Visiting Uncle Wes

This past weekend we went to Panama City, FL for a long weekend with my brother, Wes, aka Uncle Wes. Uncle Wes is a crew chief for F-15s and is stationed (until February) at Tyndall AFB in Panama City. In February, he is heading across the pond to England. (We will definitely plan a trip over there too!) While visiting Uncle Wes, we got to stay at the nice house he shares with Henry (another crew chief in the AF...22s are his speciality), meet Henry (duh!), do a little shopping (girls and kids), do a little golfing (guys) and spend some time with Uncle Wes on base.

We drove down on Friday and the kids did great! We left at 7 am and arrived at Uncle Wes's house at 3:00 pm central time. We made several long stops with the kids and took several detours (thanks to the navigation...grrr!), but all in all, the trip down was pretty pleasant. And Isaac and Kathryn adjusted to the time change very well.

Saturday, the guys went golfing while the girls/kids went shopping. We shopped at Target and found socks for Isaac, knit sheets for I&K (I wanted something warmer for the kids to sleep on this winter), shopping cart covers, tennis shoes for I&K, and sweatpants for I&K (to turn inside out so they can be little sheep for our church's Christmas program). We also looked at A LOT of other stuff. It is so nice to visit someone and have stores close by!

On Sunday, we spent the morning at Tyndall AFB. Uncle Wes is in the Second Fighter Squadron, "the American Beagle" Squadron. While on base, he took us to the flight line (with ALL the jets lined up in two rows and the runway just a little further out from us) and showed us "his" jet (the one that bears his name). His jet was manufactured in the late 70s and cost ~20 million. We were told we could not take any pictures of the flight line, the hanger or the jets due to security issues. His supervisor escorted us out to the flight line, but we were permitted to tour the hanger with Wes as long as we stayed together. In the hanger, we saw the parts desk, the CC tool boxes, the canteen, 3 F-15s and 1 F-16. We were permitted to climb into the cockpit of one of the 15s, so Jonathan climbed up into the pilot's seat and I climbed up into the co-pilot's seat. VERY COOL! Again...no pictures due to security issues. Isaac and Kathryn were very quiet during the entire tour. I think they were soaking it all in! Pop even climbed up into the cockpit, but Meems stayed on the ground.

After touring the flight line and Uncle Wes's hanger, we headed across to the quarters section of base to take some pictures of display jets and to see where Uncle Wes lived while on base. Uncle Wes also showed us training living quarters, the beach access, the visitor quarters, and married quarters for both enlisted and officers. The base is HUGE and it was very neat to see each part of it. We were allowed to take pictures in that area, so here are a few for your viewing pleasure...

On Monday, we were back on the road again. The kids did well on the return trip and we made it back even faster due to one less stretch break and fewer side trips. All in all, it was a great long weekend!