Cubicle improvements

I'm having fun making my cubicle at work my own. Here's my first phase of decorating:



Also, it was driving me crazy to have my back to the doorway, so I have added a rear-view mirror:



Now I won't miss a thing!

Anniversary dinner cruise

Fred and I have celebrated our fair share of anniversaries either apart or under less than ideal circumstances (looking at you, Outback Steakhouse in Meridian, MS, with our kids in 1999). This year we decided to live it up by going on a Potomac River dinner cruise.

Here we are as we got on board:



And who was our next-door neighbor in the harbor? Oh, just the presidential yacht!





The food was really good, and the monuments were just lovely as we glided by:



Towards the end of the evening, the band did a special song for couples celebrating milestones. You know how there's always that one adorable old couple? Well, on this particular cruise, WE were the adorable old couple as we took the dance floor with a pair of newly weds and a couple celebrating 10 years!

Sunsets with a Soundtrack

The US Army Band is having a great concert series this summer where they perform Thursday night indoors at Ft. Myer and then repeat the performance the following night on the steps of the Capitol. This is the second one that we have been to.

Here's a selfie of Annabelle and me from a couple weeks ago:



And here's the Capitol tonight after the sun went down:



Tonight's show was "an evening of symphonic blockbusters from Tchaikovsky, Aaron Copland, and John Philip Sousa." It also featured the winner of the 4th Annual National Collegiate Solo Competition, Chris Leslie, who is an absolute bad ass on the euphonium. You can watch the video of last night's performance here:



Towards the end of every show they play all the service songs and invite veterans and their family members to stand for their respective service(s). We are getting quite a workout jumping up for the Marines (my dad), the Army (Fred and my grandfather), and now Air Force (Mike)!

Speaking of twinsies

Remember how Mike and I dressed alike yesterday? Well, today I went to Fort Myer for a change of command ceremony. The ceremony was quite impressive (as always, click to make the photos bigger):





After the ceremony I ran into my friend Karen, and we had a good laugh over our matching dresses:



Then I went to work and discovered that just about EVERYONE is wearing stripes today:





Stripes--all the cool kids are wearing them!

Twinsies!

Mike and I accidentally dressed alike today:

A Father's Day brew

Fred is in Alabama this weekend for his mom's family reunion, but when he gets home, Mike and Annabelle have a treat for him:

Harvey looks down on us all

Annabelle rides the metro

Given that she didn't go to high school here, Annabelle doesn't have any high-school friends to get together with when she's home on break. Fortunately though, she does have some college friends who are either from the area or come through for a visit. She is also very independent though and doesn't mind striking out on her own for adventure. She has started a photo album on Facebook called "Annabelle Rides the Metro," and she said I could share some of her photos here.

Last month we all went to a park in Maryland to see one of her Rochester friends perform in a Latvian folk band:



A couple days later they got together to explore the city. They had a lot of fun, but unfortunately they got caught in quite a downpour:



Today another friend came through for a visit. They did some typical touristy sites:



They also found the grave of Grace Hopper:



They stopped at the Lincoln Memorial for a tourist selfie:

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!