The Piggly Wiggly Exists!

Well after the votes have been counted, The Towal Rack won! Thanks to Dr. Bob for the suggestion. Peter, my brother in law, could not vote for this as he thought "The Towal Rack" was referring to my rack. Well its not!! :) Dr. Bob is Erik's Sponsor Dad from the Air Force Academy and Bob and Lea Ann always joke that our kids names will be Gym, Dish, and Beach. We can find great humor in our last name, but The Towal Rack is referring to our lives!

Erik and I thought, well I take that back, I thought it would be cool to start a blog so that way people back home and friends we make along the way can keep up with what is going on in our lives. The Air Force has taken us away from our great state and implanted us in Southeast Alabama, where the state bird is the Mosquito as they say in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. On that note, the first weekend we were here, we watched that movie and there really is a "Piggly Wiggly" grocery store! I can't say that I have stepped foot into the Piggly Wiggly; however, I did laugh at a lot more of the movie now being a resident of Alabama and knowing that what goes on in the movie really is happening in "LA" - Lower Alabama.

So now to the 'purpose' of the blog, our life in Alabama. We have been here a little over a month and we have seen more rain in this time period than we saw the whole time we lived in Del Rio. Erik has started flying the UH-1H here at Rucker and is loving it. When you think of the UH-1, you are probably envisioning the cool helicopters you see in movies....well you shall be fooled. The UH-1H is Vietnam's Huey, yes the ones that pilots flew in that war way back when. In fact, some of the instructors down at the airfield actually flew the helo's in Vietnam. The helo's are older than dirt, the Air Force acquired them from the Army and spray painted over the Army Logo and put the Air Force Logo, the seats are behind bullet-proof shields, and Erik is just waiting for the day when he does a pre-flight walk around that he will find a bullet hole in the side of the plane from back in the war! With all that being said, Erik is loving flying the UH-1 and is trying to master all that there is to learn how to fly it smoothly. On the other hand, I have gotten into a daily routine of playing with Tank in the morning, doing things around the house during the day, and then fulfilling my 'wifely' duties in the evening. One nice thing about Erik's Helicopter Squadron is that it is very laid back and his hours are a lot shorter. I have finally hit the point that I miss the classroom, the kids, and teaching and thus I am applying to be a substitute teacher in the area. We will just have to see if I can get a call now to actually get my feet wet again.

Overall, we are enjoying Alabama. The days are a lot quieter here as we do not have many friends nor much to do in the area. Its crazy to say but we actually miss the Del Rio area as we made so many friends and had such a great time, not to mention we were so close to our home and could visit family frequently. We will meet friends and we will see the sights, as for now we are enjoying our walks with Tank on all the beautiful trails here, getting our fair share of football, and liking that we have more stores than just Walmart to shop at! :)