hurricane hunters

hurricane season is almost upon us again. and for those of us on the gulf coast and/or residents of post-katrina biloxi, that's an important time point.

our air base is home to the hurricane hunters. this whole time that we've been down here, i just assumed that these guys flew over hurricanes and got aerial information about the storms in the gulf of mexico. little did i know.

well, today, all of my fellow AEGD residents and I got a full tour of the hurricane hunters operation. it's pretty incredible. turns out their area of operations includes everywhere from basically the middle of the atlantic all the way west of hawaii. as far as i could tell, they are the only people in the world who do what they do.

well, what do they do you might ask? they fly their plane, WC-130J, straight through the wall of the hurricane, into the eye of the storm, straight out the other side, loop around and do it again, 3 or 4 times over. the average flight mission is about 16 hours front to back. the whole time they are relaying reconnaissance information back to towers of data on shore who make predictions/forecasts on the strength, speed, direction, ect of the approaching hurricane.

the Major who gave us a tour told some pretty amazing stories about flying straight into the heart of these storms.

then we embarrassed ourselves by taking a multitude of ridiculous pictures, as if we had a cool mission besides drilling and filling. now, that being said, our dental squadron motto is: if you can't bite..., you can't fight.

and we take that creed pretty seriously. we may all be captains, but we certainly aren't pilots...

anyway, enjoy some of the photos from the day.

oh yeah. and this morning while i was getting ready, i got william ready. ready for hansen planetarium and it's awesome laser shows. does anybody know, are they still doing Laser U2 and Laser Floyd? will is enjoying a little Laser Beck, with his feet kicked up and everything.

if my mom had a business . . .

and you were getting married, then you should totally hire her.

but, since she doesn't do this professionally, then you should just take a look at how amazing she is at putting together weddings. seriously. like i mentioned in a couple of posts ago, my little brother got married in california the first weekend of may and they had the reception at my parent's house. my mom put the whole thing together and it looked amazing. she was also the one that pulled off peter's and my wedding about a year and a half ago since we were living in new york, but getting married in california. here's a quick glance from our wedding:

andrew and stephanie's wedding reception had a "vintage BBQ" feel and it was perfect. cute, but still sophisticated and not too informal with good food and lots of fun!

doesn't it all look wonderful???

*photo cred: elise and peter :)

get the crawfish while it lasts...!

with all the oil (pronouced ohl) creeping up on the gulf coast, the locals have taken to eating all the gulf (pronouced guff) fishes they can. our apartment complex threw a crawfish boil tonight to say thanks to all the residents, they boiled 930 lbs of crawfish.

it's crawfish boil time down here. (i guess it's seasonal) so there's a boil here and a boil there. we haven't been able to make it to any yet. that was, until tonight...

i'm not a huge seafood person, so living down here on the guff coast has been good for me to try out more seafood, like the all-you-can-eat lobster/crab legs at the hard rock cafe casino every friday night.

i'm still not totally sold on lobster, crab legs, or crawfish. but at least, i've eaten plenty to have an experience-based opinion.

here are the photos from the night. there were too many large, greasy people down by the pool party, so we took our crawfish plate back to our apartment to partake.

William wasn't really sure what was going on.

Emily was showing off her de-shelling skills.

I'm still not totally in love with the whole thing. it seems like a lot of work for not a lot of reward.

california lovin'

we just got back from california for my little brother, andrew's wedding. we packed a lot in over the weekend, so beware, there are a lot of pictures to follow!

the wedding reception was at my parent's house (post coming soon displaying my mom's creative wedding-throwing talents . . .) and so we spent the weekend setting up, having fun with family, celebrating my birthday (which was perfect timing--i was so happy to be with my family on my birthday) and partying!

here are the cousins (will, weston, kate, and emmy) getting to know each other.

little kate having fun in the pool.

waiting at the temple. William had fun giving all of his aunts and uncles lots of loves and cuddles. here he is cuddling up to aunt kimmie.

the lovely couple.

lots of wedding party pictures.

cort and peter, are you guys serious???

family pics.

fun beach time! here are little kate, jane, and big kate.

and of course, my styling grandma margie.

we had such a fun time, it was hard to leave! we can't wait to be out West again!!!!