Becoming a 2nd Lt.

Friday was the day!
The BIG day!
The day when Bud became a 2nd Lt. in the United States Air Force.
The same day we would announce the gender of our little one.
Bud had a secret plan.
The first family member to tear up during the ceremony would prompt Bud to remove a handkerchief from his jacket.
The color of the handkerchief would indicate the gender of Bitsy Hitzy.

Bud's Brother MH and I pinned his butter bars
onto his jacket.

His Father & Mother put his new epaulettes on his
shirt.

Bud's mom pretended to sniffle while attaching the new epaulette....

prompting Bud to pull the handkerchief:

In case you can't see that....
It's a PINK handkerchief....
We are having a GIRL!

After a moment we were able to continue with the Commissioning portion of the day...

Bud's brother who commissioned into the Army
a few months back was able to swear Bud in.

.....do solemnly swear....

Presenting 2nd Lt. Bud!

Directly following the Commissioning Ceremony is the First Salute Ceremony.

It's a tradition that the first enlisted member who salutes an officer will be given a silver dollar.

Bud was allowed to select who he wanted to give his first salute to on this special day, since we were making this day about all the people who helped him get where he is it only seemed right that his younger brother give him his first salute.

Having both of his brothers play such a big role in this day made it that much more special.

BROTHERS!
BH, MH, Bud, TH

3 Generations

The Brothers & their Mothership

And last but not least a picture with my wonderful husband whom I'm so proud of!

A college graduate, a 2nd Lt. and a
Father-to-be all in such a short period of
time.

All these new titles and yet my favorite is:
Loving, loyal, hardworking husband.
All the rest will be easy!

That evening we had a Commissioning Party for Bud at a local coffee bar our friend owns.

He let us use the entire backyard space to setup and hangout.

Despite the humid weather, everyone seemed to fully enjoy themselves.

Just as we were bringing the last items into the apartment after the party the sky opened up and the rain poured down.

God's timing was perfect, it always is!

I hope you all had a Blessed Saturday!

Bottle of Wine

Friday the 13th was the Colonel's Cocktail Party for the Commissioning Seniors!

We finally have a nice picture with the
Colonel and his wife!

Colonel's wife always goes out of her way to provide a beautiful spread of food!

And there is always tons of mingling...

And at some point during the night Colonel gives each Commissioning Senior a personalized bottle of white or red wine:

Each bottle is inscribed with:
Congratulations
Second Lieutenant
United States Air Force
Colonel....
Commander of Detachment 825

I am really having a hard time believing that in just a few days my husband will in fact be a Second Lieutenant in the USAF!  In a few days the house will be full of family and friends come to celebrate and honor all of Bud's hard work!  In a few days 15 new ROTC cadets will become Second Lieutenants in the World's Greatest Air Force!!!!

I hope you all had a Blessed Tuesday!

BBQ & Seniors

**This is a repost (originally posted 5/8/11), this was lost when blogger was down last week**
Every semester's end AFROTC goes out to Salt Lick BBQ to celebrate the seniors.
This semester was no different, but it was better!
We had a wonderful private room all to ourselves!
Plenty of room to mingle and an entire fenced off area outside for people to hang out until dinner started.
We started the night by getting our BIG GROUP Picture...

All Seniors in front please!

Finally it was time for the food.
We settled in for a family style meal.
All you can eat of the best brisket, sausage, and my personal favorite RIBS!
Sides included smashed potatoes, beans, and slaw.
While everyone ate, couch stories started.

Couch Stories literally involve a couch, each senior is called up and pictures are flashed up on the screen behind them while friends come and tell stories about them.
With 15 commissionees (one of which being Bud!) we had a lot of good laughs.

We ended the night by honoring Colonel.
He will be moving on to a different assignment as well, in Hawaii (I'm jealous!)
Bud and the other seniors/commissionees brainstormed what kind of going away gift they could shower him with.
I made a suggestions and fortunately, it sparked the idea for the final gift.
He is the biggest baseball fan you could ever meet so the cadets all signed a Home Base Plate.
A friend of the Detachment custom made a display case for the Home Base with a spot for a flag on top.
This flag was flown over the Capital Building here in Austin.
There were 2 plaques that were engraved for the case...
One was the Detachment 825 logo and the other said "Home Base is where the Air Force Sends you".

I think for the first time in history, Colonel was speechless.
You could see it in his face, how genuinely loved he felt.
He will be missed, but I have hopes that the new Colonel will leave as much a memorable mark on the remaining classes as Colonel did for us.

I hope you all had a Blessed Wednesday!

Blues & Ballgowns

I apologize profusely for my inability to keep a regular schedule lately.
I had every intention of sitting down and writing about all the fun activities I did this weekend, but somehow time slipped by.
So here we are.
Tuesday night.
Post grocery shopping.
Post dinner.
Pre-cleaning.
Pre-showering.
Pre-bedtime.
I think I'll spend the next few days filling you in on the weekend and then Friday I'll be back with Bible Verse Friday!
I always hate missing BVF, it helps set my soul straight and the feedback from everyone is always a nice reminder that I'm not typing to hear my fingers clickity-clack against the keyboard.
Anyways, let me move forward.

Friday was my pamper me day.
Every year Air Force ROTC has a formal dinner.
And every year I take that opportunity to go spoil myself all day and get dolled up for the night.
This year was no exception.
I booked my appointment at Frenchy's Beauty Parlor w/ my wonderful stylist Kallie.
First we did my highlights, it'd been a year since I'd had them done, fortunately she did such a good job last time, they grew out rather inconspicuously.
Then she touched up and added a few new layers to my hair.
Finally she styled it for the big night.
The thing about Kallie is that the entire time she asked me questions about what I would like, but I saw her grin each time I told her, "Kallie, I trust you, do whatever you want".

The finished product

After Frenchy's I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to my 2nd appointment of the day.
A Mani/Pedi at Embellish!
They know how to make a girl feel like a girl.
They everything is elegantly decorated and the big tv's hanging on the wall play nothing but chick flicks.  While I was there I caught the end of The Wedding Date  w/ Debra Messing & the beginning of My Girl.
It was heavenly.
Finally it was time to come home, do my make-up and head to dinner with the hubby.

How handsome is this man standing next to me?

He's a little excited about Bitsy Hitzy

It's so much fun seeing everyone dressed up and mingling before and after the wonderful dinner.

AT & KS are getting married July 30th!
They are a great couple and we love hanging out with them.

KS & TV have less than 2 months until their big day
and we can't wait to walk down the aisle again as
bridesmaid & groomsman to support them!

The great thing about fun couples and ROTC and knowing each other for a few years.

It's always fun to be around these people!

KS (the female) didn't think she'd been in enough photos
yet so she jumped in on this one ;)

And let's not forget Bud & his Best Friend JF

JF made dinner so much fun.

A few birthdays ago we gift him a fork like this:

Airforkone
source

Well he brought it and exchanged his proper dinner fork with this one in honor of his pilot's slot!

That is a completely random, but just an example of how much fun these people are to hang out with.

All in all as far as our LAST AF ROTC dining out goes, I have to say it was nearly perfect.

Only 38 more days until Bud Commissions!

I hope you have a Blessed Tuesday.

Bits & Pieces

As I reflect over the craziness of the past few weeks I realized I have left out a few bits & pieces here and there.
So tonight I'm going to catch you up on some of the small things that went on here!
The beginning of December marked the end of something else.
In July, around the time I really started blogging here I also started journaling.
Nearly every night I wrote about the things that I can't write about on here.
So for 4-1/2 months I wrote in my beautiful purple journal and now I have switched over to my clean fresh white journal.  It's not much to you guys, but it's pretty exciting for me.

On December 3rd I had my first "photo shoot".
I have so much to learn!
A fellow AFROTC cadet asked Bud if I would be willing to take a senior picture for him that he could gift to his Mom for Christmas.
We set a time and place and I showed up nervous and afraid that I wouldn't capture what I wanted to.
Well here it is:

AZ's Senior photo!  This is on the UT campus on 21st Street.
That's a fairly iconic fountain and having the UT tower in the
background was a requirement ;)

That evening we went out with ROTC for the end of semester tradition...dinner at Salt Lick BBQ.
If you aren't from TX you don't know what your missing.
If you are from TX or you plan to visit TX you should definitely put it on your places to eat!

Sitting next to one of our FAVORITE couples!  JF & MS!

 

Partial group picture.  We had to take 4 separate photos just to get all the people, approx 100!

On December 5th Bud & I celebrated our 9 year dating anniversary.
April will be our 7 year wedding anniversary.
It's amazing how time flies when your having fun!

Our 1st Valentine's day, 2 months after we started dating.

Finally, last night was the Senior dinner at Colonel's house.
At the end of each semester they have the seniors over and honor the ones who graduated.
It was a lot of fun to dress up a little and socialize with everyone.

MS & JF at Col's...JF was supposed to be taking a photo of us.

Take 1....MS being a creeper haha

Take 2..a good photo!

Bud & CM 1 of our December Graduates & Commissionees 

AZ & Bud our other December Graduate & Commissionee!

Anyways there are some bits & pieces of the last few weeks.
We just finished watching the ORIGINAL 1980s version of TRON.  It was Bud's first time....it's amazing to see how different movies are now.
Time to settle in and watch some of Season 2 Dexter with the hubby.
I hope everyone has a blessed Saturday night.

Big Day

Today was a big day in our house!  After a busy day at work I rushed home to get myself ready.  I didn't get to do my 30 minute on the treadmill, but I'll get back to that.  When I got home there was a package for me!  It was my necklace I ordered from Farmgirl Paints, I follow her blog & love her pieces she designs.

I promise to get a better picture of the necklace!  It says surrender on it.  I'm using it to remind myself that I can't plan everything and that God's timing is perfect...so I must surrender all to him.

Tonight was a big for Bud.  If he was eligible to have a make a wish this would be it.  Tonight Bud got to sing the National Anthem at a sporting event.  Unfortunately, the flipcam was not cooperating so I didn't get video.  We have requested that if they are able that UT sends us a DVD of the event, cross your fingers!  Bud has an amazing voice, he is a vocal music minor.  I think the fact that he got to sing for a University of Texas Soccer game made it even more special.  It's awesome when people come up afterwards to tell him how well he did and I love how humble his is about his gifts.

That's my hubby singing (notice the camera man, Bud is famous...kinda)!  And the 2 cadets on the far right are part of Detachment 825 as well!  I'm so proud! :) 

Afterwards we met up with a bunch of the AFROTC people for TGIF.  It's tradition that nearly every Friday a group of people from AFROTC go to eat somewhere or do something together.  It helps build morale and camaraderie.  Bud & I split a pasta dinner which was the perfect size!  While we were there JF & MS invited us to go 2-stepping at a place called the Broken Spoke.  We went and we had an absolute blast.  I can only 2-step for so long before my calves are yelling at me.  But back to not getting to do my 30 minutes on the treadmill....I may be cheating a little bit, but I'm counting my 2-stepping as my workout today.  Technically, I have still successfully completed 10 days of my 21 day challenge!  If you don't think I should consider my dancing as a workout...speak now or forever hold your peace!

At the Broken Spoke!  I dislike the cowboy hat, but Bud loves it so much.  I have to pick my battles, and this one isn't worth it!  I love you Bud!

It's time for bed now, It's been a long week & quite frankly I'm exhausted.  The plan is to sleep in (for me that means 8am) and see how tomorrow pans out, I'll see ya'll tomorrow!  Have a blessed evening!

Being Self-aware

Picture of a church I took some time ago.
I really love black and white shots

Another productive day!  I love it when that happens.  I woke up at 7:30 to finished editing the pictures from the Body Building Competition and burned them to a disk.  Bud left to volunteer at church at 9:10 while I finished getting ready.  It was a really good service again!  We are on week 3 of The Dream Maker and today we focused on Listening To Your Life Coach.  We learned about self-awareness and realizing that we all know that "There is a quiet & ever present whisper in our life".  We have to stop, quiet ourselves, and listen in order to under to hear the calling for our life.
A few key verses today included:
Acts 2:17

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your Sons and daughters will prophesy,

your young men will see visions, 

your old men will dream dreams

Ephesians 2:10

For we are God's workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus to do good works, 

which God prepared in advance for us to do

Romans 2:12

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, 

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-

his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Our pastor made a joke that he texted ChaCha (242-242) the question: What is the meaning of life?

Their response: That is a very deep answer to reply within a  text message.

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Another excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love:

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.  You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and some times even travel around the world looking for it.  You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.  And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.  If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment.  It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments".

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My handsome hubby in uniform!

On a final note the rest of our day was spent at the AFROTC Orientation.  This is when prospective cadets and their parents stop by and get a chance to ask questions and learn more about the program.  

So after a seriously productive weekend I'm excited for the school year to start tomorrow.  I know that I don't have classes, but as Bud starts this school year I realize we are only 2 semesters away from his commissioning and only about 1 week from finding out where we will be stationed!  This is going to be a BIG year.  Finally, I'm so proud of myself I successfully blogged for a week straight, now I just have to keep up with my 8 books in 8 weeks!  


I hope everyone has a blessed week!