In line with Navy operations, promoting to O4 is a weird journey of steps. First, you need to be looked at by some board with a lot of important people on it. If they say you should get promoted, then your name gets submitted on a list to congress who then needs to approve the promotion (this is called being selected). This happened on 28OCT21 You can (try) to read the formal communication about it here.
Finally, on Sept. 1st, 2022 he started being paid the O4 salary. Then, about a week later, we had the “formal” pinning ceremony and he finally gets to wear his oak leaf. Brian repeats an oath to serve the country to his CO.
I got to remove his old rank and put his new rank (oak leaf) on.
And we stay and celebrate with a couple beers after.
I am really proud of him for promoting. He’s very non chalant, “everyone promotes to O4”, but I don’t think he remembers all the people who don’t stay in this long to get promoted.
It was his last big goal in the Navy (beside retirement) and he made it. Proud of him!
For this first time in a few years the Blue Angels visited Hawaii as part of the Kaneohe Bay Air Show. It was spectacular! I had decided to buy two grandstand seats for the show so on the first day I brought my friend Caroline and we sat right at flight-line center in some bleacher seats with our own separate bathrooms. I think it was worth the money for what we got. I took approximately a zillion pictures but I’ll pick a favorite few.
They had some airplanes on display, including one from Westover that had the patriots logo! It’s hard to tell but I’m pointing at my Red Sox hat and the logo.
I can’t tell you all the planes we saw because there were too many to remember, but yes this one is upside down and no I didn’t rotate the image.
The ospreys we see a lot here.
They had some fun fillers, like a coast guard mock rescue and a corvette racing a plane.
The blue angels were a real highlight. The first qualified female flew one!
I think this next picture is a really great demo of how close they get. The rest are more 2D so it’s harder to really capture.
Two of these following planes are upside down!
Could not recommend going to see this in action enough. It was amazing. I will say that we lucked out car/driving wise. They directed us to a garage far from the event, which sounds like a disadvantage, but they had a bus route and one took us there. At the end of the show, we were so far away from the traffic center that we got out really easily. We did walk back to our car, but we mostly sat all day so it was actually nice. People that parked at, say, VIP parking, were waiting 2+ hours to get out. We showed up to the base at 10AM and probably got to the show at 11am, which all in all was great.
Day 2 Jess and I rode our bikes to a friend’s house that lives up on a hill on the flight-line. That was crazy! I decided not to take my camera because I really wanted to enjoy the moment. I don’t regret it, but I did miss out on some epic pictures. Day 1, there were only 5 planes in the blue angels formations because one of the planes hit a bird. Day 6 they all flew. It was nice to experience both – I liked hearing the commentary from the announcers for Day 1, Day 2 it was nice being away from the hustle and bustle and enjoying our own food and bathrooms.
So as long as you plan accordingly, you’ll enjoy it!
RIMPAC is a huge military exercise that happens mostly out of Pearl Harbor but also San Diego. There are hundreds (exaggeration, maybe) of boats involved (at least one would think that many for the amount of complaining I heard about base traffic). On one Saturday they open up some boats for tours. I let Brian pick, begrudgingly, and he wanted to start with the Abraham Lincoln, and aircraft carrier. We waited about a half hour to get in and arrived around 8:15am, they opened at 8.
The most critical piece of equipment available on this boat is a plastic(?) replica of the Lincoln Monument statue of Abe.
I think Brian’s submarine could fit into the hangar bay (this is only half).
Speaking of Top Gun… Oh wait, I didn’t mention it, because it speaks for itself.
We did get out to the top for the flight deck!
Brian was particularly fond of these call signs… this one was “Balls”. Oh pilot humor.
Then Brian wanted to go onto the Zumwalt destroyer. This has been called “a failed ship concept“. Incredibly expensive (more than a submarine) and pretty incredibly useless. To give you a taste, it’s currently a destroyer with no guns. However, the sailors on board gave us a tour with pride, and I think it had(s) a lot of promise. We were able to see the control room and it essentially looks like where they launch spaceships at the Houston Space Center. Despite its size, on a radar it only shows up looking like a fishing trawler. We waited for a little over an hour to get in here.
Our final stop was a Philippine boat. My one request for the day was to tour a foreign boat, because how often do you get that chance!. They fed us! But the tour wasn’t that great… and we were wiped so this was our last stop. It looks quite similar to a US boat.
I’m glad we did it! It made for an adventurous morning and we won’t likely experience it again. To give you an idea of just how many boats were in port, the destroyers are double docked!
God truly sent me an angel when I connected with Jess at her first book club with our officer spouse group. And by connected, I basically messaged her and said please be my friend. At the time, she had recently moved and her husband was here, but Brian was gone. I met her husband once, then he left, and we were both flying solo together. In fact, so much together, that someone reading my blog recently thought we were married. Ha. Anyway, Brian came home, but with his schedule we still hang out a lot, and now finally her husband came home!
Their ships are huge and they have so much more personnel. This was my first real homecoming experience, ours wasn’t “official” because it wasn’t an official deployment. But, there was a lot of similarities… going to Missing Man to watch them pull in. Shedding some tears (I think I did more than she did!). Heading to the docks to wait for unloading. I took the day off so I could photograph.
They had a live band playing, a lot of press, the first kisses… Her husband is up on that deck.
I was happy to be there to grab pictures of them reuniting! Ahh here I am crying again.
When you go through such a long time with someone while their husband is gone it just makes you so emotional when you get to see them so happy to have their husband back… it’s such an incredible experience and so unique to military life. I took the day off to go spend capturing the moments for them as best I could. I almost tripped over a sailor’s bag trying to photograph… it’s a crazy day and stuff and people are strewn all over! Thankfully I didn’t faceplant.
Jess was so kind as to help another officer find an apartment while he was gone. I don’t know how single sailors manage their lives, honestly.
Fun fact, it was really hard for her to figure out who her husband was on the boat. They all look so similar!! And to top it off they’re in masks! But we eventually figured it out.
Brian left yesterday. I can’t tell you exactly when he’s leaving, or exactly when he’s coming back, or really anything. It’s a part of OPSEC, “operational security”. The motto in the Navy is “loose lips sink ships”. I can post pictures once they are ~24 hours out of port. I’m pretty sure we’re fooling ourselves thinking that there aren’t satellites watching our every move, but I’m not the one to get her husband in trouble.
So what next? Well, I do have information about when I could possibly see him again before he gets back to Hawaii at the end for what’s called a “port call” at a different location (sounds sexy, but the logistical planning can be a nightmare). Otherwise, I send emails to this email address that he supposedly will some day be able to receive emails at. And just hope, wait, and pray that I get an email back one day.
Meanwhile, look at how AWESOME that zoom lens is! This is a cropped in picture of the sail. The guy leaning on the stacks is Brian’s captain. I am not sure who anyone else is.
I also waited for the boat to leave for… THREE HOURS. Another spouse and I went to Missing Man monument. Turns out this is one of Brian’s Nav Aids, so he knew where to look. I turned into a lobster. First time since being here, so I am a bit impressed it took me this long. Lesson learned!
Today I kept myself very busy. I did my sunrise walk. Went to mass. Went snorkeling at Secret Beach with my friend (Secret beach was a let down, again. I think Brian is my lucky charm). Came home, answered TED emails. Lifted weights, then did a trash pick up. I picked up TWO dirty diapers. One was handed to me en route… I figured if the alternative was it would end up in the bush, I should just take it, so I did. It was SO HEAVY by the time I got to the top of my little hill. Yup, that’s a practically full bag of trash. Woof.
I showered immediately after getting home. Fixed myself dinner… adult chicken nuggets with a side of hummus and hot sauce with carrots. Wrote Brian an email he may not get until he gets home. And now I’m here, summing up my day for you guys, too!
It’s really great when I have days like this, with all the energy to do things. I definitely still have recovery days (few and far between now!) where I can just about muster brushing my teeth. I sometimes wonder if this was how I was pre-COVID, just having a bit of a low energy day once in a while, but these just feel different. I did start back on my inhaler. I pushed it too hard on a peloton ride(s) (I did two back to back, a total of 1 hr 15 minutes) and my lung burning was very persistent afterward. I actually took my oxygen level reading for the first time in forever. I’ve done this before, over done it (surprise surprise), but usually it would rectify in a couple days. After a week of it being persistent, I asked my pulmonologist what she thought about me going back on the Albuterol and she said go for it. I’m feeling a ton better just after a few days on it.
Here are a couple more badass submarine pics. (I took about 100. I was a bit excited)
This song was made for Navy wives. Except, I do truly know he’d rather be home with me.
Dad called to check up on me today, thanks dad <3 Day 2, done.
