It's that time of year again - Military Spouse Appreciation Day! And a HUGE thanks to
Jen and
Amanda for hosting this link-up each year. I absolutely LOVE meeting new (to me) military spouses to connect with.
//Tell
us about yourself and your blog.
I’m
Janelle, and I’m an almost 30 Air Force wife, girl mom, and former middle
school language arts teacher. I now own two Etsy shops that I work on during
nap time. I started blogging here in January of 2013 to document our lives –
and since my husband is a pilot (to be in the Air Force – almost there!), the
name Come Fly With Us was born. We also used Frank Sinatra’s Come Fly With Me
as our first dance song at our wedding way back in 2014. I used to blog on a
much stricter schedule, and while I do kind of miss it, my life just has other
priorities now, so I try to post when I can so I’ll still have major events
documented. I’m working on it.
//What branch of military are you affiliated with?
Dan is a part of the World’s Greatest Air Force! He
is currently six weeks away from graduating from Euro-Nato Joint Jet PilotTraining at Sheppard AFB in Texas and only three weeks away from finding out
his aircraft assignment! To say we are an anxious mess would be an
understatement. He will celebrate 11 years in the military next month, but his
journey has been anything but normal! He first enlisted in the Army in 2006 and
played trumpet in their band (in the Army Guard). He also played military
funerals all the time. He transferred to the Air Guard eventually because there
was an Air Force base near the college he chose to attend (where we met) and
was working toward becoming a B-2 Crew Chief when we started dating. He applied to the Air Force Academy on a whim, got accepted, and spent five years in
Colorado Springs doing his time there (including a year at the prep school),
all while competing on their official Flying Team. He found out he got a pilot
slot his senior year and was ecstatic – that was the DREAM all along! But then
he was also accepted to graduate school, so he put his dreams of flying on hold
for another 18 months to obtain his Master’s degree in Physics first at AFIT atWright-Patterson AFB in Ohio.
//What is one thing you enjoy about the military lifestyle?
The thing I love about the military lifestyle would
definitely be how quickly spouses and significant others make friends. We don’t
just become friends… we become FAMILY… because we all understand what it’s like
to be away from our actual families. If someone is sick, people are there to
take them what they need. If someone is going out of town for the weekend,
someone is right there to take care of their pets. If someone has a baby, SO
MANY people line up to bring the new mom a meal. It’s a wonderful sense of
community, and it’s something I don’t think the general civilian population gets
to experience on the same level.
//What advice would you give other spouses who are new?
Every assignment is what you make it! If you’re
going to an undesirable place, make a bucket list of things to do while you’re
stationed there. Find a church (or other type of organization) to get plugged
into as soon as you can. Have your spouse invite his flight/class/unit/etc.
over to your new place for a cookout as soon as possible so you can get to know
the people you’ll be spending most of your time with for the next year or more.
Essentially, do the work upfront to make friends, and you’ll end up having a
good time. I’m guilty of not enjoying a certain place as much as I should have,
but I was a brand new spouse, and I have learned from that mistake for sure. I’m
not just excited to find out where we’ll be heading next, even though I don’t
hate our current base.
//Where
have you been stationed?
Before we were dating, Dan was technically stationed
at Whiteman AFB in Knob Noster, Missouri. He was in the Air Guard then, so he
didn’t spend too much time there, as he was in college full time as well. Then,
he got in to the Air Force Academy, so we moved to Colorado Spring, Colorado.
We weren’t able to get married until he graduated from there (no dependents
allowed!), but I moved out there and lived on my own while he stayed in the
mandatory dorms. From there, we got married and moved to our official first
base together- Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. We were there for only 18
months, and then we moved to Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas. We’ve been
here for a little over a year and will be finding out super soon (next month!)
where we’re heading next (most likely later this year).
//Do
you work, go to school, volunteer, or stay home? I taught middle school language arts for before
having my daughter, Annabelle. I enjoyed the teenagers and do miss it some
days. But for now, while she is young, we have chosen for me to stay home with
her. Dan’s schedule is so unpredictable, so it’s best if one of us can be with
her. I’ll probably get back into teaching in a few years, but who knows where
the Air Force will take us!
I hope to meet some new faces today after reading everyone's posts!
