Monday March 7

Blogg Monday March 7, 2005

It’s a beautiful day in the Valley today; and why not? The weather we drove to experience is going to be with us the rest of the week. It promises to be 75 plus for the remainder of the week…yesterday was mostly sunny but cool…much like May in Michigan.

Speaking of yesterday, we had a wonderfully restful Sunday. We went to church at Pebble Creek Community which meets in the clubhouse of the development where Jan and Gary live. There were about 200 there…much as you might expect, older couples with a very articulate and traditional service. It is non-denominational, but there were bits and pieces of UM worship that I recognized. Their pastor attended Fuller Seminary in California…and so did ours…in Fennville (the similarity stops there, however.) After church we hung out for while and then met Doug (Jodi’s husband) who is over here at Luke for TDY for six weeks. He took us on the base and we got a close-up look at an F-16. We came back here to the hacienda for steaks on the Barbie. Today is Doug’s birthday, so we celebrated a day early.

Doug is a great guy…hails from Washington state and is an Academy grad and been a pilot for about 10 years. He only fits one mold of a fighter pilot that I recall, which is being intelligent. He has seen a lot in his short career…a year in Korea, service over Iraq then back in the war as an AF coordinator with the Army, then test pilot school in England and now with an F-16 Squadron at Egland in Florida. He is their tester…fascinating, but dangerous work. I enjoy talking planes with him…but my experiences are clouded by almost 40 years.

We have had an interesting experience integrating the three dogs. Things are going well, but Rose is very nervous. She gets confused as to where to potty with no grass around. So that has been interesting. Of course everything is bagged, so my pick up techniques have improved…and I swear by only the zipper bags, if you must know.

Today we are going to hike the mountains…Tuesday I think is the baseball spring training game…Wednesday and Thursday will be whatever we decide and then off we go again. Going great…