You're About to be Redirected to the New Home of Ground Control to Major Mom: Veteran's Day 2011

Happy Veteran's Day friends! I am just getting this in under the wire for my daily post, trying to keep with my NaBloPoMo challenge!

Dave Update: First of all, it got pretty tough for us last night with Dave's back. He started getting some intense muscle spasms that weren't resolving with the medications he had been prescribed. So we ended up at the ER, he was so uncomfortable. They were able to give him stronger muscle relaxers and that seemed to help him out. We were only at the ER for 1 hour, 45 minutes, which has to be a record for us!

Today Dave took it easy, similar to how things were the day he came home from the hospital last week. The doctor recommended some changes to his medications and how often he wears his back brace to help with the muscle spasms. This seemed to help and today was MUCH better than yesterday. The officer who's acting commander for Dave's squadron came by this afternoon -- brought us a HUGE cheesecake variety sampler -- and visited with him for a while. It was nice to see Dave have visitors.

This morning the boys and I were part of their Cub Scout pack participating in the Pensacola Veteran's Day parade. It was a 1 mile march through historic downtown Pensacola. The boys were very good, nicely taking turns carrying the pack and American flags.

After the parade, we visited Pensacola's new Veterans Memorial Park, which includes the nation's only replica of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The Scouts took turns carrying the flag. I had my phone timer set for 5 minutes after every handoff (just to play fair) but the boys rarely lasted more than 5 minutes at a time. Their arms got pretty tired....

Before we started...they were having fun!

This is a reporter from the Pensacola News Journal (local newspaper). She interviewed the scouts about the parade.

We had to walk behind this giant Pinewood Derby car. Yes, the boys noticed. Yes, the boys asked "When do we get to ride?" No, it wasn't an option.

The replica Vietnam Veteran's Memorial that's now in downtown Pensacola. It's really nice...

These are the GEICO Skytypers, who were performing at the NAS Pensacola "Welcome Home" Airshow that the Blue Angels gives every Veteran's Day weekend. You see the words "Naval Aviation" here, they were writing "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", which is what Pensacola calls itself.