Friday afternoon, I got to do a presentation about the Scientific Method and how it is used in weather to a 4th/5th grade class at the base elementary school. The 23 kids were full of energy and had so many funny questions and comments about weather. After my talk, I took them outside to use a couple of our "fun" pieces of hand-held equipment. They loved blowing in the kestrel to see how high they could get the wind reading and pointing the laser range finder at everything in sight. When I got back to the office, I found it dark and everyone gone... and an email from our squadron commander authorizing early release before the holiday party, since it was too foggy for the jets to fly and the airfield closed. Sweet!
The party was a blast. The Mildenhall O-Club was all decorated for Christmas, food was great, and it was so fun to see everyone all dressed up and in holiday spirits. The weather flight all got a table together, and one of the first events of the evening was a contest to determine which table got to go through the food line first. Guess what the contest was? Making a gingerbread house! Fun, but when you're only given 10 minutes, it gets crazy. Kim and Greg and I took on the task for the table, and of course much hilarity ensued in the next 10 minutes, but we ended with a fairly decent-looking house... see picture below:
Unfortunately, after time was called and the Sq/CC started walking around to judge the houses... someone bumped the table. You guessed it. Here's the "after" picture, hehe:
We came up with a really great story about how a tornado hit (we're the weather table, get it?), but since we are such good forecasters, everyone was warned and got out safely. The Sq/CC laughed, but apparently didn't buy it... we had to wait a while to eat. Fun times anyway though. :) Another highlight of the evening was a Christmas trivia quiz, which our table almost won. The question was asked, "What were the three gifts brought by the wise men to the baby Jesus?", and I blurted out "Goldfrankincenseandmyrrh!"... and was immediately met with 9 deer-in-the-headlights looks, a pause, and an "Um, can you spell that?" Haha. At the end of the night, CeCe (one of our forecasters) won the grand prize drawing, a 32" LCD TV. So overall, we had an outstanding party.
Saturday, I was up early to get the house ready for my housewarming party. I had to concede the desk room early to a "box room", since there was no way I was going to completely eliminate all boxes from the house in 12 hours. So now I can say all but one room of the house is unpacked... as long as I leave out the part about not being able to walk in the room because there are so many boxes.
The frantic cleaning/box-moving/decorating/baking day did have one welcome interruption, however. Around 8:30am, I was sitting on the floor of my upstairs bathroom, folding towels into a drawer, when I happened to glance up at the window... and saw a gigantic rainbow so bright that it shone through the frosted glass. There was a mad scramble to find my camera before dashing outside in my slippers, and WOW. Pictures, and even the video I took, do not do this rainbow justice. It was HUGE, arcing across the entire sky, and brighter than any rainbow I have seen before in my life, like it was actually made of colored lights shining out of the clouds. Unbelievable. Plus, there was even a hint of a second rainbow above it. Like I said, pictures do not do it justice, but here it is from the back door of my conservatory... see the very faint second line at the top right?
I stood outside, entranced, until the clouds began breaking up and it disappeared... only a few minutes at most. I had to smile to myself as I walked back in. How cool is it when God allows us to have glimpses like that of His beauty? Was it a coincidence that my concentration on cleaning was broken at just the right moment? I think not. So add that to the never-ending list of God's blessings in my life. :)
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