he's got wings!

I'm a little slow with this post, but life is a little crazy right now. On Friday Jan 23rd Ben graduated from pilot training and earned his pilot wings!! Ben's parents and 2 of his sisters were able to come celebrate with us. Rhone was the famous "assignment night baby" and almost everyone wanted to take a look at him. He did so well the whole day. He didn't make a peep- well until the last speech of the night where he grunted and noisily filled his diaper. Our table and the few right around us couldn't restrain ourselves from laughing like naughty little school kids. Well here are some pictures from the day.

Ben receiving his wings from the base commander Col. Watkins

It's unlucky to wear your first set of wings, so it has become a tradition to break them. The wings are not supposed to come back together until the pilot is at his final resting place, when they should be reunited to bring him good luck in the next life. Ben kept one half and gave the other half to his parents.

I got to pin on Ben's wings.

Family picture (minus Ace).

All dressed up for the formal dinner that night.



Since Rhone didn't make the all dressed up picture (he was sleeping and we didn't want to wake him up). Here is one of him all dressed up for the day. He is 2 weeks old here.

Rhone with Grandad Gleckler (notice they have the same hairline)

Here is 3 week old Rhone. He was helping me put away the dishes last night. As you can tell, he was as excited about the chore as I was.

On Monday we are headed home for a visit. Ben get's 10 days of paternity leave that we don't want to waste (and Ace is staying with my parent's for a while). After that we are headed to San Antonio, TX for 3 months for Ben to train on the C-5. Then we'll be back to MS for a week and then we're road tripping it to the west again for survival school (it's in Spokane, WA). I'm going to stay with my parents while Ben is "surviving" and we'll pick up Ace for the big move to Delaware. We went from having no idea where we would be to having our life planned out until the begining of August. Wish us luck on our adventures accross the country!

Some C-5 Eye Candy

Check out this sweet C-5 Video. It is a beautiful plane.

still kickin'

It's been over a week since Rhone got here and we are doing great (well for the most part). Having my mom here was such a blessing. She has some serious parenting skills, plus the laundry, dishes, and cooking just kept magically getting done. It wasn't all work and no play while my mom was here. We did manage to make it out of the house a few times.

Here is the 3 of us at Waverly Mansion. It used to be a cotton plantation that had over 1,000 workers- pretty impressive huh.
The next pictures are from Mormon Springs. In the 1850's there was a surprisingly large following of Mormons just north of here. There were about 200 "Mississippi Mormons". This was a site where they backed up the stream to make a baptismal font.

We loved having my mom here, saying goodbye to was a little rough.

Ben flew everyday except Monday last week, so he worked 12 hour days. Friday was his final check ride and he got his best check score! It has been a long year of training , but we have been so blessed and have learned so much.

Ben has also been able to sneak in a little duck hunting here and there. He has some interesting stories so maybe he will be ambitious enough to post about it.

Just because he's cute and he's changed so much already.

because you kept asking

Here are a few more pictures of little Rhone. We kept getting request for more, especially from grandma's. We picked out a few of the funny ones.

Rhone taking a nap

OH, don't you just want to kiss this little face? Especially in his John Deere shirt.

Rhone's first bath was a great success, he cried the whole time and Meag got peed on- Ben thought it was hilarious (don't worry his time is coming).

Camo cool- with chubby cheeks

There's nothing like boys in uniform.

New Baby and Assignment all in one day

We thought that you all would like to know that we had a healthy baby boy. He weighed 7lbs 9 ounces and is 20 inches long. We named him Rhone and he made it on his due date. (Nothing like holding to a schedule.) Since we were in the hospital we missed assignment night. They called Ben and told him over the phone that he will be flying the C-5 at Dover AFB in Delaware. That was his number 1 plane and number 2 location. We are pretty excited for both of our new adventures. We will post some pictures soon!

Here are some pictures for you, enjoy!

Meagan and Rhone right after delivery

Charlene and Rhone

Ben and Rhone trying to sleep at the hospital

Rhone likes having his hands by his face

Check this link for info on the C-5 Galaxy
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=84

our southern holiday

We had a great break. It was a little different since it was just the 2 of us. On Christmas Eve we went to a local restaurant where they were serving German dishes. The food was really good and our waiter even wished us a "Happy Festivus" which we thought was hilarious. On Christmas we used the web cams to watch everyone open their presents. It was so much fun getting to see our families. Everyone was so generous and we love all of our gifts. Seven got Carhartts from my mom and camo gear from Ben's so he made out pretty well too. We spent the afternoon visiting with friends at a fun little open house- so the crowd and the kids made it feel more like Christmas. We didn't get too many pics since we used web cams, but here are a few.

Ben has spent as much time as possible duck hunting in flooded timber. He seems to be enjoying it and not bringing home too many ducks to eat- which is great with me. He's a little tired after waking up at 3 am and wading through a swamp.


Of course we took Ace out on a run. He even made a retrieve, which was a pleasant surprise to both Ben and me. Here he is bounding through the cover. He's pretty crazy when he's out on a hunt.

We also took a road trip to Western MS aka the "Delta". Since we know you are all dying to know more about MS we made a slide show highlighting our trip. First is the Catfish Capitol. MS produces 70% of the United States catfish and this little town has a museum dedicated to the little creatures. Next we stopped at a state park that has the only hot springs in MS that is inhabited by 12 alligators, which we were excited to see, but unfortunately it was too cold (you know 60*F is pretty cold) for the alligators to be out and about.

We had read about a restaurant called Doe's Eat Place in Greenville, MS. This place has received many rewards and is ranked as one of the top steak houses in the US. We spent about 30 min driving around the ghetto trying to find it. By the time we did we were so ready to get out of the questionable neighborhood, that we didn't end up eating there. Be sure to check out the picture of the house right across the street from the restaurant. The restaurant now has a few chains, so we might have to check out the much safer branch in Starkville. We saw the MS River and huge levees. Then we headed north to the some historical Indian mounds. Finally we headed back home and made a few stops along the way including Leland, MS the birthplace of Kermit the Frog (this is where Jim Henson lived when he made his first puppet Kermit). We also stopped and got some delicious pecans from the Indianola Pecan company. Well here's the slide show with your mini road trip of the south.

Friday's the big day! Ben gets his assignment and it Seven's due date (but we're not really sure when he will actually be joining us). Here's Ben in front the timeline board. He is class 09-04.