Flagship Celebrity

Last Saturday, Austin and I went out to support the Supply department of the Arleigh Burke in a Chili Cook-off! Our team's theme was an NFL tailgate and low and behold when The Flagship came out we saw this photo on the FRONT PAGE!

Isn't he adorable?

You can see the full story here, and his photo on the homepage linked above.

Hanging on the Barge

Remember how Austin takes me to all the nicest places?

Well, with the Burke going into the yards all of the people have been moved to a cozy little barge to live on until the ship is returned to the the sea. They haven't hooked up any TVs or anything so when Austin had duty on Sunday, he was bored. Besides standing watch there was little for him to do.

So, I rescued him with Uno.

Saturday will probably look strangely similar to this.

The glamor of life at sea.

The Nicest Places

We have dinner in the nicest places, now that we are officially a DINK family (dual income, no kids).

Like last night, we ate right here:

No, seriously. Austin has this overnight duty way too often for both of us, but apparently I am allowed to go visit so long as he is not actually on watch at the time I am trying to visit. Who knew? So, last night after work I picked up some Moe's (glamorous I know, but hey, Moe's knows burritos) and headed to the ship.

We ate dinner together in the wardroom and watched our Monday night TV lineup on CBS / Monday Night Football. I had the chance to meet some of the people he works with that I often hear so much about, and was escorted off the ship before curfew (hehe).

Did I ever think I would be eating dinner with Austin on his ship? Nope. But, it was so fun I am sure we will do it again soon...like in three days.

Business as Usual

Well, it has been almost two months since my last post. That is disgraceful.

Let's do some life updates, eh?

First - AUSTIN IS HOME! Wooo!

I will get all the photos together to do a real Homecoming post, but in short, it was the best day. We had beautiful weather (I even got a bit sunburned) and everything went splendidly.

{This is my friend Leigh Anne and I on the pier waiting for our hubbys! Funny story - we got married on the same day, at the same time - and then both of our husbands left for the Burke. Look at those smiles!}

Since he has been home it has been pretty much business as usual.

{Normal fun family stuff, like carving pumpkins, and you know trying to keep the dog from eating it}

Austin had leave for about a week and a half after coming home and we did tons of fun things, like hanging shutters on the house, installing new lights in the bathroom and hallways...you know, totally glamorous. We did manage to get to Busch Gardens for Hallow-scream, where Austin forced me to do all of the scary stuff. All of it. And carve up some pumpkins, when Haley came to visit!

{Guess who did which?}

On the 2nd of November we both started working again! Woo! It had been a long break for me, not so long to Austin, but a ship in port is a whole different ball game that he hadn't experienced yet. He is really enjoying it, though we are both getting a little tired of the overnight watches already.

I was offered and accepted a job at Regent University as an Incoming Student Advisor for Undergraduates. I love it! I started on the same day as my new friend Brianne, and she and I have been having fun in training together. I will be academically advising a whole section of incoming undergraduate students, both Freshmen and Transfers. To see me being a professional click here. There I am, bottom right! Soon I will have a bio up on the page links on the right as well.

So, we have been doing a lot of work on the house, and trying to get in the groove of being a family in the same city, while working and taking care of a dog and a grad student adopted child (ha! if you haven't heard, my sister Ashley is attending grad school at ODU and living with us. We love having her here!)

Now that I am back to a semi routine, I am hoping that blogging will return to normal! It was so much harder to get things done when I had, well, little to do. Though I had a lot to do once we got into the house. You will see when I start updating on the projects!

Until then, I am glad to be back sharing our life -- accelerated. ;)

Addition to the Sidebar

Look over there -->

To the right.

I have added a countdown clock for the new, projected, homecoming date. As it changes I will update the countdown :)

Austin Update!

I got a wonderful email from Austin at approximately 3:30 am this morning with tons of details about his life on the ship.

 

For example today, which is now yesterday for him, they had some drills:
 

"We just had an abandon ship drill. I’m in life raft ten. When the ship is under attack or we have a fire or something, we go to what is called General Quarters (GQ). It’s like a battle station. My station is in the control room. I take reports on where the damage is and plot it on these large and confusing charts of the ship. Anyways, they treat like a real emergency. A guy over the 1MC (ship’s speaker system) yells “BOOM, MISSILE STRIKE PORT SIDE MIDSHIPS” for example. And that means we got hit on the left side about the middle of the ship. And we have to respond by sending in firefighters and such. It’s pretty cool. And today we went all the way to a scenario of the ship sinking. I have my own life jacket, gas mask and flash gear (fire fighter stuff)."
 

Sounds like a blast, right? Apparently he is also taking some sort of class on security at the end of which, he will need to be sprayed down with pepper spray and then has to complete an obstacle course.

Overall, he says he is doing well and staying busy. He seems pretty happy, and we have a tentative return date of October 25th! (only one day after our 9 year anniversary!)

The Rollercoaster Story of a Deployment

As I was looking back over my last couple of posts, {maybe admiring that lovely wedding photo again, maybe not} I realized that I never said "Hey! Austin has deployed!"
 

Though I am sure most of you know by now - that is the case.
 

Originally last Monday we thought that Austin would get to spend an extra two weeks stateside, due to the fact that he did not have a "No Fee" Passport, which is kind of like a diplomatic-type version. So Monday we were, as I stated, a little "mentally askew" as we had been prepared for him to deploy on Tuesday.

As the night wore on, both of us became increasingly excited about the upcoming weekend in D.C. and the opportunity for him to see friends once again before the craziness of deployment. That excitement should have set off some alarm bells in our heads of course, or at least the "click click click" sound of a rollercoaster about to start plummeting back down to earth.

Tuesday morning he drove in to check in and see what the deal was. The nice people there informed him that since there was a part broken on the email system of the ship, he and one of the other new officers were going to deliver it - as soon as possible. Since getting them out there would be faster than shipping it {apparently} some ambassador somewhere waived the need for their special passports.

At this point we were told to expect as little as a one hour notice that he would need to report to a flight. Oh geeze. So, for the rest of the day we hung out, ran a few errands, and waited. and waited. No call. {Actually they did call once, by mistake...talk about having our hearts jumping.}

The next morning, just for good measure, Austin had me drive with him out too check in. He came back to the car and said he had been told the same thing as yesterday. Since it was so early we figured we could head back to one of our favorite Norfolk places Yorgo's {their everything bagels are the best in town}.

No sooner had our bagels arrived than we got a call to come back - they were booking his flight. So, we headed back down to the base only to be directed to four different buildings to take care of tickets, itineraries, etc. {of course with our luck it was pay day, so everything was jam packed}. By the time we had picked everything up it was about 11:30 - and his lights were scheduled for 2:30. We headed straight to the Norfolk airport to check him in and have lunch there. Shortly thereafter we said our good-byes and waved at each other until he rounded the last security corner.

And, he was off! He headed from Norfolk to Atanta, from Atlanta to Paris {where he had an 11 hour layover}, and then from Paris to meet the ship at some islands in the Indian Ocean...if you follow gossip magazines, he actually arrived at the same place that David and Victoria Beckham went for their anniversary trip, around the same time.

Anywho, he arrived on Friday morning 7:30 their time, 11:30 pm on Thursday my time (EST). I had to wait until early Saturday morning my time, Saturday evening his time, to hear from him that he had arrived and was safe, as the last time I spoke to him was before his 8 hour flight from Paris. I did a very happy dance when the email came through, as witnesses can attest.
  

For all who are interested in sending notes, cards, care packages, etc. Here is his address:

Ensign Austin Gage

USS Arleigh Burke

DDG-51

FPO AE 09565-1269

email address: gageaw@ddg51.navy.mil
  

As for this little blog, I feel that I should let you know that some of this blog will be used not only to tell the stories as normal and give life updates, but also to keep Austin up to date on current events, trends, etc. as he can access this blog from the ship, but not necessarily facebook or his gmail account, and his military email won't accept a lot of things like videos.


If you have any favortie things happening that you would like Austin to be able to see the video, or photos, or whatever, feel free to send them my way and I will post them up here!