Adding a new region to the repertoire

A few gal pals and I headed up to Fresno for an evening of shopping, food, and hanging out. One of the ladies had heard mention of this Indian restaurant and she had been wanting to go for awhile, so we were like Hey, why not? And that's just what we did. After a little bit of mall shopping we headed to our destination of choice: North India Bar & Grill

And ordered a spattering of menu items: 

We got chicken curry, prawn curry, spinach and potato something, steak tandoori, steak in a tomato sauce, naan and rice. Everything was great! I will definitely come to this place again and try some more stuff. The other neat thing, they were having an Indian wedding reception in one part of the restaurant. It was fun to peek through the curtains and see all the women in the traditional sari.

My taste testers of the evening:

Thanks ladies, where's our next new adventure in food??

Photo A Day: 3/3/11

The wild and rambunctious kids settling down for some food at the Lady Diamonds meeting.

The Big Ta-Do, The Whole Sha-bang

The culmination of the week was the Strike Fighter Ball where the girls get all glammed up and the guys wear their dress uniforms! We had a ton of fun with our new Diamonds!

The boys:

The girls:

The CO and XO with their amazing wives!

 Getting jiggy with it on the dance floor!

Frodo & Laser

Focker & Christy

 The CO is in there somewhere!

The great thing about the Navy is you make so many amazing friends! Some we met a couple years ago and others we just met when we got to Lemoore. But we are all in the same place in life, it's awesome! The Navy community is an amazing and supportive one!

What an amazing night with amazing friends, old and new!!!

Strike Fighter Sports Week -- Spouses Volleyball

The Lady Diamonds set out to represent our guys in the spouses volleyball tournament. We had a great showing of gals! They put in a great effort and a wonderful time was had by all!!

 Here's the team!

 Now be serious and tough!

 We had a good turnout of supporters as well!!

Strike Fighter Sports Week

This past weekend was the Strike Fighter Ball. A fancy dinner and dance for all of the strike fighter squadron's here on the West Coast. The week leading up to the ball includes various sports competitions between the squadron's. Our boys came back from a month on the ship to play beer pong, crud, golf, and volleyball during the work week...not too shabby!! One of our beer pong teams took the tournament! 

Here are some pics of the "crud" match. I'm not too sure on the rules but you use a pool table, the cue ball and one other ball. There are two teams and you play offense and defense. Essentially you do all you can to not allow the other team to score (hence the third picture down)...

Learning the rules of crud

Getting ready for round one

Making sure the other team cannot get to the ball

 Round two

The golf game was a 6-man scramble. This is what they did for "work"

And a few of us wives went out to support our boys!

Our boys did not win crud, and got -9 for their round of golf (but didn't win either). But we all had a blast watching and playing!!

Do you have the Captain in you?

Since the guys are gone, the wives of our squadron decided to go to the Halloween party on base. Originally we were trying to think of something we could all dress up as, but then we just decided to let everybody do what they wanted to. So last minute I had to figure out what to do...

This is what I came up with:

Here's a picture of our whole group:

Some more randoms from the night:

We had an India sari, Alice in Wonderland, Sailor Girl, Catwoman

Medusa and Sailor Girl

An "old fart" and Amy Winehouse

Our fearless leaders went as Catwoman and her Bad Kitty

Check out Medusa's crazy red eyes!! A little creepy

Hope everyone has a fun halloween!!

Be proud, make a sign

It's fun to drive around the neighborhoods and see squadron signs in the yard. Every squadron has patches for their uniforms, and the same design is often put on a yard sign that you can put in your front yard to say "Hey, look at me, I'm in VFA-???" Well our new squadron did have someone that made these for them but apparently he turned out to be not such a nice guy, and he didn't do quality work, so they no longer work with him. So while mom was in town I put her to work! (And yes I did help, even though I'm not in any of the pictures working...) We made our own sign...

This is what we needed to make:

We went to Home Depot and bought a 2x2 piece of wood for $7. Went to Michael's and bought paint in the correct colors for about $10.

First step was to sand and prime the board...both sides. We painted the back side in a coat of the navy blue paint so it would look stream-lined all the way around.

 Step two was to put the "mach wave" and the light blue circle. We went and measured another sign and did our best to get the angles right. We discussed that there needs to be a template that the squadron hangs onto with the exact measurements...it would have made things so much easier!!

 Step three was to put the navy blue around the outside. We did about 2-3 coats of paint for each color.

Step four was to put the four diamonds in the correct place in the middle (I didn't a get a picture of this step). The diamonds are navy blue (hence Blue Diamonds...actually they are supposed to represent four hornet flying in the diamond formation with the mach wave)

Step five was to spray a sealant to help guard against the elements. I used a glossy Mod Podge spray paint sealer. As we are entering the winter and rainy season we'll see how well it holds up.

I still need to get a post to attach it to so I can stick into the ground, but right now I just have it leaning up against the house... Here is our finished product, not perfect but hey it's home-made!!!

Once a Diamond, Always a Diamond

As I said before Mike is now a part of VFA-146, the Blue Diamonds. Mike is currently  on the USS Ronald Reagan. Right now he is out on the ship doing some training to get the entire carrier air group ready for their deployment, leaving early next spring for 7 or 8 months :(  I knew the day would come where deployments were in our life, but it still sucks! I really need to find myself a job before then so that I have something to help keep me busy.

Every squadron has one plan that they deck out all fancy. I think the Blue Diamonds decked out plan is pretty neat:

This is his new hangar, not that exciting I know but...

And a couple pics of the flight line

The squadron has been awesome. The wives have been very welcoming and it is a very family oriented squadron which is nice. The CO tries to give the guys ample time off between now and deployment so that the families can be sure and get as much time together as possible. We are both really enjoying it. I'm anxious to hear what prank the guys pulled on Mike while he's out at the boat...there's always something!