MILITARY Archives | Page 4 of 5

Wings Over the Pacific // Blue Angels

September 30, 2014 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

For a couple of months, it was announced that the Blue Angels were coming. Being excited was an understatement, we almost didn’t go because the airshow was open to the public and fighting the crowds didn’t seem appealing. We obviously decided to go and thank goodness for that!

This was my first airshow and first time seeing the Blue Angels, we didn’t get the chance to see them during Commissioning Week back in 2011 at Annapolis, Maryland. So the moment finally came for me to witness their amazing skills! I was completely blown away and kept telling the mister that I would be so on edge if he was a pilot. Ladies, I don’t know how you do it, but I’d be a nervous wreck ball during every flight!

The airshow was held at Hickam AFB and we expected some major traffic and waiting time. Fortunately for us, it didn’t take us long at all, we were pretty surprised! Have you seen the amount of people that live on this tiny island?! It’s ridiculous! I wanted to commend Hickam for organizing their parking system very well; I even applauded it in the car. And then felt bad because I’m sure a lot of the men and women directing cars/a part of security were bored out of their minds. Although, I did see plenty of people take the opportunity to snap a selfie with them. Anyways, as for leaving, that was a different story, but we got lucky again because a quicker way to leave base opened, and we zoomed right out of there. It gave us plenty of time to drive somewhere to pick up our dinner!

It was such a great weekend and I’ve been loving the quality time that I’ve had with the mister! Plus, I’m doing a much better job of taking pictures and capturing some ‘couple selfies’, which we don’t do that often.

Whenever we move again, I’ll be looking forward to the day, when we see the Blue Angels again! Hope you enjoy my pictures!

Our First Deployment ✓

November 14, 2013 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

It’s been over a month since he has returned from deployment.
And about three months since I’ve last blogged, but that’s besides the point!

That day was simply amazing, I had a countdown on my phone and tablet. Thankfully, I didn’t notice it everyday, so it was nice to see the number gradually get lower. Well, what can I say about this deployment, well … it wasn’t all that great. I really had no idea what to expect, but lets just say there were one too many changes for my liking … unscheduled port calls, broken … broken … broken … , when they’d actually get to a scheduled port , and did I mention, broken?!

Thankfully, I wasn’t planning on flying out to meet him this time around because of the wedding that we’re planning. But it didn’t help my emotions at all, they were all over the place, and there were times, when it would be wise to avoid me.

Anyways, it’s all over and he’s home! I was nervous and excited, I was all over the place. And believe it or not, there was a lot of planning that took place, which for some reason made me nervous as well. SO, about a few weeks before deployment, we were told that no hired photographer was allowed at homecoming, which caused a huge uproar. And we were also told that we may not bring our own personal cameras … RIDICULOUS. Lets just say, we opened our arms to Naval Ships from ‘elsewhere’ and they were caught doing something they weren’t suppose to. And that stripped our photography rights. Just imagine not having any homecoming pictures, it’s a big deal for us military folks. It’s an extremely special moment, when we finally get to see our significant other for the first time after so many months of being apart. And to have it caught on camera, where you can cherish it forever … it’s something else.

Thankfully, since our Captain’s wife is amazing, as well as our Ombudsmans, we got permission to have personal cameras with us on the pier. Still no hired photographers, which was unfortunate for me, since I was planning on doing that. But friends sometimes pull through and she was clutch!

Well that was one thing, we had to figure a plan to get people onto base, since they didn’t have a military plan. And then finding parking because that can be tough on a base, then heading to another area on base to see them drive in, which was such an amazing thing to watch. Basically, we were driving all over the place and it all happened so fast.

PC : OpenWater Productions

Most of the ladies from the boat heading to Hikam AFB to the ‘Missing Man’ statue, and it’s also the area, where we can see them come in or go out. We went with our signs in hand, waiting for their arrival. After some time waving and screaming, we all quickly ran to our cars and made our ways to the pier. Rushing wasn’t quite necessary because we still had more waiting to do, but we were excited, so we didn’t care.

Finally, we were all parked and made our way to the pier gate. I took my sweet time walking cause well … that’s just how I roll 😉 There was the Navy Band playing, loved ones and all their families, sub vets, were all there waiting for our guys to arrive. One of the coolest thing was when they were making their way to the pier, as they pass by each submarine, they toot their horns to welcome them back! I loved it! Then they had to tie up, which was another process that took some time … And then finally, they were ready to come out. It was about 15ish minutes (probably more because, well who is really counting?) before I finally saw him coming out of the sub and walking across the bridge. As soon as I saw him, I was a goner. It was tunnel vision at that point and I just wanted to be in his arms and as soon as I was, I let it all go. I was sobbing and tears were a-flowin’.

PC : OpenWater Productions

He is finally home and everything is great. He still likes me, so we’re good!

PC : OpenWater Productions

Happy Malia!

Deployment & Staying Busy.

July 31, 2013 · ADVENTURE, LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

deployment sucks …

That’s a no-brainer, there are days where I’ve been owning this deployment and then there’s other days, where it just owns the sh*t out of me. And now that we’re already past the halfway point (hooray!), it can still manage to own me … sigh.

But I’ve been basking in the beauty of Oahu that I never knew existed. I’ve never been a fan of Oahu, I’m sure you’re thinking I’m crazy, but every island offers something different. Oahu is the most populated out of the Hawaiian islands and if you’re a city person, Oahu is for you. Miss Malia is not a city person at all and she pretty much despises it.

Thanks to my awesome “brother figure”, Maui, I go hiking at least once or twice a week. I don’t use this term too much, but it has seriously been a blessing throughout this entire deployment. I have experienced a lot of the beauty that Oahu has to offer and I’ve enjoyed every single moment of it. Now, I don’t have the best hiking record in the world and I’m usually the one that hangs out in the back, but thanks to my fancy camera (which I’m still trying to fully learn how to use), I am constantly taking pictures during the hike. Paradise on Oahu to me, has been every scenic shot that I’ve seen on my hikes, well and a few beaches that I’ve gone to.

If you ever go hiking with me, I prefer to be the caboose and stay in the back. For more reasons then one; I tend to take my time, I’m forever taking pictures and I’m sucking wind! Some of these hikes will get you!

Hiking has been my major stress-reliever, and it has been easy for me to get lost into my surroundings and be at peace without having the reality that my husband is still out there somewhere defending our country. So yes, it has been my moment of peace. Even though it’s a temporary and short fix, it has helped me through a lot of things and I always take time to close my eyes and reflect on everything.

And then we have snorkeling, thanks to a very lovely lady, Alyson! Unfortunately, I haven’t gone in a while, but I’ve learned to love it quite a bit.

Before moving to Oahu, I’ve gone snorkeling once in my life and it wasn’t that great of an experience, so I didn’t want to do it again.

But now I’m back out there and it’s amazing! Yes, I’m afraid of coming face to face with Bruce (Finding Nemo, anyone?), actually Jaws would be more fitting, Bruce seems a bit nicer (all thanks to Disney).

Being in the water is another peaceful place for me and snorkeling just adds to it. There’s so much to see and you pretty much never know what you’ll see. I’m hoping to see a pod of dolphins someday, I missed my chance, but I know I’ll get it, eventually. I don’t really have a bucket list, but that would be on it; to swim with a pod of dolphins.

One of my favorite things to do is dive under and take a closer look at everything, but now I refrain from doing it so much because I believe I have inner-ear problems, that causes me to get nauseous. And it sucks, it’s holding me back from doing what I want to do …

So yes, deployments sucks, but I’m surrounded by amazing and supportive people. This is the first deployment and certainly not the last, but I have no idea how I would have managed to keep going on my own. To my amazing ohana, friends, and wardroom, you have all been really helpful throughout this entire deployment, so big mahalos to you all! 🙂

To my mister, we’re almost there and I cannot wait til you get home; be safe out there and see you soon!

Now … enjoy this little video I made from the snorkeling adventures I went on a while ago.

Space-A Pains

April 19, 2013 · MILITARY · Leave a Comment

I’ve already planned that when the mister left for his deployment, I would attempt to fly Space-A back to my hometown in Washington. For all that don’t know what Space-A is, it’s the lovely privilege that active, retired, and dependents can fly for free to anywhere in the world.

As nice as that sounds, it’s not always that easy to get out, it all depends on where and when you’re going. I knew how the whole process worked since I’ve traveled space-a quite a bit when I was younger. But attempting it all by myself was truly a learning experience.

After he deployed, I realized that I probably should have done some research before he left, it definitely would have helped me out quite a bit throughout this entire process. I definitely will not say that I’m an expert on flying Space-A, but I will provide links to some amazing resources, but if you really want a question answered, call your local military base amc terminal! It’s the best place to get prompt and correct answers.

The steps that I had to take was to get a Space-A Travel Letter from squadron, which validates that my husband is actually on deployment. For Space-A, all passengers must sign up and provide information, such as sponsor’s name, travel dates, departure locations, etc. You can either sign up in-person or email, many places allow you to sign up through email, which is what I did, while others places only accept in-person sign ups. And always print out the sent copy of your email, some terminals don’t always have your sign-up on file, so always print a copy. You can search military amc terminals through here, http://www.amc.af.mil/ or check out the facebook page for the nearest amc terminal.

When you sign up, it’s validated for 60 days, after that, you’ll have to sign up again. The earlier you sign-up, the better the chances of getting on a flight, unless there’s a bunch of active duty flying out, you’ll definitely get bumped. When it comes to picking passengers for flights, they go by category, check out the link at the bottom of the page to learn more, when you sign up and when you check-in, I believe. I signed up a little over 2 weeks ago and was FINALLY able to get out today. I tried a few times to get on a flight, but there were either no seats available, missed roll-call or the flight was cancelled.

My advice: yes they do have facebook pages for most amc terminals that post 72-hour schedules, DO NOT rely 100% on this. I would call the terminal and listen to their recorded updates for their departure schedules, they are always changing and they won’t give prior notice. To be 100% sure about something, I would talk to someone directly, they have the MOST updated schedule. When checking the schedule, they’ll provide roll-call for each flight, it’s best to show up about 2 hours before hand to check in. Once you’re checked in, you just sit and wait around til roll-call, then they’ll post the passenger list, which shows who has checked in. And then right at the roll-call time, they’ll call out passengers that are selected for the flight and then you go through the boarding process, just like any other airport.

After the beauty of getting on a flight, it’s smooth sailing from there, unless the plane has some mechanical issues, it is possible for the flight to be delayed or cancelled. So, just because you have a boarding pass, doesn’t mean you’ll be flying out. That has happened to me once, we were on the plane and then later announced that the plane had mechanical issues and would not be flying out. Prepare for anything!

Photo Credit : Jim Greenhill

Here’s an idea of what some of the aircrafts are like on the inside. Not the most comfortable seats in the world, but lets not complain about things that are pretty much free. I’ll take what I can get without any complaints. It is a pretty neat experience that I think everyone should try out. If you have the free time and flexible schedule, go for it!

On my flight, I missed the memo to bring a roll out mat to lay on! I saw so many yoga-like mats and was wondering if they did yoga on the plane, silly me. After you reach cruising altitude, you are allowed to lay out on the ground and sleep! I was pretty much the only one that stayed in my seat and managed to find a comfortable position along the seats. So here’s my personal suggestions for items, you should bring/do :

pack light, I packed 2 weeks worth in a carry-on luggage that I checked in.
roll out mat to sleep on
extra blanket/small pillow
wear pants; it gets pretty cold on the plane, my flight did have the heat on for majority of the flight, but every aircraft is different
headphones! the noise on these aircrafts are much louder than commercial planes
dress comfortably; wear warm clothing, trust me on this one
you can buy a boxed lunch which includes a sandwich, fruit, water/juice, apple sauce (might be different for every aircraft), chips. Boxed lunches may differ than what I shared. They sometimes have extra drinks and snacks out for everyone.
something to do, ie. books, crosswords, music to listen to, watch movies on laptop/tablet, etc.

It was quite the experience and am very happy that I was able to finally get out! Check out this great resource about Space-A:

Spacea.net

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask, no guarantees that I’ll have answer, but I will definitely lead you in a direction to get the best answer possible.

One Day at a Time

April 16, 2013 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

Well it really hasn’t been that long since we said our farewells and I’ve been trying to stay busy as best as I can. And trust me, I have been pretty busy. My idea of busy is to just get out of the house for a few hours. Anyways, my Tuesday nights are dedicated to volleyball, sadly it’s the only volleyball I get throughout the week. I love it, I don’t always make it everyday Tuesday, but I try to go when I can. It’s definitely worth it, every time!

We finally received our claim check in the mail, a lot of people have been asking what that is. Lets say that it brought us a late Christmas! Our move from NY to HI was damaged, I can’t even explain the amount of damage, but hey, we were reimbursed for all of it. Before the mister left, we made a little shopping list of things we wanted. As soon as I got that check in the mail, I deposited it and went to work. Our list included:

Nexus 7 tablet (me)
headphones for the both of us
printer (me)
bluetooth wireless speaker (him)
watch (me)
new platform bed (both)
desktop (him)

I’m happy to say, that we have all of our new toys and I’m loving it!

In other news, I dyed my hair, you can tell a little bit from the picture, but it’s brighter (nothing crazy) in the sun. I love it and it turned out, just how I wanted it!

That’s all I got for now.

Blog Update

March 22, 2013 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

welp, I’ve changed some things on the blog, let me list them out :

if you look to the right, there’s some cute buttons, I like them a lot better than the navigation bar; what do you guys think?! And of course, thanks to the lovely Natalie Franke for taking those amazing pictures!
I’ve added photos from loomy, which is the nickname for my phone, it’s a Lumia 920! Not to boast, but my phone takes pretty decent quality pics for a camera phone, so I take a bunch. I’ll do my best to pick 4 of my faves and share them every week. Normally, I would instagram them, but Instagram is boycotting Windows Phone 8 and creating an app for it … it’s lame!
I got rid of the ad on my blog for a few reasons, I didn’t make this blog to gain some monetary amount and they’re just ugly. Well the ads that always showed up were, I like it better without, so this blog is ad-free!
Soon, I’ll be adding a blog roll with all fellow military wives that love to blog, like myself. I’d love to add you to the list, please leave your blog name, blog url and state if there are certain topics you blog about in the comments below!

And take a listen to a song that has been on repeat :

I love this show, it’s called SMASH and it airs on NBC on Tuesdays at 10PM … the first season wasn’t quite all that, but the second time around is not too shabby. I think Katharine McPhee has a lovely voice!

I’m Not Ready

March 22, 2013 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

For weeks, months now, I was well convinced that I was ready for this deployment. Emotionally, I’ve been doing so well, but that all changed tonight. There wasn’t anything specifically that set it off, it just kind of happened or snuck up on me who knows? But it’s here and now I’m in a heap of mess to figure out …

This is definitely a ready or not situation and it’s fast approaching. I’ve already done some crying, which I’ve been trying not to do around him (FAIL!), I’m just about dreading the day. It’s going to be tough to stay strong and hide how I’m truly feeling, the last thing he needs is to see his wife bawling her eyes out before he leaves.

l e s i g h .

Planning a Wedding With a Deployment In Mind

March 11, 2013 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

It’s definitely not the easiest feat,
especially when all of your emotions are in high gear. When the discussion of
marriage began with the mister, we decided on having a very short
engagement and headed on over to the local attorney’s office and had a small
ceremony with our close friends. Even though we went that route, we always
intended on having a bigger celebration a year later. And that’s exactly what
we’re planning at the moment!

With just arriving at our first duty
station on Oahu in December, we face our very first deployment; cue the serious
music. And planning a wedding during the time he’ll be gone has been quite the
challenge. One of the absolute first things you want to do when you’re planning
is setting a date, but with this lifestyle, it has been one of the hardest
things to do! Although we have “set” a date, you always face the high
possibility of a deployment extension, which may cause you to move your date,
talk about a high-stress moment right there. But there’s nothing we can really
do about it, we just have to learn to adapt to our situations and go with it. It
is 100% out of our control.

So, how do I manage to deal with
all of that? I honestly don’t know! From this military lifestyle, I’ve
learned that you just have to be extremely flexible with all the constant
changes. Our potential wedding date has changed a few times already, so my
“hope” scale has been on quite the roller coaster. And it was a process to 99.9% set a date
because he had to talk to his superiors to get the “ok” for our chosen date, I
think he ended up talking to them at least 3 times; the things this man does
for me!

My goal throughout this entire
planning process is to remain stress-free, so here’s some little tips I’d like
to share with everyone who may be doing the same thing we are:

Stay calm and accept the inevitable; everything changes and sometimes at
a last minute’s notice, we just have to toughen up and deal with it.
Create back up plans; I expect anything to happen, bad or
good, and the last thing I want to do is to be unprepared.
Knock out some other wedding details; during the time, when we were
trying to set a date, I started planning other details like decoration, picking
out my entourage, doing online-research for potential vendors. This has
actually helped me out a lot with keeping my stress levels down because I felt
like I was being productive. And as soon as that date is set, you can dive in full
force because you did most of the research, so you’re ready to finalize things
as best as you can.
Make up reasons to sip wine, have girl time, and talk about
wedding stuff;
now I love weddings, girl time, and enjoying some wine! It’s okay, if you don’t
actually talk about the wedding, but having company through this time is a huge
stress-reliever and pretty enjoyable, might I add!
Most of all, have fun! The last thing I want to remember
about planning this wedding is how much of a stress ball I may have been. Take
a breath, relax and just enjoy every minute, you want to make it a memorable
and fun moment in your life.

I hope these little tips will you
help you during your planning process, do you have any tips you’d like to
share? I’d love to hear them!

How to Deal.

February 22, 2013 · LIFE, MILITARY · Leave a Comment

You just do.

When the mister and I were dating, we did nearly a couple
years of long distance. He was in Maryland and I was in Washington State. All
that we had to do, to make it work; you can say that it helped prepare us for
what we’d have to endure in the future. Deployment.
During the beginnings of our relationship, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the
world. It was probably the hardest thing that I’ve done in my life. With school
and sports, a simple weekend getaway wasn’t ideal or realistic to be frank. I
know many of us would say, I’ll take those couple of days over nothing; I
wanted more than a couple of days. So we managed to go months at a time before
we planned on seeing each other again, obviously not what we wanted, but we
just had to do it that way. The longest we’ve been apart was about 5 months.

You’d think a deployment would be cake for us … I’m not
so sure of that. With submarines, you can pretty much cut off any communication
whatsoever and that will be an
experience. Yeah, you can email, but the
reality of them actually receiving it, having the time to read it, and getting
some sort of response, can be pretty rare. I’ve already had a minor taste of
what deployment will be like, but I honestly don’t know how that will amount to
the actual entirety of his deployment.

Surprisingly, I’ve been okay with things so far, compared to how I use to be, when I was away from him. But at this very moment, I’m okay.
Don’t get me wrong, I miss my husband a shit-ton … shoot, I miss him when he
goes golfing for a few hours. If I can be this okay
through his whole deployment, then I don’t have anything to worry about.

I’ve already managed a lot of firsts since we moved here,
I’ve been a pretty dependent person for most of my life or maybe more like
50/50. Since, I moved away from Washington, I’ve learned a great deal about
being independent and having to do stuff by yourself. In this lifestyle, you have to do a lot of stuff on your own.
You become the educated of the do’s & don’ts, you’re left in charge of the
home front. It’s all on you. For a while, that scared the shit out of me. It
still does, but not as much anymore. Doing stuff that I’ve never had to take
care of and now I’m going full-speed into having these responsibilities. I’m a
late bloomer with all of this and I’m not afraid to admit it. Having to deal
with all of this has helped with a lot of other aspects of my life. It has
definitely helped me grow in ways that I never thought would happen. In some sort of way that I don’t necessarily understand, it has helped me be okay with him leaving/being gone.

So, here I am … married to the love of my life, doing things that I never thought I’d come across. As much as I
need, want him home, there’s an entire country that needs him a bit more. So,
how do I deal?

I just do.

Preposterous!

November 4, 2012 · LIFE, MILITARY, WEDDING · Leave a Comment

There have been a few events in the past couple of days, although, I can’t share them all, I will do my best with whatever I decide to share.

4 5 days left of work. There was a bit of confusion of when my last day was, so I got to work a day after my “supposed” last day. it is what it is.
6 days and I’m off to Washington to be with my family. excitement!
27 days and we’re off to our mini vacation across the United States, stopping in certain places to get a couple shoot (since we’re past engaged), visit friends, see some sights, probably be exhausted by the time we get to Hawai’i. craziness.

I’m still not exactly sure when our stuff is being moved, that’s how on top of things we are, okay, well calls have been made, we’re just doing a current date change. I’m not stressing about it; just going off our previous move. I hope we figure out the actual date soon because if it’s while I’m away, than I got some serious work to do before I fly out. And I deciding on what I should pack to fly with me on the plane, I’m going to do my best to keep it light.

As for wedding plans, I’d say it’s leaning more towards Washington, but it still isn’t final. I’ve had the mister sleep on it about a week ago, I guess I should revisit that question and see what he says. With the idea of a deployment, we got some serious business to figure out before he leaves. I’m Mrs. Indecisive over here, which makes for no easy situation. But more than anything, I really just want to try and confirm a date. If anyone has tried planning a wedding during a deployment, please do contact me, I would really like to pick your brain or perhaps put my mind at ease.

Anyway, that’s all I got for now. I have a day off tomorrow, so lets see what shenanigans I can get into. And lets not forget, Daylight Savings, don’t forget to change your clocks!

@wanderingmalia