03/07 4eme semaine/ 4th week

Nous habitons 4.5 NM au nord de la base aerienne de Luke, nomme apres un pilote de Phoenix avec 18 victoires en France pendant la premiere guerre mondiale. Helas descendu au combat a seulement 21 ans deux mois avant l'armistice!
"Luke Air Force base" est celebre pour les pilotes de l'armee de l'air Americaine, puisque tous les pilotes passent par la, et ce depuis 1941!
Y sejournent quelques 7500 militaires, 27 esquadrilles, dont 8 sont sur F-16.
Ceux la passent regulierement au dessus de nos tetes, car nous sommes situes juste dans la vent arriere, et c'est sympa de les voir en patrouille.
Or le week-end dernier, il y'avait sur la base les "Thunderbirds", la patrouille de l'armee de l'air, qui fait concurrence avec la patrouille navale, les "blue Angels". Luke a ete leur base en 1953 mais depuis quelques annees, ils sont maintenant a Nellis a Las Vegas.
Il y'avait un meeting aerien sur la base, que nous avons rate, pour X raison, mais nous sommes quand meme alle voir de plus pres, car ca aurait ete dommage de rater ca.

Je n'ai fait du planeur qu'une fois cette semaine, car a l'atterro, j'ai perdu mon patin de queue en voulant tourner sur la piste en dure, qui est un peu plus haute que celle en terre battue.
Bon. Me voila cloue au sol en attendant de recevoir la piece de chez Schleicher. Dommage!

Oh, let's see. What did we do this week? Wellllllllllllll.... We cleaned up the gardens some. We had another "coming to Jesus" house cleaning wherein we got rid of even more stuff we don't really need. We sold the "Jesus" items at a garage sale, donating the unsellable to Goodwill. We went to Luke Air Force Base and watched the world famous Air Force Thunderbirds. We watched from down the road a bit, saving us dealing with a crowd of nearly 250,000, just parking a few minutes from our house. It was cool because post one manuever they flew right over us at about 300 feet, per Richard. I think their planes are prettier than the Blue Angels, which are just a single color boring blue. The Thunderbirds have a predominantly white overhead and a red/white/blue underbelly. We also cleaned the garage. We played the new Monopoly where the new tax fine is $2,000,000! We treated ourselves to some new movies including the great Galaxy Quest, which I had been wanting forever but which was no longer sold save for a single copy left at our area Walmart for $5. We saw baby doctor man, who said all is well, culminating in a total of a 5 minute appointment. And just had a lot of fun. Though we didn't go flying this week. We'll have to do that when he's off next. I miss it!

As for Florence, she's huge so I'm huge (if 5 pounds can be called huge). Time is edging near, wherein she can come any time now up to the next four weeks. It seems she is edging closer, because I keep having more and more pre-labor symptoms like contractions, cramps, etc. etc. When this happens we both just look at each other in an "Oh @(*#!" kind of joking way. But we are heartily looking forward to it. I must admit to some intellectual curiousity about the pain of childbirth (yeah, don't ask). And I've already started her pilot's uniform so when we take dad to work she'll be ready to serve as FO (and probably do a much better job than some!).

So, all in all, outside of adapting to the coming heat of the desert, things are dandy! Oh, and I"m reading some very interesting books about Julia Child. Picked them up in the library because it was more about her life in France - not a cookbook. So...they're great reads, though I think she was not above self-promotion.

Anyhoo, that's all. Back to cooking baby.

Adios!