Tobin and Erin

January 30, 2010…Titus’s first birthday!  We celebrated by making him a cake…ok, I made the cake.  Tobin thought it was all a little silly.  But here are the dogs enjoying their carrot/peanut butter cake with plain yogurt frosting!

Here’s the two scalliwags:

Here’s what they do when they get a soft squeaky toy:

Don’t worry, they got the squeaker out!

Also, I received my green belt in 6Sigma from Pall!  Here’s the green belt, certificate, and award to prove it!  I had to give a presentation at a “roadshow” Pall had at a local hotel.  There was a vice president there as well, and some other bigwigs.  I was in a group of about 13 other people who got green belts that day.  The presentation was supposed to be 1 minute long, so it wasn’t a big deal to talk for that long.  But I am very excited to be done with this project and to finally have a green belt.  :)

Tobin is doing very well in training, something like 13 events left.  He has a flight scheduled tomorrow, but has recently been canceled due to weather, so we’ll see if he gets to fly or not.  He’s been enjoying a few days off, although he’s studying most of the time and he also worked a night shift, so he didn’t really have time “off”.  We’re looking forward to the winging ceremony, hopefully coming up within a month’s time!

We are back in the swing of things, that’s for sure!  Tobin has not been put on the schedule for the past two days, so he has been able to spend a lot of time in the simulators and even got to ride along on a flight to see what would be expected of him.

But then late last night we got a lovely surprise!    Tobin has completed ground school and is in the sim phase, so all he has done so far is his very first simulator training (which he was rushed into anyway).  He’s supposed to do many more of these sims, then go flight side.  But, instead, we learned he was scheduled for his first flight this morning at 6:45 AM.    And that’s the military for you.  He’ll be flying to somewhere in Georgia today, and probably won’t be back until late.

Work is workish for me, no news there.

But, on a positive note, we had a wonderful Christmas holiday in Michigan with my family.  We even got to see Tobin’s parents and grandparents on our way back down to Florida.

And the best news of all: Emily was home for Christmas!  She is doing wonderfully, better than I expected and improving every day.  She is able to speak and think as clearly as ever.  Her mobility is back, she is walking and cooking and going on shopping errands…but not driving yet.  Besides getting over the general weakness that a month in the hospital gave to her, her major obstacle is getting complete control back of her left arm and hand.

Thanks for all your prayers, the family really appreciates all the support that has been sent her way.  Cards and gifts and encouragement from people who have never even met her…it’s been amazing and a great way to keep Emily’s environment positive and inspiring.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s!