My 28th

This year, my birthday fell before Thanksgiving, so even though it threw me off in getting the date for T-Day wrong for a while, it meant I was able to celebrate my actual birthday with friends : )

Nathan bought me a cashmere sweater, an extremely extravagant present,

which I opened prior to church. 

I received many calls, texts, and Facebook birthday wishes throughout the day. We then had friends over for dinner at our house, and a few accompanied us to

The Melting Pot in Sacramento for dessert.

It was a great way to celebrate my 28th!

See how we celebrated my birthday last year.

A Perfect Score!

At the end of October, Beale underwent the Combined Unit Inspection (CUI--prounounced like buoy with a "C"). Nathan and his squadron began preparing for it not long after we arrived here in the middle of June. Within a few months, Nathan realized his entire flight's training records were non-existent. In a phone call to his higher-ups in D.C., it was communicated that this error, while no fault of Nathan's, could earn them a failing score, and therefore reflect very poorly on Nathan's career. One of those really crappy things about the way the military works. It seemed to be an impossible situation, but we prayed and Nathan worked his tail off to get all of the records as up to date as possible. His airmen rewrote SOPs, practiced weather observing, and worked the exercise that was going on in conjunction with the inspection. Everyone did a fabulous job, and they ended up getting through without any write-ups. That's just about unheard of in weather. Their flight did so well, that even though only their squadron as a whole was supposed to receive a score, the inspector specifically requested to rate the weather flight because they earned an Outstanding. A huge honor. On top of that, two of the people in Nathan's weather flight were named Exceptional Performers.  The final result of the inspection was surprising and wonderful, but even more so considering that just a few months prior, we were worried about the result being a huge black mark instead.

Here's Nathan's Facebook post about it:
Just want to thank all of my former 7 WS mentors/leaders...today my weather flight at Beale AFB was lavished with praise for our performance in the IG inspection (CUI). I'm so very proud of my flight, but on a personal level I simply could not have done it without all of the leadership lessons, good counsel, and discipline that I received from all of you, from NCOs to FGOs.