Nicholas doing his thing

This past weekend N was called to the scene of a 4 wheeler accident. A teenage kid was hurt pretty bad and he landed in the family’s front yard to pick him up. One of the fire fighters there took some pictures while they were coming in and once they were on the ground. N told me it was a really tight landing area with wires on all sides of him. He also said that pretty much everyone in the area had come out to see them come in to land and I said had that been on Howard Roberts Rd I would have expected the same outcome!

The blades are no flexed here, shutter speed is just so slow on the camera that it makes them look all crazy! (I had to ask)

On Monday I got back to Birmingham right before noon and decided to go up to the Hangar and surprise N but I went a way that I’ve never been before so I got a little turned around and it took me a few more minutes to get there than I had planned. Right as I was coming up the hill to his job I heard the rotors and thought “crap, please be Childrens!!” Nope, it was him! I got to see a few seconds of him taking off and since the dogs were so antsy I just headed back home. I sent him a text saying “I know you are flying I watched you leave” and he called a few mins later saying he was at UAB and would be heading back to the hangar in a few mins if I wanted to come back and watch him land. I jumped in the car and headed back up there and got to see him come in and land. I took some video but my camera battery completely died before he touched down so it’s not that great at all. In the 7 yrs he flew in the Army I got to see him fly maybe 4 times, he’s been at this job less than a month and I’ve already been able to see him. Pretty cool.

He is off this week and yesterday was the perfect first day to be off work. It rained most of the day and we were super lazy. Today we went out and had lunch and ran some errands and explored and tomorrow we are going down south of Birmingham to the Homewood area to check that out. We have a lot more to see! I’m looking forward to it!

Welcome to Crestwood

I’ve mentioned before that we love this neighborhood because it’s just awesome. We love all the different mixes and styles of houses and the neighbors that we’ve met so far are very nice and helpful. Our neighborhood has a facebook page and every morning they put up a picture of a different house and I love that! N and I went for a walk around the other evening and I wish I had taken my camera then but since I forgot it I want to put up a couple of pictures from the facebook page. We live on the side of Crestwood that was for the most part built prior to 1950, some houses have historic markers dating the houses to 1905 and 1912 ect, those are just a few numbers that we noticed at different times.

I don’t know who lives in any of these houses or where exactly they are in the neighborhood, I just like them.

 

 

So there is just a small glimpse into where we live.

Little of everything

It’s been an interesting week around here. Last Sat N headed to LA to do some training and he was there until Tues. He used a simulator for the first time and said it was really cool training. He got home Tues night and on Wed got to fly the actual aircraft for the first time. On Thurs he learned how to do more paperwork and run the GPS system (there was weather issues so they didn’t fly) and then on Fri he took his check ride with the IP and when that was done he flew with his boss and did some Local Area Orientation (LAO) and told N that he was going to let him fly by himself the next day on shift! That’s less that 1 week of training on that aircraft and he was in the air on Sat single pilot taking a guy having a heart attack to the hospital. Let me put how fast that is into perspective…. in the Army if Nicholas wanted to transition to another aircraft, say instead of flying the Kiowa he wanted to go fly the Apache, he would have to go through FOUR months of training. Four months. Now granted there are a few more things to learn in the Apache than the Bell 206 but it doesn’t really take 4 months to learn it when you are already familiar with flying. We call it “big boy rules” the Army does NOT play by them but the civilian side sure does!

Here are a few pictures that I took when we went out to the base last week. This is the Children’s aircraft because they didn’t have the other LifeSaver aircraft there that day. They are set up the same just different paint jobs.

Nicholas with his boss, 2 of the flight nurse/medics, and a nurse from one of the hospitals in town.

His cool new helmet, much nicer than his old Army one.

We are really loving Birmingham so far, we really didn’t know what to expect after moving here and I’m impressed. We are finding new cool stuff all the time and Nicholas loves his job. All the people there are absolutely fantastic and he is excited to go to work in the morning for the first time in years. It’s a nice change for both of us.

I have plenty more to put on here, I need to get better about keeping this thing updated but this is long enough and it’s bed time!

Settling into the new area

I sent Nicholas to work on Monday and Tuesday so I could run some errands and have some alone time. He was happy to go to work because he was ready to have the chance to fly again and he did get to fly twice so he was excited about that. We out to run some errands yesterday and since we were only 10 mins from his job we stopped by so I could meet a few more of the pilots and nurses. I had just taken my camera out of my purse before we left so I took some pics with N’s phone and I need to get them uploaded because they are pretty cool. There are some really nice areas around Birmingham. We went to one shopping area called The Summit and it was FANCY!!! We ate at Chuy’s Mexican Restaurant and they actually had valet parking! N had on a polo shirt and khaki shorts and said he actually felt a little underdressed! It wasn’t that fancy and thankfully we weren’t underdressed once we got in there but I couldn’t believe that! We’ll be going there to window shop when we want to kill a few hours but I doubt we’ll be buying much out there!! And the funny thing is when we were talking to N’s boss he said there is another area that is even more expensive and fancier! Not sure when we’ll have time to make it out there to explore with N’s schedule being full up the next couple of weeks but we have plenty of time to take it all in. He’ll leave on Sat for a few days in LA and then when he gets back he’ll do more training and get to know the area better. His boss was saying yesterday that he’ll probably start his shift on the 22nd and that’s when he’ll be flying alone.  It’s hard to believe so much has happened in just the 2 months since his interview.

 

This is my one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken. This was Friday night after we moved into the house. We went to Logan’s for dinner since it’s right down the road and when we got home N laid on the floor and passed out. He probably slept there for 30 mins before I got him up and made him go to bed. If I had known where some painters tape was I would have made and outline of him. You can see in this pic how nasty the carpet is, the guy that rented before us had 3 dogs and traveled a lot. Apparently the people that he paid to come take care of them didn’t bother cleaning up after them and he didn’t have it cleaned after he left either. Our landlord told us to get it cleaned and take the amount out of the rent for next month so that’s nice!

This is how we have the livingroom set up now. Notice that Ki is in her spot. We are going to get a tv for this room, it’s on the list!

The new curtains for the french doors. I’m already planning to paint this room because I think it’s a little dull and bland. N of course likes it and can’t understand why I want to paint.

The new rug I bought this week. I was SO excited to find it because if you remember a couple of months ago I found a small version of this rug in Nashville and fell in love with it. I looked online and couldn’t find it so I was hoping I would find a bigger one once we moved and I did!! It was the last one there on the floor and pushed up where you could barely see it. I only found it because I was looking at all the rugs they had hanging and happened to look down while I was holding 2 apart and saw it.

Looking from the hallway

The little rug in the hallway

And a couple of pictures of my favorite features in the kitchen. I LOVE these slider and drawers. It’s so nice to have an area to contain the plastic containers and lids that don’t fall down on my head when I open the door.

If it ever cools down a little (I know, summer in the south, there’s no such thing as cool!) we need to do some yard work. Some of the shrubs and trees are getting a little out of control in the front yard and the flower beds are a little grown up in the back. It’s not *that* bad but apparently there are some people called “The Environmental Police” that work for the city of Birmingham and they are crazy and will cite you for really off the wall stuff. One woman in the neighborhood has been fighting them in court for a couple of years now because they don’t like the way she has her back yard landscaped. It’s a little insane but I don’t want them bothering me! I might work on that some while N is gone this weekend.

I think that’s all for now. I’ll get those pictures off of N’s phone soon and get them up so everyone can see his new helicopter and all that cool stuff.

Welcome to Alabama

This past week was absolutely crazy. We ended up changing our move date and our week went from “oh we’ll get that later” to “AHH we have to do it NOW!”. Of course we would end up moving during a random unbearable heat wave that made everything twice as miserable. It was 99* in Clarksville on the day we moved and I took a picture of the gage in my car when it hit 100* on the drive down to Birmingham. We ended up filling a 26 foot Uhaul as full as it could possibly get. I really didn’t think we had that much stuff. We didn’t have a big house and everyone knows that N loves to throw stuff away if he doesn’t see a use for it so we don’t hoard unnecessary items. I really don’t know how anyone with a bigger house or kids can move their stuff in that truck. 

And now for pictures because that’s what everyone wants to see!

Front door

Gate to the deck and side of the house

View from the front door.

Kitchen Sat morning

Kitchen Sat night

This house actually has more cabinets than I have stuff to put in them! Granted we have all our food in the big wooden pantry so that saves a lot of space but there are A LOT of cabinets!

The room that we put everything in until we figured out how we were going to use it. And let me add that this is after N had spent 3 hours taking boxes down to the basement before I got up.

Looking toward the front door.

Now it’s the dining room.

The doors in the den that lead out to the side deck. I have new curtains up already. Need to take pics of them. And the hot tub is now drained and will be removed soon.

This is N’s room. He will have the old tv and entertainment center in here and he can play video games and watch whatever he wants.

The den, we are planning to put a flat screen tv on the wall across from the sofa.

The only bathroom. And it’s small. This is the only complaint I have about this house. LOL I’m just used to us having our own bathrooms!

We haven’t really finished putting the bedrooms together. And the pictures I have of them aren’t great so I’ll take more soon.

This is the deck down the side of the house. You can see the french doors to the left. We had been letting the dogs in and out of there and now even though N has installed a dog door from them at the back door they want to come in here still. Ki gets mad when we tell her to go around.

Looking down onto the lower deck. Pooh loves this one.

Standing in the same spot as above but looking toward the back door, this come out from the kitchen.

The whole back yard. It’s not very big but it’s enough for the dogs. And we have everything off the deck because the landlord came and restained  the deck on Sat. The gate and steps lead down to the basement garage and the driveway off of the ally in the back.

The garage door.

So far we really love the house. I’m not to fond of the paint colors but I can live with them for a little while and he’s already said just ask him first before painting so I don’t think he’ll mind. This neighborhood is really nice and so far all the neighbors that we’ve met have been super friendly. I’m excited to get to know everyone better.