February Picture Project

Sometime around August/September of last year I went home to Tucson and while down there I started searching for some of my childhood photos.  I couldn't find a specific photo box that I knew I had left in my parent's possession.  My mother suggested I look where all the other family photos were located in my Dad's office and that perhaps they had been put together with them.  As I started going through all these photo boxes I quickly realized that what looked organized on the outside was in actuality complete madness.  At one point or another I imagine that the photos were all organized according to years and months.  But after many picture projects through the years, all the photos had been completely put in disarray.  It was a complete mess! 

In talking with my mother about it we came to the conclusion that I would go down and spend a couple of days with her working on organizing all the photos back into correct order.  And then we would set about scanning all of the photos in so we could have them digitized.  I primarily wanted this because I wanted to have access to all of my childhood photos right alongside all of my other photos on my computer.  So, we were going to embark and do this picture project together.

Well, with the beginning of baby girl's pregnancy the picture project went on the back burner as I tried to survive the glorious months of fatigue, all day nausea and constant migraines.  So time continued on, and then the holidays were upon us.  There was no way anything was going to get done until after Christmas.  Christmas and New Year's day came and went, and still we had done nothing on this picture project. 

We finally decided that I would go down the first week of February to work on this project because Gabriel still wasn't crawling so we could work on the project without fear of him getting into our work areas. 

Gabriel in his little play area away from the pictures... most of the time

But we knew he could crawl any day so the pressure was on.  We also realized that if we waited too long then baby girl would be here and the possibility of doing the project would go from slim to none.  Beginning February it was.

Initially was decided that I would stay for a couple of days, perhaps a week.  A week should be more than enough time to get all the pictures organized and possibly even scanned.... Or so we thought... A week, hah!  Talk about wishful thinking! 

Once we got into the depths of the project we quickly realized that it was going to take us a lot longer than originally planned.  So, my one week trip to Tucson stretched itself out to be a little less than a month.  Needless to say, the majority of February 2014 was spent with me sitting on my parent's living room floor looking at thousands of pictures from the 1920's - the 2000's.




Ambitious would be a good word to describe out initial attitudes.   After 3+ weeks of staring at photos, ambition turned into complete annoyance and apathy.  I laugh thinking back on the conversations my mother and I had as we sat hour after hour looking at these photos.  Initially she was very adamant about saving all sorts of photos, even ones of friends and relatives.  That attitude only lasted so long hehehe.   Her mentality went from "Oh, this photo has _______.... they might want it.  I will put it into a pile to give to them." to "They are not my kids, I disown them!... I don't care about ____________.... I don't need any more photos of _________"... etc  You can imagine how entertaining it was to watch as my mother quickly let go of her save and store mentality. 

I will say that in order to keep my sanity I made certain not to spend every waking moment doing this project.  I made certain that Gabriel and I went out to the park a couple of times a week.  And there were even some times that my dad was able to come with us and play on the swings.  It was fun when my dad got home from work because he was able to spend a little bit of time with Gabriel.  Quality bonding/imprinting time of Papi and Gabriel.



Eric even came down one weekend and we all went to the park together.  I really enjoyed that family outing.

I really enjoy seeing my parents interacting with their grandson.  Still kind of gets to me when I think that my parents are grandparents and that I am a parent now.  No matter how hard we try to stop it, time just keeps on moving forward. My mom and I did go walking some mornings, which was amazing with the beautiful weather that Arizona offers in the winters.  And of course we did relax and watch movies every once in a while. 

I am proud to say that by the time I left end of February all of the photos had been completely organized into the right months of the right years of the right decades.  All duplicates were discarded (which was more than 1/2 of what we originally started with) and the photos were ready to be scanned.  We even bought a photo scanner such that we could work on getting them digitized.  But by this point I was more than burnt out and wanted nothing to do with anything photo related.  So, I packed up the scanner with the intent of scanning in my old high school photos.  Perhaps at some point before we leave to Oklahoma I will have those photos scanned in.  And maybe even if I am lucky I will have some of my childhood photos that are in my parent's home too.  But knowing my mother and all of her other projects that she has going on with genealogy and family history I might just have to wait a couple more decades.  At least all those photos are organized... for now.

 

UPT and Global Jet

At the start of this semester we knew that we were going to find out a lot of exciting news in regards to our upcoming future.  Eric would be graduating in May and commissioning as an officer in the United States Air Force.  We were looking forward to finding out where we would be going for Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) and finding out just when exactly we were going to start active military duty.  In years past the graduating senior cadets did not find out this information until mid-March, even into April sometimes.  So we knew that we would have to exercise just a little bit more patience awaiting to hear the news for the next chapter in our lives.

Well, when Eric came home mid-January saying that there were rumors going around of people finding out about their duty stations I was skeptical to say the least.  You just never know, especially in the military.  Much to our shock those rumors turned out to be true, the duty assignments and EAD (Enter Active Duty) dates had been assigned (at least for the pilot cadets).

When it came to knowing where we could potentially go, we knew that there were 3 possible locations for pilot cadets:
                   1) Enid, Oklahoma
                   2) Columbus, Mississippi
                   3) Del Rio, Texas
We had submitted our preferences back in November in the same order that I just wrote above.  We selected for Oklahoma as our #1 for a couple of reasons:
                    - I have a cousin who is a pilot in the Air Force.  He and his wife went to Enid, OK for their UPT and they had a great experience.  They talked very highly about the town, living there and their life experiences that they got to experience in Oklahoma.
                    - My oldest brother is currently stationed (for the Army) just outside of Kansas City, Kansas.  They would be our closest located family being only a short 4 hour drive away from us.  We love our family and the chance to be even somewhat "close" to them was still an enticement.

The prospect of going to Mississippi was still kind of cool in my mind; primarily because I had never lived farther East than well... Arizona really (unless you count my time in Italy of course).  The chance to experience a different culture, environment, people, etc. was very enticing.  Eric had also had a presentation from the head commanding officer of that base.  He had come to ASU to share with the cadets what it was like at Columbus.  It sounded like a great opportunity with great potential.  But the family card of Oklahoma still trumped Mississippi by just a little bit, although it was a close second.  And with Texas, well, neither one of us was particularly excited about that base, so it was our last choice.

Anywho, Eric called me one day mid-January saying that he knew where we would be going and when our EAD was going to be.  Before telling me he said that he had some good news and then some bad news.  Starting off with the good news he said that we had received our #1 selection and that we would be heading off to Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma.  My reaction - relief and excitement.  We were going to go where we wanted.  The bad news couldn't be so bad, could it?  It was then that he told me that his EAD wasn't going to be until mid-February... of 2015..... .... ...

WHAT?!?!  We were going to have to wait for over a year before Eric was going to go to training?  There has to be some kind of mistake! There was no mistake. 

For those cadets that are pilot select who do not have a private pilot's license, they have to go to a 1-month training called Initial Flight School (IFS) in Colorado.  It is kind of a speedy crash course in getting their private pilot's licenses.  Following this training they then go for their 1 year UPT.  Apparently with all the cadets graduating this year the wait to get into IFS was just that long such that Eric wasn't going to be able to get in until mid-February 2015. With the IFS finishing Mid-March Eric wasn't going to report to his UPT in Oklahoma until April 2nd, 2015.

When we had considered how long of a wait we could possibly have, waiting for 9 months never even crossed our minds.  Speculating from years past and how long other cadets had to wait we figured it could potentially be July, August,... maybe even October at the latest before Eric would start.  But not the following February! 

To say I was shocked... well floored really is a bit of an understatement.  Here all these months we had been semi-mentally planning on moving in the summer.  We were looking forward to the new adventure that awaited us and were anxious to get started.  The prospect of finally moving out of Arizona (a big lifetime dream of mine) and getting to explore the world was finally at our finger tips.  When it came to living we figured that we could last financially for a couple of months with Eric's employment at the Honda Dealership, but we knew it couldn't be very long.  That bubble of potential future plans got popped very quickly with the realization of what our reality was actually going to be. 

Besides being disappointed at having to continue to wait and exercise patience, the primary concern that popped up immediately was: "How in the world are we going to survive financially till we do leave?"  This was a legitimate concern because there was no way we could meet our financial obligations with Eric working at Honda.  There was just no way.  We were, in essence, skrewed.   Needless to say, the freaking out session began with much vigor from that moment on for the next couple of days. 

Thankfully after a couple of conversations with both sets of parents and many prayers for comfort, we (well I) were able to calm down and accept the reality of our situation.  Not only accept but start to look for solutions to our issues, recognize the blessings that would come because of the long wait and see that there was still a pot of gold at the end of our rainbow... so long as we made it past the dark and gloomy storm clouds.

 Since we knew our financial future was in a bit of peril, Eric set about trying to figure out how he could better provide for our family and how he was going to make it work.  I am not even going to lie, what happened over the course of the next couple of weeks was by divine intervention.  There is no way this could have just happened on its own.

For Eric's work at Honda he was primarily in charge of scanning documents into a computer system for the car service department.  This gave him a lot of time to listen to audio books while kind of going into auto-pilot to perform his job duties.  At that time he was listening to a book that talked about getting to the job you loved in 45 days... or something like that.  Something that really stuck out to Eric was the idea that you need to find what your passion is in life and then work to make that passion work for you where you can make a profit, doing just what you love.  Sitting at a desk scanning papers like a zombie wasn't exactly Eric's passion.  So he did a bit of inner soul searching and figured out what it was that he liked - planes.

Eric talked about how much he loved planes and the aviation world and how this was where his passion lay.  So then it was a matter of finding employment that would pay him to do something in the field he loved.  It just so happened that he had a friend from high school (named Tyler) who had his own private pilot's license and was working in the aviation world.  Having not talked to this friend in almost 7 years, Eric went on facebook and found Tyler's number and gave him a call. 

Eric and Tyler had a great conversation playing catch-up and with Eric disclosing to Tyler about his current situation with Air Force, having to wait after graduation before going active duty, and looking for another source of employment - hopefully in the aviation world.  Tyler worked for a private plane company called Global Jet as the Director of Charter.  It just so happened that Tyler and his boss were looking to possibly hire someone to help out in the office with all the work load.  Knowing the kind of person and character strengths that Eric had (from their time together in high school), Tyler set up an interview with Eric for the following week.  After this initial interview and feeling that Eric was a good candidate Tyler set up an interview with the owner - Thomas.  A week or so later, Eric got to meet Thomas and had his interview. 

Thomas was very impressed with the caliber of man that Eric was, recognizing that he was not a typical college guy caught up in his own selfish ambitions, being reckless and irresponsible.  Here was a man, who at 25 was about to graduate from ASU with a Bachelor's, about to commission in the Air Force as an officer, was married, had 1 child and a second one on the way.  In Thomas's eyes (according to his own words mind you, I am not bragging... ok well maybe a little bit) Eric was a responsible, hard working, accomplished man who could only help Thomas's business get better by having Eric as an employee.  Eric came back from this interview saying that it wasn't really an interview, it was more of a "get to know you and by the way, you already have the job kind" of meeting. 

Talk about divine intervention!  Within only a few weeks of finding out that we were going to be staying in AZ for an extra 9-10 months Eric had new employment which would provide for our financial needs and we were going to be set.  And all it took was making 1 phone call to an old high school friend.  Eric was very confident going into the job changing/searching process.  In the past whenever he has needed to find employment, Heavenly Father has been there for him and he has never had to look for a job longer than a couple of weeks, and this time was no exception.  I know that we were being watched over and that Heavenly Father was aware of just what we needed, and he pulled through for us.  This really helped to boost my faith and my testimony of the principles that Heavenly Father answers prayers in his own timing and his own way, we just have to be patient and exercise faith, and trust.

With that being said, looking at what will be happening I can see how much of a tender mercy it is going to be for us to stay in Arizona these extra months:
                  - We won't have to move in the middle of the hot hot summer, but will move at a more pleasant time of year
                  - We will have the chance to adjust to being a family of 4; rather than having to move with a newborn and transitioning to this new family
                  - We will have more time to spend with family that live in the valley
                  - A chance for Eric to get experience the aviation world, better preparing him for his upcoming IFS and UPT; He will go in with his feet a little wet with some basic knowledge
                  - More time for us to spend as a family before Eric starts his rigorous aviation studies
                  - Financially we will be provided for
And the list goes on and on. 

So after submitting the appropriate 2 week notification to Honda, Eric started working at Global Jet.  As a company Global Jet is a private chartered plane company. 

Global Jet plane

Global Jet plane

But they do so much more than that.  Along with flying high profile individuals around the U.S. they also broker flights for all sorts of other plane companies around the world and their clientele.  Yet, their primary work comes from the contract that they have with Donor Network of Arizona.  They are the sole transportation for all business related to inbound organs for transplant and all other lab testing that has to go down before a transplant.  Global Jet is responsible for making everything happen that comes to someone receiving a transplant for the entire state of Arizona. 

Eric plays a number of roles working with Tyler in the office. 

Eric is official - even has his name on the door

Eric's desk at work

He does smaller projects for Global Jet that are not Donor Network related, along with a lot of work that is for Donor Network. He does a lot of underlying business management and logistical planning for normal business activities.  He helps in doing dispatch on brokered flights and setting up more chartered flights.  He helps coordinate donor network lab testing, flight plans and following transplant team transportation.  He has also worked as a driver, taking the doctors from the hospitals to the airport and back again after their flights. 

There have even been times where he was the one who has gone to retrieve the organ from one hospital and then transported it to the receiving hospital.  Global Jet has a couple of SUVs that have been modified to be pseudo ambulances because they are used for live human tissue transport.  A lot of these things are very time sensitive.  For those qualified (i.e. - other drivers who are firefighters that have experience, training and certification) they get to drive as an ambulance with lights and sirens, going above the speed limit and breaking all sorts of regular traffic rules.  Eric isn't qualified to drive to that extent that, but he can drive with the lights on at times. 

All in all, every day is never the same and he never knows what to expect when he goes to work.  It is a lot more fulfilling of a job than sitting at a desk scanning papers day in and day out.  It is more than just a job, it is the opportunity to help save lives.

The phrase that comes to mind a lot nowadays is: "Life is what happens when you make other plans".  And I imagine that that is the case for any person.  We just have to learn to roll with the punches and make lemonade from the lemons that are handed our way.  Needless to say, we are going to learn to make a lot of lemonade in our future.  For now, our lemonade is quite tasty and I hope it will continue to be so until we open the next chapter of our lives.