Faroe Islands

Have you ever heard of the Faroe Islands? Until about a year ago, I had never heard of this small country situated between Scotland and Iceland. My husband revealed that it had been on his travel wish list from before we even met. It struck me as funny that it took about 17 years before he let me in on this long held desire. 

We visited in September which is at the end of the ideal travel season. I was anticipating dreary, rainy days. Upon arrival, it was a little misty and grey. But we lucked out with some amazingly beautiful days, too!

Fishing accounts for about 97% of exports for the Faroe Islands. Needless to say, boats are plentiful around the islands. 

The Nix, represented here as a horse, is a fascinating tale from Faroese legend. It lives in the lakes of the Faroe Islands lures people to him and then drags them into the water to meet their end. But if you shout his name, he loses his power and you will live. 

If you know me at all, you probably know that I love church pictures. Charles and I jokingly said that we should create a book of all the churches on the Faroe Islands. We tried to capture as many as we could, but we definitely missed several. 

I also love ruins. These were beautiful!

One of our days was spent with a guide hiking up to a tiny little light house. The area around the light house was used in the filming of the most recent James Bond movie. Charles and I are not James Bond fans, so that part didn't really matter to us. But it was beautiful! 

The seal woman statue represents another legend from the Faroe Islands. I cannot do the story justice, so please go read it for yourself. The more I travel around Europe and hear local folklore, the more I wonder why Hollywood keeps making the same movies over and over. These legends would make really great films.

This church was in the town where our Airbnb was located. It was sunny in this part most of the time we stayed.

Our Airbnb! This place was fantastic! The views alone were worth staying here and the house was cozy and well stocked with everything we needed for our stay. 

The Airbnb was located on a sheep farm and we were allowed to wander around the fields. We made friends with several sheep. 

Hanging out with the sheep was one of my favorite parts of the trip!

The art museum in the capital was really neat! 

And because I can, a couple more churches to end our trip! 

The Faroe Islands were beautiful and peaceful. I am so glad that Charles made it a priority to visit. If you have a chance, please go! You will not regret it. 

Spouses Night Out 2016: Home is Where the Air Force Sends You

My favorite base spouse event is here--Spouses Night Out! This has been MY event the past few years and this is my last one; we will be PCSing (moving to all you non-military folks) later this year. My first year the theme was TV shows and we had Mad Men. Last year the theme was board games and we chose The Game of Life.

For 2016, the event theme is Home is Where the Air Force Sends You. Each group was tasked with picking a base to use as the inspiration for their table decorations. As usual, our spouses voted on the bases they wanted on our "Dream Sheet" and Goodfellow AFB was at the top. I thought our chances were pretty high for getting our top choice because Goodfellow is not a very well-liked base. And lo and behold, we got our first choice!

Because Goodfellow AFB is in Texas, I knew I had to go with a Texas theme for at least one of our tables. I have never thought so long and hard about the Lone Star state. I got to work planning out our tables with some sketches.

At the end of SNO 2015, they announced the 2016 theme and a bunch of people immediately thought Texas would be a perfect option for us. Even though we didn't pick our theme until early 2016, I had spent pretty much the whole year with Texas in the back of my mind and I knew I wanted a big Texas state outline on my table. This table was inspired by the little graphic at the top--Things Texans Love. My sister is an adopted Texan (she moved there and doesn't plan on ever leaving). She shared that graphic once and I knew it would be the perfect inspiration for my table.

 

 

This table looks pretty boring from my sketch and I ended up having to re-do the layout anyway. The past two years we have had enough people for 3 tables, but this year we were down to two.

I love sheep. I have several sheep stuffed animals and figurines. San Angelo has fiberglass sheep around town that businesses sponsor and decorate. I knew I had to use sheep in my design. Because we were down to two tables, I could not dedicate a whole table to the sheep. I compromised and combined the Goodfellow and Sheep tables. 

I had a lot of fun designing the place cards for our tables. I made three different designs. Originally I was going to have one design per table, but then decided to just alternate.

These are based on the Whataburger table numbers. This idea was given to me by one of our spouses and I love how they turned out!

These place cards feature a vintage Goodfellow image and patches from some of the squadrons at Goodfellow.

And these show some of the Sheep of San Angelo. I love these the best, but I am biased towards sheep.

I also wanted something to hand out to people at the event...bribes are OK, right? I created a recipe card for kolaches--a Texas favorite. I found the recipe on Pinterest.

Stay tuned for pictures of the final design!