New Entertainment Center

Well yesterday Marshall went and picked up our new entertainment center that we picked out from crate and barrel. At the old apartment here in Utah we never had one because the apartment that we were in already had a built in shelf or what not that held all of our stuff. So needless to say the t.v has been sitting on an end table since then because we weren't sure what we wanted. I am glad that we got the one we did because from the looks of it it is perfect! Here are som pictures of Marshall's progress in putting it together...

As you can see in the pictures above the t.v. is totally in need of a new home :) It took him a while but I am just glad that he had patience and stuck with it until the end. The next pictures are of the t.v.'s new home...with all of the furniture switched around in its place

It looks really good and I can't wait to get there and enjoy it! Marshall did a great job of setting everything up and making it look nice. He even went and picked out another lamp last night to go on the other end table so now that room is finished...almost. I just now need to hang the pictures that I want in there. He will have to make room for all the DVD's that are moving with me :) Hopefully he is prepared for that!!!

That makes sense...

So I just finished my 6-day rotation. I ended up with 4 days of home reserve (see below). On the night of Day 4, I get the usual ding of my Blackberry with the next day's plans and was half expecting more home reserve. Instead I got airline reservations to San Francisco. So, on Day 5 of 6, I drive to JFK and airline clear across the country to San Francisco. From San Fran, I get a sedan to take me to the San Jose airport about 30 minutes away where the jet that I was assigned to was located. Get there, get it ready, and the two passengers show up 30 minutes early. Blast off and fly from San Jose down to Carlsbad, which is about 400 miles south (Cali is a big state), near San Diego. That took about 50 whole minutes.

Once we got the jet all shut down and put to bed for the night, I turned on my Blackberry and was amused to find airline reservations to go home the next day. I had been kind of expecting to have a west coast to east coast flight on Sunday morning that would take me back towards home and (the way I saw it) justify them flying me all the way to the west coast, but nope, just that one dinky trip. So I airlined allll the way out there, "worked" for a whole two and a half hours tops, and airlined all the way back. This after sitting idle for 4 straight days. Oh well, makes sense to someone I guess. Now I'm off for the next eight days. Works for me...

Keeping busy

I'm on day 3 of a 6 day rotation and I haven't even left my apartment. I'm doing what is called "home reserve." Basically that means I'm all packed and ready to go, but they don't need me to go fly anywhere so rather than have me sit in a hotel, I stay home in case somebody calls in sick or they need an extra crew for something. Somewhere in my gateway (the NYC area), at least one other pilot is doing the same thing since it takes two of us.

I have been extremely productive these past few days. Here is a small photo journal of what I've accomplished:

Played about 7.8 hours of Super Mario World...


...drank about 4 gallons of Coke...


...rented two good movies...

...and two stupid ones...

...listened to hours upon hours of music...


...and ate way too much.

I really need to get a new hobby! Or maybe they just need to put me to work...

More Fantastic Weather

Speaking of fantastic weather Marshall is in West Palm Beach until tomorrow. I am jealous. He is staying in a hotel where he is on the 14 floor in a suite with a king size bed! The weather is in the mid 60's. I don't think that it can get better then that. He told me that he can see the ocean from his window. The joys of being a pilot I guess.
I think I need another vacation but this time to somewhere with a beach. Sand and sun sound too good right about now!
He needs to buy himself a camera so that he can take pictures of the fun places that he has been to so that I can blog about them for him until he starts blogging for himself.

Utah Weather

Oh the Joy of living in Utah during the winter season! I woke up last week and this is what it looked like. I couldn't believe it. I don't mind it snowing the month of December. I expect it even but I hate the snow in January. I feel like it drags on forever! I don't mind the rain or the cold but the snow and me just don't mix. I guess I am just a little nervous or it still snowing because I will be driving to PA hopefully in a couple of months and I really need the weather to cooperate with me :) Right now it isn't being very cooperative. If I didn't have to work and could stay in a warm house and not deal with crazy divers who don't know what they are doing then I would have no problems with the snow. Too bad I don't see that happening anytime soon! I hope that you are all enjoying the weather you are having, whatever it may be!

The job hunting begins

Well since I am moving soon I thought that I would start applying for jobs and see what happens. It has been a challenge. I re-did my resume a couple of months ago and had several people go over it and I had them tell me what they thought. It was a lot of hard work but worth it because now I have a resume that I am satisfied with...Except the objective line. I am still trying to work that one out.
My goal is to apply or send my resume out to 4-6 different companys a week. It is hard because the majority of the jobs want you to apply online and don't give you a specific person to follow up with. So you just kind of send it out there hoping that they get it and take a look at it and give you a call. When you don't hear from them you wonder if they even received anything you sent. That is one of the downfalls about applying online. So far I have meet my goal though of applying to different places for different positions.
It has also been a challenge because I don't live there yet and so I am finding that it is harder for people to take a chance on you and settle for a phone interview. I am really trying to keep a positive attitude and I know that it is still early. It would just be nice if people would call or e-mail so I knew if they received my information.
I talked with a person who works in our human resource department today. We just talked about the road blocks that I am coming up against. He said that he would take a look at my resume and then tell me what he thought of it. That was good to hear. I didn't go to him in the first place because I thought that he would say he couldn't because the conflict of interest thing but I think because I am moving out of state he is willing to help me out. I will be sending him my resume tomorrow for him to look at. Hopefully he doesn't have to many changes he feels need to be made as I have sent it out a few times :) Oh well I would rather know now then not at all.
If any one has any advice please feel free to share it. I am taking any and all suggestions in this area :) Keep your fingers crossed that I find something before I move as well!

My Vacation

Well as you read below I was off to visit Marshall the day after Christmas. That was his present to me :) I left here around 1:00 and didn't get into Rochester, New York until 11:30. I thought that it was going to be a long day but it wasn't too bad.


I was nervous to see him again after 3 months of not seeing each other. I remember when I got off the plane I had butterflies in my stomach. I was walking to baggage claim and there he was right by the escalator waiting for him. I just wanted to drop everything and give him a big hug...I didn't! It was so good just to be with each other again. We arrived at his dads house and I made him leave the room for a minute so that I could get his presents and stocking ready. I was too anxious to wait another moment! I know I am weird but I just like giving gifts and being there for their reactions. He said that he really liked all of the things that I gave him this year. It made me happy :)


As you can tell from the post below this one the next day we hopped in the car and headed to PA to see the new apartment. While we were there Marshall got a PA driver's license (I now have his old one from FOREVER ago...He looks so little) and registered his truck. We thought that we were going to be sitting there forever waiting for all of this to get taken care of but we walked out maybe an hour later with both things taken care of. He was so stunned that we got it done so quick that he was speechless. He now has everything taken care of for driving around there minus his inspection. I am sure though that when he gets back from the trip that he is on right now he will get it taken care of. I am sure that he would hate to be pulled over. It was actually nice being there while he got it done because now I know what to expect when I get all of my stuff taken care of. Thanks honey for being the ginnie pig!


On Friday we just hung out and visited with family. We went over to the grandparents for lunch. They had so many leftovers that grandpa needed some help eating it all. I hope that we made a dent in it while we were there :) After visiting with grandpa for a while we headed out and went to Mark and Becky's (Uncle and Aunt) house. They are always fun to visit with. We all just sat around the table and caught up on what everyone was doing. All of their girls were there as well.


Friday night we met up with Dan & Kim as well as Joel & his girlfriend at Applebee's. It was great seeing all of them and meeting Joel's girlfriend for the first time.


Saturday day was pretty much the same as before. We headed over to the grandparents again to have lunch. This time around grandma was home so I got to give her a hug and talk with her. They both are such great people. That night we headed out to a casino....although I don't think that they call it gambling because it is illegal or something so they call it 'gaming'. Don't really understand that one but oh well. Here is everyone who came: Mark and Becky, Dan and Kim, John and Deanna (Marshall's brother and his girlfriend), Gary and Deb (Marshall's dad and his girlfriend). Kim had never gambled before so it was fun seeing her play. I started out with $20.00 and slowly lost that through the night. I am not big on gambling because it is so hard to earn in the first place :) After losing the $20.00 I sat down with Marshall at a machine he was playing and he gave me $4.oo to play with. I put it into the machine next to him and not 2 minutes later I was up to over $16.00. I couldn't believe it! Okay it wasn't a million dollars but I never win anything which is why I don't play a lot. I wasn't taking my chances I cashed out right there :) Marshall sat at his machine and did really well. I couldn't believe that he was winning. I mean not a ton because we are all on the .02 machines but still he was up. We ended up spending a little more time there and then cashed out and went home. It was a lot of fun and I didn't lose that much money. I think that Marshall was up $20.00 or something by the end of the night. We both decided that maybe we should hit Vegas again :)


Sunday all we really did was hang out with whoever was around. We went to the outlet mall to get Marshall a pair of nice work shoes. We also stopped in at the GAP where I picked myself up a pair of cute pink sweatpants for $3.75. I freakin love them. I think that is the day that I sat there and played guitar hero and won back some of there songs that were lost. It was fun but I finally had to walk away from the game because I could barely move my fingers. But I did way better then the last time I was there because each song I played I got over 90%! Gary got prime rib from his work so he made that for dinner along with rolls, potatoes, and salad. After dinner we played Clue in teams. The teams were as follow: Gary and Deb, John and Deanna, Grandma and Grandpa, and then me and Marshall. We kicked there butts both times. It was a lot of fun. We need to get that game and find people to play with in PA.


Monday was New Year's Eve. We really didn't do anything during the day. He made dinner reservations that night for us at the Pultneyville Grill (I hope that it is called). It was sooooo good. I absolutly loved the food. I even ate all of my pasta...Marshall was so proud of me :) I talked him into sharing a dessert even though we were both way full. You just can't always leave before having dessert because it is the best part! We shared and apple cobbler...again it was so good. It was warm with big chunks of apples in it with a scoop of ice cream and of course whip cream to top it all off. How can you resist something like that? He ended up eating more then me and he didn't even want dessert to begin with...it was funny. After dinner we stopped in at his friend Jake's house where a couple of friends got together. It was the first time that I have met Jake. He seemed like a really nice guy. He has these two dogs...they are HUGE. I couldn't beleive it. But they were very well behaved. After hanging out there for a little bit we went back to the house and hung around and watched the ball drop. I was falling asleep about 45 minutes before midnight. He didn't let me sleep though :) He woke me up to watch the last half hour of the ball dropping. We are getting too old to stay out late :) Ha Ha Ha I am just kidding. I really did have a lot of fun that night even though we didn't stay out late. I am just glad that me and Marshall were together. I turned my cell phone off before going to bed thinking that people back in Utah were going to call and text 2 hours later when they were brining in the new year. When I woke up the next morning I had a voice mail from my mom wishing me a happy new year with everyone in the back yelling...it was funny and I was sad that I missed the phone call. When I talked with her she said that she had called about 2o minutes after midnight New York time...I just missed her!


Here is a picture of how cute we are together on New Year's Eve :)

AWWWW!!!

The next day we headed over to the grandparents again to have rizaboulin (Okay I know I spelled that wrong but cut me a break). It is dough that you deep fry and then you dip them in brown sugar. They explained it to me that it was kind of like a dohnut but a little heavier. They were really good. I think I had about 8. I just couldn't stop eating them! We ended up leaving a little early so that Gary could take Marshall to the airport. I went along for the ride and I wanted to see Marshall off. We kissed and said our goodbyes at the airport. It wasn't that hard having him leave...suprisingly. After droppin him off we went back to the house and hung out the rest of the day. It was nice I just sat down with a book. The grandparents came over for dinner. They had lasagna with sausage in it but made me a batch of spagetti with meatballs. I hadn't had spagetti in a long time and it tasted so good.

It was a little hard/weird that night being there without Marshall but I made it through :) The next day I just hung out until it was time for gandma and grandpa to come and pick me up to take me to the airport. It was really nice of them to do that. My flight back home ended up being delayed but I just tried to make the best of it. Thanks dad for picking me up when it was so late at night! It was definitly hard coming home this time around because I saw what a great place I have in PA waiting for me. Oh well. I am working hard to get there as soon as possible.

Over all it was a really great trip. I don't think that I could have asked for anything different. It was a great present to give me Marshall. Thanks honey for brining in the New Year with me. We both know that this year is going to be great!!!