Doggie date

Fred's TDY for the week, so Annabelle and I are amusing ourselves. Today we went with my friend Susan to a pet fair at a local park. Susan is also Ginger's boyfriend Buster's mom, and Ginger and Buster went, too.

Annabelle and Ginger in the kissing booth:



Ginger and Buster:



What a handsome couple!

Racking up volunteer time

Mike is busy working on getting more volunteer time to beef up his application for Army-Baylor PT program. Last week he put in a full 40 hours following an Air Force PT at MacDill AFB in Tampa. This week he went further south to follow a PT who works at the training camp for a certain professional baseball team:





Soon he'll be coming up here for the summer to get even more hours. Can't wait to have both my babies at home for the summer!

More delicious things about my job

During the summer, we have a farmer's market on Tuesdays, and on Thursdays we have food trucks:

Harvey likes watching "Fargo"

But sometimes it's too spooky, and he has to look away:

Reaching out from the future

It's January 18, 2015, as I'm writing this. I'm horribly behind on my blog, mostly for one really big reason: I got a full-time job! I'm not going to say where in hopes of not having Google link my blog and my employer, but maybe this picture will give you a hint:



I really love my job. It's in Crystal City, which is a really cool area of Arlington:





We have amazing fringe benefits, such as "the pantry," which is stocked with all kinds of goodies including name-brand cereals, all free for the munching:



It's a perfect fit for me, but getting used to working 37.5 hours a week (not 40! another cool thing!) has been a huge adjustment. Add to that a year's worth of vision problems and all the time I spend on the computer at work, and the last thing I want to do in the evenings is get back on the computer. Also, I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the quantity of photos I have now that I have a phone with a decent camera. And furthermore, I think Facebook gets a lot of stuff that the blog used to be an outlet for.

BUT I dearly love having all these years of blogging to look back on, especially with regard to photos, and I don't want to let that fall by the wayside. So I'm making a concerted effort to bring the blog back up to date, but with more photos and probably less writing. So please stick with me as I get my blogging house put back in order.

A big goodbye

Annabelle saying goodbye to her beloved tuba for the summer:



Don't worry though--she has a sousaphone checked out for the summer so she won't get out of practice. We had to buy a car-top carrier for the rest of her stuff since the sousaphone fills up most of the trunk of the car.

Yarn Harvey

Check out the evolution from ball of fuzzy yarn to cute little Harvey!









He is going to Rochester to lend support to Annabelle during finals week.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder

As though college graduation were not enough activity for one day, this evening we also had Mike's Air Force commissioning. Here are some highlights:

Getting ready:



Fred administered the oath:



Sarah and I took care of Mike's shoulders while Annabelle doctored up his hat:



Quick moment of celebration:



First salute:



After the ceremony everybody wanted a picture with Second Lieutenant Taylor:



















After we got done with our picture-taking, our family and Sarah's family went out to dinner to celebrate. Here's the cake that Sarah ordered for the occasion that caused the cake lady to say, "Oh, twins!" when she saw their photos:



Here are the "twins" enjoying a well-earned piece of cake, with Sarah's nephew photo-bombing them:



Sweet ending to a wonderful day!

Graduation

Graduation this morning was lovely, even if the traffic trying to get out of the civic center's lot was NOT. Here's a barrage of photos!

Before the ceremony:











Coach Bobby Bowden was the commencement speaker:



Mike did a graduation selfie:



After the ceremony:







How things do change (that first pic is from Jenny's Stetson graduation in December 1995):





So proud of the graduates!



After the ceremony, we headed over to the 4th Quarter for a celebratory lunch. We took a picture of all the FSU grads in our group:



Looks like Sarah's nephew is eager to join the crowd:



Next step, commissioning!

Are we ready to party?

Greetings from Tallahassee, where we are gearing up for a couple big events: FSU graduation and Mike's Air Force commissioning! Tonight Sarah planned a great supper at El Jalisco, which was a great opportunity for both families to meet for the first time. We also celebrated birthdays for Fred and for Sarah's nephew:





Fred and Sarah's grandfather showed up in matching shirts:



A good time was had by all, and now we are going to keep this party going all weekend!