Meet the Muskalla's: Update

On May 27th, Chris graduated Officer Training School and officially became a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He graduated #3 of 91 trainees, was given the top academic award for the squadron, top academics for the wing, and finished as a Distinguished Graduate. We are so very proud of him.

Receiving one of his awards

Getting sworn in by his dad

Getting pinned 2 LT by his dad, mom, and myself

Congrats class 11-05, you did it!

Newly commissioned Officer

On June 10, we left New York. HALLELUJAH!!! We spent the next 3 days taking our time getting down to Columbus, MS. After spending the previous two weeks driving 3,000 miles in the car (by myself) with two kids, I was in no hurry to do it AGAIN. We stopped in Dayton, OH and checked out the Air Force Museum and also stopped in KY to take the boys to Dinosaur World. We finally made it to MS on June 13th.

Caiden with his favorite dinosaur...the triceratops! :)

Columbus, MS is a SUPER SMALL town. I thought Watertown, NY was small but that was HUGE compared to this place. Thankfully, if you drive an hour north or south, there's decent size towns (Tupelo & Tuscaloosa) to get anything we lack here. The base is also pretty small, since it's a training base, but it's really nice.

Caiden outside the airfield watching the trainees...and pretending to be a jet.

Chris will be doing this soon...

Watching the jets. I think Chris enjoyed it more than Caiden. :)

We moved into our new place on June 22 and settled in pretty quickly. We live in a fabulous townhouse community called Audubon Cove and it's pretty much 95% pilot trainees like Chris. About 5 couples from Chris's OTS class live here as well. We ladies sort of planned it that way so we would have friends around while the guys focus on their studies the next year and a half. Our neighborhood has a pool, so when it cools off a bit, I'm sure we will be hanging out there quite often. Right now it's just too hot to do anything outdoors. We are all settled in our new house and couldn't be happier. The kids love it and we do too.

Caiden's room

Brendon's room

Playroom/Office

Kitchen

More kitchen

Living Room. Yeah, yeah, I know the TV looks out of place. Our big screen broke when we moved here so there's an itty bitty one in its place until Chris gets back from IFS to go get a new one.

Dining area

Master bedroom

Front of our house

Our backyard. Easy access to the playground. :)

Well, a lot has happened the past few months. We've been so busy that I haven't had time to update our blog.

On July 10, Chris left for his Initial Flight Screening in Pueblo, CO. He'll be there for 4 weeks or so. Then when he returns from CO, he'll start his Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) class in September. We're really looking forward in him getting to start this whole process.

Chris at IFS in CO, after his first flight up as an Airman. :)

Enjoying a little downtime on top of Pikes Peak

Until then, the kids and I are in MS making lots of new friends. I just started a playgroup for all the families on base. So far we have 21 members, so it's doing well and keeps us busy. :)

Caiden dressing up like daddy