Birthday Girl

Tracey's Birthday was yesterday and we celebrated over the weekend at the beach in Seaside, FL. Aunt Sara stayed in Meridian with Marin, Muzzy and Cal. Thank you again!
The beach was amazing, mostly because it was associated with a little community of vacation homes, with pools and bike/walking trails interspersed among the homes. Everyone rode bikes and it definitely made you feel like a kid again...perfect for a birthday. Here's Tracey riding her bike:

Marin, as Briar Rose from Sleeping Beauty

I have some catching up to do...to say the least. This video is a very quick snippet of Marin "singing." For the longest time, we had no idea that she was imitating anything and it was getting a little awkward.

Snow in Meridian!

It was a chilly start to March here in Mississippi. We had "significant snowfall throughout central Mississippi." As you can tell we had to rush out to get pictures and video of the snow before it was gone. After Mass, the snow was indeed gone as the mercury approached 60 degrees! Enjoy the pictures and short video.

Park City Skiing

It has been a little while since our trip to Park City, but I am just now getting around to making up the video. I'll apologize in advance for the music. We had a blast in our favorite snowy environment. Thank you Joe & Kell for putting up with us and housing us for the week. Thanks also to Grandma C for all of the trinkets and clothes for Marin...and all of the driving back and forth.
The video does not do justice to the fun we had on the mountain. And it really doesn't capture all of the fun we had all week. We hiked some nearby hills, watched a couple Sundance Films, shopped at the outlets, toured Deer Valley, had dinners at the Who's Who of Park City, visited Grandma C's treasure hunting grounds and played Wii. But I didn't have the camera rolling all week. The visit was just what we needed.
Here's us skiing...

Getting Packed Up for the Park City Trip

Disneyland Video

New Year's in New Orleans

It wasn't exactly New Year's Eve, but we had a blast on our brief visit to New Orleans on the eve of the eve. The video is of course from Pat O'Briens. After these drinks, we had an incredible meal at Commander's Palace. Being slightly (read: grossly) underdressed for the restaurant, I felt like the host was going to ask me that all important question, "Sir, would you be more comfortable in a dinner jacket?" He didn't, though we were taken to the "Parlor Room" where the families with young children were eating. Following that, we headed to the House of Blues to see Better Than Ezra, capping an awesome night in New Orleans!
We headed home the next morning, and we're excited to think that there is another relatively easy get-a-way to keep us from total insanity.

Christmas Video

Happy Birthday Dad

In marking Dad's 71st birthday, I will repost last year's birthday post.

Somethings You Inherit are Better than Others

 

Picture of Marin, Courtesy of The Wendt's Blog

Jim Henson's Lost Character

Muzzy got a bath today (that makes one of us!) and while she dried, I
realized that she resembles a muppets character. Also of note, the
First Family-to-be is apparently looking for a Muzzy of their own.
Prediction: Every piece of furniture, article of clothing and pretty
much anything over a $10 value in the White House is ruined. No
shedding though! I kid! Muzzy has not attempted to chew anything
except a roll of masking tape in 3 months. By the way, the tape ended
up as about a thousand little segments of tape in her hair.

Halloween Photos

Great Idea Guy

Here is Marin jumping around in her crib. Any reasonable person can see how much she loved her crib. She made no attempt to get out of it, so it posed no danger which is often cited for the reason to change from a crib to a traditional bed. Despite the wonderful amount of sleep she (and the rest of us) was getting, I thought would be best to get rid of that lousy crib. She now hates going to bed. And after a few hours of sleep, she gets up and wanders around our house at night like John McCain in a town hall meeting. She is so void of rest that she has been running a low grade fever and is having a little trouble keeping things down. I have to take the blame for this one.

Growing Right Up

Marin has been at again. Right before our eyes, she becoming a little girl and learning all kinds of new tricks. My favorite is that she is aware of the presidential campaigns that are going on. "Barack Obama!" is her favorite political figure to point out on the TV. With a little coaching, you can get her to mention John McCain too. I'm saving video evidence until I can get her to do an adequate impersonation of the candidates. As a child, one of my tricks was that I could do an impression of then President (or maybe former President by then) Jimmy Carter. It was simply me smiling as big as possible while saying "Jimmy Carter!" Again, I'm working on impressions (I've got the time), and we'll get back to you. Marin is also trying her best in her new "big girl bed." She is very excited to have this new place to play and read books, but the idea that she has to stay in her bed for the whole night is a little foreign to her. She has been wandering into our room, but she's trying her best and I'm certain she'll be staying there soon. Here are some pictures of Marin showing of her new bed.
She's also been dabbling with her ABCs. Enjoy!

American Idol 2025?

Fall, Our Favorite Time

Every year for the past three, I have longed for this time of year. Fall. Sometimes it only feels like a symbolic end of the heat of Summer, but the past few days we've been blessed with beautiful weather. Waking up, finding Muzzy's leash, opening the door and not feeling the sudden rush of the wet blanket--the Mississippi humidity--improves your whole day. Muzzy, the ever-excited one, finds even more energy when her hair stays light and fluffy and in no way resembles a television commercial's example of "a bad hair day." Marin has also enjoyed the cooler temps, if for no other reason than she hasn't been turning red as a tomato after 20 minutes of outdoor play (see photo). Sure we don't have the changing leaves (mostly pines, oh and our yard has two 6' trees), but we welcome this time just the same. The miser in me loves the fact that the air conditioning gets a rest, if only at night. The fiying is much more fun too. As you might imagine strapping on 35 lbs of gear and jumping into a coffin-sized greenhouse and then get airborne turning and climbing, pulling and maneuvering. Sweating and soaking.
All of that is on hold and so I happily I sit here, listening to the crickets mixed in with my neighbors air conditioning unit and hope that our reprieve is really here.

Trip to Memphis

Last week we all traveled to Memphis. The trip was made a little out of necessity (Gustav), but more than anything it was time to get away from Meridian for a while. Memphis is great. We stayed at the Westin "10 feet off of Beale" which allowed dogs. So, Muzzy made the trip too. She may be a city dog after all. As you might imagine, Beale St. is noisy until about 3am and then it really gets loud. It was nice to walk around a city, see some history, eat some good food and get away as a family. All in all it was a smashing success: we avoided the storm, met up with our friends and managed to have a lot of fun.

PS The little boy is Peter Morrison, our friends Nic & Amy Morrison's son. They live in Memphis.

Stuck on the boat

One of the more unique parts of my job is how every 6-weeks, I head off to an aircraft carrier to qualify a handful of student naval aviators in the art of landing a jet on a moving boat. Most of the time this a few day event that involves a little fun in Jacksonville, a day or two on the carrier and then back to Tracey, Marin, Muzzy and Calvin in Mississippi. We call them Boat Dets and I always have fun. The carrier taken in small doses is great fun. The food is cheap ($10 a day and yes all the officers pay to eat on the carrier), the jokes are all old and still funny, and everybody likes getting a couple of day traps.
Last Thursday was kicked off another of these boat dets that, because of Tropical Storm Fay, moved from Jacksonville to Virginia Beach. That is one of the nice things about the boat, it moves wherever you need it. I flew on to the USS Eisenhower on Friday, getting a couple of traps, and then began the job of coaching the students. I had 6 students who I had been instructing and literally watching land at the field in Meridian for the last 4 weeks. I had a feeling that all of them would qualify and all of them did—a few intense moments notwithstanding. Before leaving Meridian, I spiced it up with a few bets on how well they would do…the house typically wins those.
All was going well and I expected to be home today, but the ship needed someone to stay aboard to “catch” some planned C-2 arrivals in the coming days. So here I am day 5 of a 3 day boat det. All of the planned C-2s have arrived, but my requirement extends until Thursday. It is certainly not the most fun in the world out here, but I have a great stateroom, computer access, 4 meals a day, 8 channels of cable and some good reading. I miss the girls (but not Cal) and look forward to the holiday weekend.

Special Message for Grandma Pile

Quick Visit to North Carolina

This past week, I had the chance to visit the Mimms' place near Pinehurst, NC. It was a great stop as we (a fellow Meridian pilot and I) were treated to a cruise around the lake, along with some swimming and then a tour of the local watering holes. It had been a few years since I had seen both U. Al and A. Chris and so it was long overdue. Here are some photos on the front porch of their really cool house. Chandra's daughter, Christine, is also pictured.