Father's Day, Injury & Triathlons

Last weekend, Tracey and Marin treated me to a trip to Madison, MS. We like this area for a number of reasons, but we were especially excited to ride our bikes on the Natchez Trace--a 400 miles roadway that splits the state and has some sort of historical significance. It was a great weekend of fun and excessive heat.
We're going on a crazy string of hot days in a row.
As most of you know, Tracey fell off her bike when she and I were enjoying a ride on Thursday. She broke her radius right at the elbow and will be in a soft cast and sling until Tuesday. She'll be back up and fully healthy in just a couple more weeks. Being one armed has not slowed her down as she didn't miss any practices for her swim team.
One thing she did miss, however, was the Race of Grace triathlon that we both were planning on competing in this weekend in Philadelphia, MS. It was incredibly hot--even at the 8am start it was in the mid-80s--and it did involve the longest bike ride of my life, I had a lot of fun and finished second in my age group. It was a great workout and it felt good not losing to my wife. And as a warm-up to her birthday next weekend, Marin went to an all pink, "Pink-a-licious" birthday party and had a great time. Enjoy the photos!

Catching Up

The past couple of weeks have been busy! While Tom was at the boat, my mom and sister were here to keep me company and to help me out with managing Marin, coaching, maintaining household/sanity. Our neighborhood "nanny", Ms Johnnie Nell, fell and broke her shoulder a couple of weeks ago :( She is doing fine and will make a full recovery, but needless to say it has taken it's toll on her and on us! We miss having her take such good care of Marin!! So anyhow, it was very nice to have some family here to help out. We had a great visit and as always, the time went to quickly. My sister and I did a little side trip while they were here in the south. For my birthday, Cath had bought us two tickets to see No Doubt in Atlanta, so we took a quick road trip to GA for the concert -- it was fantastic and we had a blast!! and yes, we did tour the CNN headquarters, but were disappointed to learn that Anderson Cooper is actually based out of New York (actually, I could care less, but it seemed that every other woman on the tour was DEVASTATED). Thankfully we did not run into Nancy Grace either because I think I would have had to punch her -- can't stand that woman! Tom returned from the boat on Thursday and then we left Friday to head up to Memphis for a weekend of swimming. I had 7 kids actually make the trek up there for the meet -- it was great! The meet went well and it was especially nice that it was a VERY well managed meet and we were actually done each day before 1pm! This left us plenty of time to hang out with our dear friends AmyD and Nic Morrison and their sweet kids, Peter and Lily. We had a great time! Now it's back to reality and possibly time to start doing some research on the Camarillo, Oxnard, Ventura, CA areas :) I am so excited to be within walking/running/biking distance of the ocean, and the Pacific Ocean at that and to be within a short driving distance of my mom's house and where I grew up and also wine country and the bay area and family in Northern California!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, big sigh of relief.
Here are some pics of the past few weeks. Can you pick out the one where Marin freaked out after having a potty training "accident" (#2) in the bathtub?! I'm so proud of her for instinctively knowing that she needed to get out of the water, any way possible!
Hope everyone is doing well!

Exciting News!

This week, while aboard the Navy's newest aircraft carrier, the USS George HW Bush, I received notice that I needed to contact the detailer in charge of my follow-on orders. As you might imagine, calling someone from a ship, involves the use of a satellite phone and an extremely annoying, but wholly necessary pause after each transmission, to allow the data to travel to space and back. After miraculously getting a hold of someone who prides himself on being hard to contact, I found out that the Cronley's of Meridian will soon and once again be the Cronley's of Southern California! I've been assigned to fly the C-130 Hercules out of Point Mugu, California with VR-55. We are extrmely excited about our move back to the West Coast which will occur March of next year.
Now about the C-130, it has been around a while, it's somehow not as pretty as the S-3 and Tracey's dad flew it in Vietnam! Also, in case they need to do this testing on it again, I think they'll chose the right guy. Thanks for all the prayers!


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Quick Trip to Minneapolis

This past weekend I took a very quick trip to the beautiful city of Minneapolis to visit a great friend from college who is currently 33 weeks pregnant with her second child and on strict bed rest. On top of that, her mother was just recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. Needless to say Jeanine was in serious need of some distractions, so my college roommate, Adrienne (another great friend!) and I decided to fly in from opposite ends of North America to pay her and her family a visit. The weekend was full of laying around, eating and drinking wine (for Ade and me at least) while Jeanine's husband Mike basically waited on us hand and foot. All three of us girls and Mike swam together at KU, so we always have fun talking about the 'good old days' in Kansas. It was wonderful to get caught up, at least a little, with some very good friends. Anyhow, the weekend went by way too fast and we look forward to getting everybody together again, under happier circumstances, soon! Here are a couple of pics - the first one is from this weekend (Ade, Jeanine and me with Jeanine and Mike's son Nolan -- the squirmy, but darling, 3 year old!) and the second one is from a swim meet (I think Big 8's) our Freshman year! Can you pick us out???
Meanwhile, Tom and Marin were kept company by Aunt Sara who came to the big city of Meridian for the weekend with her two little dogs, Tina and Pele. They had a great weekend too!
This week the swim team started the "Summer Schedule" which means we are now swimming every morning at 6am at the outdoor 50 meter pool here in town. The 5:30am get-up routine is a hard adjustment, but I do really enjoy coaching in the morning as the sun comes up. If we could just get the schedulers at the squadron to stop scheduling Tom for early morning flights so that he can be at home with Marin in the morning, that would be great. Yesterday, just to prove a point, Tom brought Marin to work with him while I was coaching. She got to help him do some waving in the shack (you'll have to ask Tom to explain this) where she learned how to say "Roger Ball" and then she assisted him in giving a brief that he had to do for a later flight. Don't worry, I picked her up before the flight took off, but nonetheless, I think she had a lot more fun going to work with Daddy then she has had in the past when I've taken her to the pool with me. Future pilot, perhaps? Gosh, I hope not --- I've done enough worrying about pilots in my lifetime!!
Next up, my mom and sister arrive tomorrow! They will be here for a week! Cath and I are taking a quick road trip to Atlanta on Friday to see her favorite band, No Doubt, play and then we plan to tour the CNN headquarters on Saturday. I don't think too many people would pair those two things together ;)
We're really looking forward to having them here!!