Back to School

As you could guess by the title, my spring semester of online grad school classes has started.  We'll see how this affects my blogging, but I'm already almost done with this week's assignment, so I decided I deserve a break.  Every semester, I have these great plans of doing all my assignments way ahead of time... and like a New Year's resolution, this usually lasts about a week or two. ;-)  Those of you who know me well are familiar with my procrastination habits, and I assure you I haven't changed in that respect, haha!  However, since I've managed to keep my grades up, I'm going to say it works for me. :-)

This is my 5th semester of the Masters in Geosciences program through Mississippi State, and I've really enjoyed it so far.  After this spring semester, I'll complete my summer field project and then graduate!  The location options for the summer project are supposed to be released this month, so I am anxiously waiting to see what is available.  They have had some really cool projects in the past, so I hope we have the same variety to choose from!

Let's see, what have I been up to lately that is worth writing about?  We sort of have a 3-day weekend for MLK day, which for me means I still work every day, but only go in for a few hours to put together and send out my weather forecasts instead of sitting there all day doing various briefings.  I didn't really do anything exciting this weekend though (started my classes and homework, worked out), maybe because last weekend was so busy.

On Saturday the 11th, I participated in my first Crossfit event.  It was sort of a competition, but I hesitate to call it that because the main purpose was to set goals for yourself for the next year.  Every January, gyms around the world host the event called "Resolutions WOD (Workout Of the Day)", and it is the same workout every year so you can track your progression.  I have only been doing Crossfit for 3-ish months, so I thought it was worth doing to see how much I can improve in the next year.  I'll have to write a blog sometime about starting Crossfit here, but I'll save it for later.

The event was 3 workouts in a row, and each one had a time limit.  Your score was based on how fast you completed the workouts (with a judge watching to ensure you did all the moves correctly).  If you're familiar with Crossfit, you can see the details of the workouts here (http://www.thegaragegames.com/events/world-wide-wod-gym-resolution-2014/), but I won't bore the rest of you. :-)  I finished 4th out of 6 girls in my division, which actually made me pretty happy - I just didn't want to be last!  Here's a picture of me doing jumping pull-ups:

That Saturday night, I started watching Game of Thrones Season 3 with a small group of people.  We decided to watch two episodes every Saturday night, so we can finish before one person in the group leaves in late February.  We watched in the dayroom of one of their buildings (my building doesn't have one), and it was really nice to actually sit on a couch and watch TV with friends like a normal person.  We're through Episode 4 after this weekend, and man this season is crazy!  I told Martin to start catching up so we could talk about it again, but he's pretty busy these days (working on his PhD, what kind of excuse is that?).  ;-)

On Sunday the 12th, Doug and I went into the city to meet some other weather people for dinner.  They chose a restaurant right next to the Kuwaiti Towers, so we got to snap a few pics of those:

Sadly, the observation decks you can see on the right tower are closed for renovation, so we didn't get to go up there, but it was cool to see the towers up close.  The food at the restaurant (a sushi and hibachi buffet) was amazing, but I was most amused by one of the desserts, which looked like a tiny Krispy Kreme donut.  You can kind of tell how small it is compared to other things on my plate (or the knife), but it was so funny to see in real life.  (In case you were wondering, it didn't taste like a Krispy Kreme, but was worth a try!)

That's it for now, I hope everyone is having a great MLK weekend!


 

2013 In Review

So, 2013... where did it go?  Looking over pictures to put in this blog, it seems like all this stuff happened in a much shorter time than a year.  It probably has to do with being in transition for so much of it... I lived in our house for less than half the year!  My plan was to find one picture from each month, and I was successful except for one month (so I cheated and put two in another month, haha).  Ready?  Here we go!

January:

Martin and I began the year with a furry addition to the family!  My cat Oreo, who I adopted as a kitten in Louisiana in 2008, had been living with my parents in Virginia while I was in England.  They drove across the country to visit for Christmas, and brought Oreo to live with us in Tucson.  She has been a lot of fun to have around the house, and has bonded with Martin to the point that she even comes when he calls or whistles!

February:

 

 

A few exciting things happened in February (so picking one picture was hard), but this is me (and an instructor) hang gliding in Phoenix!  Martin gave me the hang gliding trip as a Christmas present, and we scheduled it on President's Day weekend.  After hang gliding, we continued north to Flagstaff, where we learned to snowboard at the Arizona Snowbowl.  Martin caught on much more quickly than I did (he skateboarded as a kid), but by the end of the day we both could make it down the hill in at least a somewhat legitimate fashion. :-)

 

March:

 

 

With both of us leaving for deployments later in the year, Martin and I took a 10-day vacation to Maui for some fun and quality time together.  March is a great time to visit Maui, because humpback whales breed and give birth in the warm waters during that time frame.  We saw tons of whales, some of them very close to our boat.  I took a surfing lesson, and Martin (who must have a hidden talent for photography) caught my most successful moment on camera!  Now I'm going to cheat and post a second March photo (because I don't have one for May...).

 

 

Another one of the many, many awesome things we did in Maui was drive a 4-wheeler up into the mountains to a beautiful lake with "homemade" waterslides.  The water was cold, but the experience was totally worth it!

 

April:

 

 

Before Martin left on his deployment, we took a short trip to visit his parents and sister in Las Vegas.  We had a great time hanging out with them and playing with our 3-year-old nephew, Jason.  Vegas has special significance to us not only because it is Martin's home city, but because he and I first became friends on a TDY there in January of 2010!

 

May:

 

Apparently May was too busy for pictures, but that is understandable as Martin left on his deployment and I left for a 2-month TDY in Alabama.  If you are wondering about what happened to Oreo, I met a really awesome new girl in my squadron who agreed to house-sit for us while we were both TDY/deployed, so Oreo is not alone!  We are so thankful to have Kat living in the house so we don't have to worry about it (or Oreo) while we are gone.

 

June:

 

 

So maybe a 2-month TDY in Montgomery, Alabama, in the summer doesn't sound like too much fun, and there were parts of it that were not.  But, the awesome part is that one of my best friends from England was in my class!  I was so excited to hang out with Alex again (she moved to Boston a couple years ago) and spend time catching up.  We found a lot of cool things to do on the weekends, like go kayaking down a river, check out fun restaurants, see movies, and go to Destin, FL (Crab Island pictured above).

 

July:

 



 

While in Alabama, we had a 4-day weekend for the 4th of July holiday.  My parents had already planned to spend the weekend camping at Lake Junaluska in NC, a retreat center where I spent many summers with my youth group in middle and high school.  Since I was only 5 hours away from the lake, it worked out perfectly for me to drive up and meet them there!  Even though it poured rain for most of the weekend (note the clouds in the picture), we still had a lot of fun together and found some breaks in the rain to walk around the lake, go kayaking, and visit the beautiful Biltmore Estate in nearby Asheville.

 

August:

 

 

At the end of July, I traveled back from Alabama and did a quick-turn for another TDY in August, this one at Fort Huachuca (in Sierra Vista, AZ, just south of Tucson near the AZ/Mexico border).  I spent 3 weeks there and absolutely loved it.  Sierra Vista is about 2000 feet higher in elevation than Tucson, and running along the ridgelines at sunrise was breathtaking.  I also had the great surprise of having another overseas friend in my class, this time a girl named Lauren from Aviano Air Base in Italy, who I had hung out with at my last European Weather Conference in Germany in 2012.  Lauren is an even more accomplished traveler than I am, so naturally we decided to go on an adventure to the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, in northern AZ and southern UT.  The long drive was totally worth it, as it was hard to pick just one picture from all the beautiful places we saw!  The shot above is me on the Bright Angel Trail, heading down into the Grand Canyon from the South Rim.

 

September:

 

 

As you can guess from the picture, September is when I arrived in Kuwait and had my first couple off-base trips.  I was pretty surprised at the number of American companies and restaurants that are well-established in the malls here.  There is a Cheesecake Factory, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Victoria's Secret, and yes, of course Starbucks.  I have not eaten at any of the American restaurants because we try to take advantage of the opportunity to try things we don't have at home, but I hear they are not bad.

 

October:

 

 

This picture is from the boardwalk near the beach where Doug and I went to see the sunset before dinner one weekend.  I don't know what the lit-up tower is, but I thought it was pretty with the city skyline at sunset.

 

November:

 

 

 

Some of you probably saw this one on Facebook already, but I'm limited in photo ops out here, so give me a break, haha.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Doug and I drove to another base in Kuwait to visit our "parent" unit and learn about what they do at their base.  A lot of the drive was empty desert, but then we found a pack of camels right by the road!  We were very excited and of course jumped out to take pictures.  We must have been exciting for the camels as well, because they were very curious and came over to check us out... so we had to jump back in the car really quick!  They eventually got bored and wandered off the other side of the road, but we got a lot of great pictures first.  I think camels are one of my new favorite animals. :-)

 

December:

 

I already wrote about the best thing that happened in December (visiting Martin!) and posted my best pictures from that trip, but here is one I didn't post: a C-17 landing at sunset, just before we took off to fly back to Kuwait.  Working with the Army is fun and interesting, but spending time at an air base reminded me just how much I love being around airplanes and working with air operations... guess I joined the right service! :-)

 

2013 was a busy year, and as always, I am thankful for the people I shared it with and the experiences I had.  I am looking forward to what will come in 2014... Martin and I will both return home to the US, I will finish my masters degree, we are going to Ireland to see Penn State's season opening football game in August, and hopefully much much more to be planned! :-)  Maybe 2014 will be a more consistent year for blogging too...







Heroes

I had good intentions of writing a New Year's post this weekend, but there is something else I need to write about first.  Just before the New Year, I saw posts on Facebook about the death of Air Force Capt David Lyon, killed by an IED in Afghanistan.  I didn't know him, but Facebook has a way of showing you connections you never knew existed.  One of my friends who is in Afghanistan had seen David's group just hours before the IED hit the vehicle.  Another friend from SOS (AF Capt training class) this past summer mentioned that David's wife Dana, also an AF Capt, had been in our SOS class.  Another friend had known both David and Dana at the Air Force Academy.

Here are a couple stories about David and Dana:
http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/467849/af-officer-former-academy-athlete-killed-in-afghanistan.aspx
http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20140102/NEWS/301020033/Fallen-captain-remembered-protector-athlete-loving-husband

The saddest part is, there are too many other stories like this.  When I started going to Crossfit classes here back in September, I spent some time on the official Crossfit website reading about the program.  I already knew that some workouts were named after military personnel who had been killed in combat, but when I got to the page listing these "Hero WODs", I had no idea there were going to be so many.  As I scrolled down the page of pictures, and kept scrolling, and kept scrolling, tears started flowing as I realized just how angry it made me that I was still scrolling.  Too many husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, friends who were no longer with those who loved them.

Here is the list of Hero WODs:
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/faq.html#WOD1

Yesterday morning, our "parent" unit at another Kuwait base did one of these Hero WODs, in memory of a JTAC named Bradley Smith who was killed in 2010.  Only a couple people from the unit had actually known Bradley, but the fact that he was "one of them" is a fact that hit home for everyone.  I wish I had been there to do the workout with them, but his story impacted me all the same.  Here is the Bradley Smith Hero WOD: http://crossfitdrippingsprings.com/may-18-hero-wod-bradley/

Also, just a few days ago, Crossfit HQ posted a video on Youtube with the "Best Crossfit Moments of 2013".  Most of the video is fun or silly, but the middle part caught me off guard, as it was a tribute to military Crossfitters who were lost in 2013.  Some were pictures in combat gear, while some were smiling in pictures with kids or wives or friends... people who would have never guessed they'd be looking at their loved one in a remembrance video instead of making holiday memories.  I read an article a few days ago that mentioned both David and Dana Lyon were Crossfitters, so David will probably be memorialized in next year's video.

So why am I writing about all this sad stuff?  For me, I think it has been a reminder of how ungrateful I can be for the people and things I have in my life.  While I was sitting in a sports bar with my husband last weekend, Dana Lyon was sitting next to her husband's casket, escorting it home.  While I was laughing on a plane with my group of JTACs, I never thought about how Bradley Smith could have been one of them.  Yes, I'm deployed, but I'm so far removed from the real fight going on, it's easy to forget that we are still losing people, and we're going to continue to lose people as long as we are in this fight.

I'm not a political person, and I knew what I signed up for when I joined the military, but times like this, I just have to hate the reality of what we do and the consequences that come with it.  But at the same time, I believe in our country and what it stands for, and I believe we have to fight for it... just like David Lyon, Bradley Smith, and everyone on that list of Hero WODs believed.

I thank God for all the people I have in my life, and I know I need to work harder to show them how grateful I am.  I don't believe in living life in fear of losing someone, so that you don't enjoy the present for fear of the future.  1 John 4:18 says "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."  The only perfect love is God's love for us, and the love we show others as a result.  So my goal this year?  Think about showing that love in everything I do, so I don't have to fear what may come.

I hope that heroes like the people I mentioned are never forgotten, as well as what they stood for.  Sometimes I worry about where this country is going, but I have to remember that the real war has already been won, about 2000 years ago.  I pray that the families who have lost loved ones are blessed this year with the love of God, family, and friends... and that I can love others like I have been loved.

Merry Christmas!

So I realized that today is the last day I can write a "Merry Christmas" post without it making the "Happy New Year" post late, haha.  Christmas was relatively uneventful here, but as you probably already know if you see my Facebook posts, my best Christmas present came the day after! ;-)  But first things first...

On both Thanksgiving and Christmas, the dining facility staff has gone to an enormous amount of effort decorating for the holiday.  It has been really fun to see what they come up with, and the atmosphere is like a big party with music and people dressed up (even some dancing, haha).  Here I am with the giant turkey on Thanksgiving (excuse Doug's finger over then lens):

And then here I am with Santa and his reindeer on Christmas:

On Christmas morning, I did a "12 Days of Christmas" workout with a bunch of people at our Crossfit gym, which was pretty brutal, but made me feel less guilty about having a second piece of pie at Christmas lunch!  Then I met Doug and a couple other co-workers for the big Christmas meal (served at lunchtime).  After lunch, I went to work for a bit (weather never gets a day off!) and then came back to my room for some Christmas FaceTime.  I got to talk to Martin and then "open presents" with my parents and Lisa.  Gotta love the internet!

Then the last thing I did on Christmas day was... pack for my trip to Qatar the next day!  :-D  The trip had been planned for a few weeks, but I told very few people about it ahead of time because 1) security reasons, and 2) I didn't totally believe it was going to happen!  I was invited to go on the trip with a small group of people from another base in Kuwait, from a unit that Doug and I are technically a part of (it's complicated, haha).  They were visiting a unit in Qatar that just so happened to be at the same base where Martin is currently deployed, so of course I said I wanted to go!  Here is a picture of us by the awesome little plane we flew in:

The official parts of the trip were really interesting, I learned a lot about the weather support done out of that location, and got some cool tours of several ops units.  But of course... the best part was seeing Martin!!!  It had been over 7 months since we last saw each other in person.  It seemed totally unreal at first that we were face-to-face, and it wasn't through an iPad screen.  Once the initial shock wore off, it was so amazing just to be together again.  We spent most of our time just hanging out and talking and enjoying being with each other. 

Martin's base has an awesome sports bar that was paid for and built by Fox Sports (the TV channel) for the deployed personnel to enjoy their time off.  I have to give major kudos to Fox Sports, because the place is awesome!  There are TVs everywhere, with really nice tables and chairs, pool tables, couches, and bar stools.

The first night there, Martin and I got a pizza and sat watching sports together... it was just like being at home, except we weren't on our own couch!

Though I had to come back to Kuwait yesterday, I will remember the last 5 days as the best ones of my deployment.  I think one of the guys in the group said it best when he said he was glad Martin and I got to "reset our clock" on this trip.  It's hard to explain, but before I saw Martin, it felt like it had been forever since the last time we were together.  But when we were together again, it almost felt like no time at all had passed, because it was so easy and natural to be with each other.  And though of course I was sad to leave Qatar yesterday, I left with the feeling that Martin and I can do this, that the hardest part is over and now it's all downhill from here until we can be together again.

I am so grateful for all of the people who helped make this trip happen (people both here and back in the States), and though I know none of them are reading this, I hope I can tell them all how much it meant to me and how thankful I am.  I'll end with a pic of Doha at sunset as we departed last night... farewell 2013, tomorrow I'll say hello to 2014!

 

Kuwait City

About once or twice a month, I have had the chance to go off base into Kuwait City.  I usually go with my co-worker Doug, and sometimes we meet other weather people from another base in Kuwait.  The city is very different than most places I have been before because of the Muslim culture, so it has been interesting to explore.

I have a lot of pictures, so I'll try to remember how to space them out in the post (it has been a year and a half since I used this, haha)!  The first time Doug and I went into the city, we met some other weather people at a restaurant near the Liberty Tower, seen between the buildings in this pic:

The next time, we went to a mall called the Grand Avenues.  It is absolutely HUGE!  Doug compared it to the Mall of America (which I have not been to), if that helps you imagine the size.  Here is a picture of one of the many, many hallways:

Since you can see some people in traditional Muslim dress in that pic, I'll take a second to say that the variety of dress is one of the most interesting things to observe.  When we go to places like the mall, we see a lot of men wearing long robes, some with headpieces and some without, some men wearing suits, and some wearing more Western-style clothing.  We also see women in burkas, women in slightly less-restricting robes and veils, some women wearing Western-style clothes but still covering their hair, and occasionally a few women without head coverings.

My sister Lisa studied Arabic and the Middle East in college, so she has been a convenient source of answers to many of the questions I have about things I see out here.  She says that this mix of clothing is probably due to a few different reasons, the first of which being that a large percentage of people living in Kuwait are not native Kuwaiti.  Their style of dress may be that of their home country.  Also, she said that family tradition and level of religious beliefs play a major part in what Muslims wear.  Thanks for the info, Lisa! :-)

As you may expect, the level of wealth here due to the oil industry is amazing.  It is an awesome place to car-watch (I only wish Martin was here to do it with me!), as we regularly see Lamborghinis, Porsches, Ferraris, and the like in the city.  The "houses" are also unbelievably huge, as you can see in this pic from the highway (yes, those are individual houses!):

One time we met the other group for dinner, Doug and I headed into the city early to catch the sunset at the beach.  Here is a pretty sunset pic:

And here is me with my toes in the Arabian Gulf! :-)

I'll finish with one more thing... as the temperatures cooled later in the year, we started seeing "tent cities" popping up in the open deserts adjoining the highways.  Lisa enlightened me again on this, explaining that camping is a frequent winter activity for the Kuwaitis.  It may also be a tribute to their heritage, some of which are Bedouin.  Sometimes families have camps in the same places every year, and sometimes groups of young adults will pitch camps to just hang out and spend time with their friends.  It is really amazing just how many tents are out there, and though that can't really be conveyed in just one picture, here is an example of what the tents look like:

I have more pics, but that's a good overview of what we see when we go off-base.  I'll try to work more of the pics into future posts! :-)


 

New Adventures

I guess I should start by saying that I never intended for "Leaving England" to be my last post for a year and a half.  After landing in the US, we were off and running for our wedding, honeymoon, new base, new house, etc, etc, and I just never got started writing again.  But here I am in the desert, with a bit of time on my hands now that my grad school semester is over.  So why not give blogging another shot?  I'm not entirely sure what I'll have to write about most of the time, and I'll have to leave details out of some things for security reasons, but... here we go. :-)

I want to talk about the last year in Arizona at some point, but I think it makes the most sense to start with where I am now.  Since the Army feels secure enough to post event pictures from here on Facebook, I can say that I am deployed with the Army in Kuwait.  I've been here a few months, and I'll return sometime in the spring.  This is my first deployment and first time with the Army, so I'm learning a lot and enjoying the experience. 

Why am I with the Army when I'm in the Air Force, you may ask?  Air Force weather personnel support the Army at almost every Army post both stateside and overseas, because the Army does not have their own weather personnel.  So it's a pretty common occurrence for an Air Force weather officer to have one or more Army support assignments in their career; some even devote most of their careers to it.  I've always thought it would be an interesting experience, and that's turning out to be the case.  There are plenty of similarities between the two services, but there are also quite a few differences.

The facilities here are relatively good for a deployed location.  I live in a dorm-type environment with one roommate, an Army Lieutenant from Louisiana.  The bathroom and laundry room are wayyy on the other end of the building, but at least we don't have to go outside to get to the bathroom like some other living areas.  The dining facility food is kind of hit or miss, but if you don't compare it to anything you could get or make at home, it's not that bad.  One good point is that there is always grilled chicken available if you don't like what's on the main line, so I have found several new ways to eat grilled chicken!

I work what you would probably call a "swing" shift, from about noon until 9:30pm-ish.  There is one other Air Force weather person here, and he works the early morning shift.  It's not a bad schedule; I have plenty of time to work out in the mornings and do my grad school homework while my roommate is at work and it's quiet.  The only downside is that I can't go to any of the evening events the base holds, and I don't really get to "hang out" with people because most are off in the evenings.  It's not bad though, I enjoy the people I work with and work out with, so I always have fun talking with them at work or the gym.

The weather was really hot when I got here (sort of what you expect for this area), with average high temperatures in the 110s.  What a difference a few months makes, however... our low temp this morning was 43!  I actually had to wear leggings and a long sleeve shirt to go running.

I don't want to ramble too much in this "first" post, so that is probably a good enough overview of where I am and what I'm doing these days.  Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say in the future. :-)  I'll leave you with a teaser picture, since I'll probably talk about our off-post trips next... here's a road sign!

 

Leaving England

This is a blog post I really do not want to write, but I think I need to write. Life has been so busy with moving and wedding planning lately, it has been easy not to think about the sadness of leaving, and how close I am to it. But now that the household shipments are gone, and I am in a lodging room on base with no “chores” to do, I don’t have much excuse not to face how I feel about leaving England next week.

Two years, 11 months, and 8 days ago, I landed at Heathrow with my eyes as big as saucers, nose pressed to the airplane window, taking in the fleet of British Airways jets and unfamiliar-looking cars and trucks driving around the airfield. I felt like I was landing in a new world, and couldn’t wait to start my “Big Adventure”. My friend Jose picked me up at the airport, and I fought to stay awake the whole 2-hour drive to Lakenheath, afraid to miss seeing a single thing. Because base lodging was full, I was checked in to a historic hotel in Lakenheath village, and I almost went through the roof with excitement when I saw the elegant English décor. I might as well have been checking into a castle.

Jose had a squadron softball game that night and offered to take me and introduce me to people, which of course I accepted. He suggested I take a nap until he came back to pick me up. Fat chance. I bolted for the door and wandered the village with my camera, taking in everything I possibly could, until it started raining and then hailing. I retreated to my hotel room, but sat on the windowsill watching the rain fall on the picturesque village street, wondering if I was in a dream. Two years, 11 months, and 8 days later… I still wonder that.

My assignment to Lakenheath was a dream come true from the moment I got the news, even though looking back, I had no idea of the life-changing opportunities and experiences I would have here. I remember sitting in my former commander’s office at Barksdale, shortly before I left, talking about my plans and goals for the assignment. Lt Col D was someone I looked up to and respected, and who encouraged the adventurous and independent side of me that I’m not sure I knew existed before. I told him that I was going to look for a travel buddy once I got here to sightsee with. He looked straight at me and said “Heidi, don’t wait. Don’t waste any opportunity you have to see the world, because you will never regret a single trip you take.”

I took him seriously, and never sat still for a moment that I thought could be better used exploring. Before I met Martin (who became my forever travel buddy!), my camera was the only companion I needed, and I refused to sit still with a whole big world out there to see. During my first few months here, I went to a castle or historic site almost every weekend. I went TDY to Germany, and got to see Neuschwanstein, my dream castle. I went TDY to France, and volunteered to work the night shift so I could go nearby castles during the day, sleeping just a few hours in the evenings.

Once Martin entered the picture, Lakenheath took on even more significance as the place that I met, fell in love with, and became engaged to my future husband. The memories we made traveling all over Europe together will be treasured as some of the first bonds in our growing relationship. How many couples can remember their first two years together in terms of sunny Spanish beaches, snorkeling on the coast of Greek islands, riding four-wheelers through the desert in Morocco, and so many more adventures that we were blessed to share with each other?

Have you ever felt so connected to a place that you just felt like you belonged there, like you were meant to be there all along? Like every time you look around and take it all in, your heart feels like it is so full of beauty and joy and amazement that it might explode because it can’t be contained? That is how I feel about England, and I think the hardest thing about leaving is being afraid I may not find that anywhere else. I spent so long being jealous of other people who got to live my dream, and then I actually got the chance to live it myself… and I don’t want to give it up now.

Two weeks ago, I ran my favorite 5-mile route through Bury St Edmunds on a sunny Saturday morning. I didn’t take my iPod, just decided to run and take in the scenery. I ran past houses and cottages hundreds of years old. I ran through the bright blooming flowerbeds and the 1000-year-old abbey ruins in Abbey Gardens. I ran on a dirt path past fields of long grass rippling in the wind. I ran past sheep grazing in the sun. I ran past groups of people heading into the town for Market Day. I didn’t intend for it to be my last run in Bury, but two days later, a minor back injury from lifting weights sidelined me from running. At first I was frustrated and upset that I didn’t get to have a “last run” in the town that I considered home here. But when I really thought about it, what better run to remember than the one I had already done? Even now that I am cleared to run again, I’m going to stay on base and leave that last beautiful, perfect morning run in Bury at the front of my memory.

Though there were ups and downs at work in the last 3 years, I will truly miss being a part of the 48th Fighter Wing. I grew exponentially as a person and an officer though my experiences here. I went from not even knowing the structure of a Wing (my first assignment was a tenant unit), to being involved with almost every function and office on base. I saw senior leaders actually make decisions based on information I gave them. I got to lead a weather unit for the largest international flying exercise in the world, Red Flag. I found many mentors to watch and learn from, and gained the confidence to make tough decisions and stand up for the right way to do things. I was called in the middle of the night to help plan the first wave of a real strike mission. Being a part of the Operations Group has been a crazy ride, but one I will remember for the rest of my career.

Though I am leaving England a week from tomorrow, I have to remind myself that “Heidi’s Big Adventure” is not over. When the plane takes off from London, it will feel like part of my heart is being left on the ground… but I’ll be off to start a new adventure in Arizona, one that I am sure holds more joys and memories than I could ever imagine.