getting set to go, getting our play lists ready and our stop watches set.

This is about 2 miles into the race.

Here Sarah J and I are running through the mile loop in Ferry Park. This loop was always a part of our runs as we trained. This summer we got up early (5:30am!) to run because it was so hot and humid. The nice part about it is we would see the same people each morning walking around the park as well. It was neat to get to say hi to them as we passed.

At this point we're about 4 miles into the race. At mile 5 my shoe began to come untied. I didn't want to stop to tie it because I knew I would lose momentum and have a hard time starting up again. So, I ran the rest of the race with my shoe coming more untied. By the end I was having a hard time even keeping it on my foot.

Here we are at the finish line! Sarah was awesome and finished in 1:03. She waited on me to cross the finish line together.

Yea! I did it! I finished in 1:06. I felt so strong and empowered after having completed it. Running that distance wasn't something I had thought in the past I could see myself doing or would've been able to do. But now I feel stronger and that I would be able to do other athletic things well I might not have thought before.

Here we are, sweaty and displaying the sweet shirts we earned. :)

Next up...a half marathon????.......

Camping on Dauphin Island, AL

We went camping with our friends Sarah and Berni Bernardoni & Sarah and Kelly Jones on Dauphin Island, AL. It was a really good time enjoying the outdoors and the beautiful fall weather.
Our first stop was to visit historic Fort Gaines. They were having a "Renaissance Festival" that Saturday. It was quite the experience. It wasn't so much a festival as it was a reason for a bunch of people to dress up in costumes and hangout. There wasn't much for people to see or participate in if you weren't part of the festival.
From there we went to the Audubon Bird Sanctuary. Kelly is an ornithologist, so we were able to learn about all the birds and other animals we saw along the trail. Along with lots of birds there were tons of butterflies everywhere. I thought this bush was pretty.
That night we cooked up some grub, spent time hanging out around the campfire and of course ate Smores.

Cruise to Mexico!

As a fun thing to do to celebrate Joe coming home we went on a 5 day cruise to Mexico with about 25 people we are involved with through the Navs. I had never been on a cruise before and was excited for the adventure.

We spend two days 'at sea' and had two days at port. The first stop was Progreso. Joe unfortunately got sick and so we didn't end up getting off the boat that day. :( The second port was Cozumel. We were able to go to the National Park on the island and go snorkeling. Cozumel is surrounded by a bunch of reefs and has some of the best snorkeling in the Caribbean. We saw lots of fish, starfish, sea turtles and barracuda. I wish we would've thought to get an underwater camera!

The highlights of the trip were the snorkeling and the time spent with everyone. It was great to have the chance to get to know the other leaders better.Our boat, the Holiday, at the port in Cozumel next to a Navy Ship that was also there.

A view of the water during our time in Cozumel. It was so clear and blue! It was hard to believe it was the Gulf of Mexico. The water here is sometimes clear, but nothing like it was there.

The Masons on the 'bus' taking us to the beach where we went snorkeling.

The beach on Cozumel we went snorkeling at. We swam out about a mile to the reef. The reef itself was about a mile long we swam along. It was amazing! We saw lots of different kinds of fish, starfish, sea turtles and barracuda.
On the tip of the island was a National Park. This lighthouse was a part of it. It had a great view of the water and the park from the top.
On top of the lighthouse

A different view from the lighthouse, showing the marshy area that had alligators in it. We saw one on the bus ride to the beach.

One of the dinners was a 'formal' night. Joe and Berni wore their Mess Dress uniforms. The food was pretty good. The fun part was getting to choose from a list of options and having a 3 course meal every night.

Corban and Katrina Bryant, Berni and Sarah Bernardonis and us. They are some of our closest friends in FL.

Into the Wild

Joe here. Finally, I'm back and contributing (after much cajoling) to our blog. For our post-deployment time I wanted to take Johnena on a series of dates, one of which was a beach camping trip. So, we traveled to Perdido Key National Seashore, near the AL border to camp out.
Here we are at Naval Live Oaks National Forest in Gulf Breeze, FL. Unfortunately, once we reached the Perdido Key we found out that the road into the camping area had been sanded over by our recent visit by Hurricane Ike. This turned the normal 1/2 mile walk to the camping beach into a 2.5 mile trek. Good thing we packed light!

Johnena is Air Commando tough!

Surprisingly, Florida in September is not as warm as one might think. In trying to keep our packs light, we only brought a bedsheet to sleep under. Once night fell the wind started blowing on the open beach and it got pretty chilly.

A cool part about the trip was the full moon which lit the beach up to nearly mid-day illumination. It enabled us to see alot of ghost crabs.

Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Ike

Last year we didn't have any Tropical Storms, hurricanes or effects from any that might have come into the Gulf. This year, however, we've had a few interesting times. Back in late August we had threats of Tropical Storm Fay. Sadly, (although should I really be saying that?) we hardly got any rain and really nothing exciting from it at all. The storm ended up shifting directly north of us bringing minimal precipitation. In the following two pictures it's raining slightly during Fay. These next two pictures and the video are the effects we are getting from Hurricane Ike, which is hundreds of miles south of us in the Gulf. We had these same effects from Hurricane Gustov, when it blew by Labor Day. Normally the water is at least 2-3 feet below the docks seen here. It's flooding over them now. This is the park next to our building. The water is flush with the grass and flooding up into the park at least a foot. Hopefully in the video below you can get a sense of the wind blowing and the water.

Ladies Night Out

Sarah B., Sarah J., Tash and I went out to Zampierie's in Destin for a last hurrah before Joe comes back. It was A LOT of fun.
We drank fun Martini's
And danced the night away!

MTSU

I went up to MTSU to visit my brother Daniel, who goes to college there. Thursday night we went to the opening football game of the season. The team lost, but it was a great time to get to go to a college game again. We also went bowling. I've never broken 100 before, but one of the games we played I got 120!!

Happy Anniversary!

Two years ago today Joe and I were married in Paintsville, KY. Being married has been the greatest thing. God has used us in each others lives to grow, challenge and make us into better people. We've had a lot of fun along the way: traveling to Savannah, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, California, Kentucky, Louisianna, Washington D.C.; throwing parties; establishing weekly times together-Sunday mornings with breakfast, coffee and Meet the Press; going to the beach......I look forward to many more years to come!