Harry S. Truman - Aircraft Carrier

A couple weekends ago Rachel and I got the privilege to go out to sea on the aircraft carrier the Harry S. Truman.  The ship had just returned form a 9 month deployment and was hosting a "friends and family day".  This is a rare occurrence, only happening every few years.  This being one of the carriers that Rachel works on in her job, we were able to get tickets to attend.

On the flight deck.

Rachel in front of the Island and Bridge of the carrier.  The only place we couldn't go to.

Here you can see the catapult, which launches the planes.

Airshow where the planes demonstrated landing on the carrier.

Here is a video of a jet landing on the carrier.

Video of a plane taking off.

This is a video of a jet going super sonic.  You can see where he breaks the sound barrier.

The chance to go on a carrier and going out to see was an amazing opportunity.  But being able to see the planes, these supersonic jet planes land on this carrier, not thirty feet away from you, that was amazing.

Tough Mudder

So over Father's Day, Rachel and I did our first Tough Mudder!  This is a 10.1 mile obstacle course.  So there were about 20 obstacles along the way, with about half mile to a mile runs in between.  It was lots of fun, and was certainly worth doing.  The very first obstacle was to crawl through a shallow mud pit under barbed wire.  So the theme came out fairly early.  Throughout the race I'd say we had to jump in and crawl through at least 4 different mud pits.  Needless to say, the even lives up to its name.  Here are some pictures.

Arctic Enema, basically a dive into a water bath.

Arctic Enema, by definition 0 degrees Celsius.

 

 

This one was the infamous electrocution at the end of the tough mudder.

That is a grimace.. not a smile.  For the record.

Rachel made sure to be careful with her recently broken arm.   Or something.

At the end, our whole group made it.

Tough Mudder was great, and everyone shoudl do it!  If you guys ever want to put together a family oriented group let me know!

Been a while

Figured I would actually post something here again in case people missed me!

Liberty Bell!

 Philadelphia

 Rachel before the Rock'n'Roll Run in DC

 What I was doing while she was running

 We were on a hike, and Rachel wanted a picture on the state line

 The cherry blossoms.  We actually made it on a day that wasn't too crazy.

Sara and Elvis, was a good day for a hike.

Wedding pictures and Honeymoon

In case anyone missed it, here is the LINK to the wedding pictures.  Feel free to order any pictures on there that you like, as the prices seem very reasonable.  However, we will also be getting our own digital copies of the pictures soon.

Before I start getting too lazy however, I did want to put up some of our honeymoon pictures.  When we come down for Christmas we will make sure to bring our honeymoon picture album.

First up Auckland:

Cool tree, we had just got off our flight at this point.

Their own obelisk, theirs come with free sheep.

This was called "one tree hill" I believe.

Our very cozy bed and breakfast, the hostess was very nice, though tended to talk a lot.

Random Dragon bench.  Rachel seems oddly possessive of it.

This is Auckland in the background.

Lots of beautiful beaches, though it was too cold to swim at the time we were there.

Auckland, as you can see by the clouds is was kinda rainy and cloudy when we were there.

Matamata and Hobbiton:

I believe this was a 3/4 scale hobbit house.

Every now and again I would let Rachel take pictures.

They keep a staff of people to do the gardening and upkeep.

Bag End

At the Green Dragon, the guest book.  Though we weren't allowed to sign it ourselves.

The Green Dragon Pub had some nice fun touches on the inside.

This was a full size hobbit hole, well for the 6' hobbits at least.

The maximum height for female hobbits during casting was under 5'2", so Rachel could have been a hobbit extra!

The infamous "Party Tree" where Bilbo had his birthday in the Fellowship of the Ring.

Party area again, and you can see some chimneys from the other Hobbit holes.

Inside of the Green Dragon Pub.  They recreated the interior at Hobbiton, and this was the only building with an inside.

I don't think the fish was real...

Pictures

Here is a journey through our relationship over the past 3+ years.