What you've all been waiting for!

First of all, I can't believe it's been three weeks since I updated this blog. My apologies!

Okay, now for the main event - what transpired this last weekend.
It started with me leaving for Austin on Thursday, and my kids staying with my parents. They were to drive down and meet me Friday morning for the ceremony; I was going to do some shopping in Austin and then meet up with Erich for a condensed version of Family Night at the academy and dinner afterwards.
That all went as planned, and we had a wonderful evening. I got to meet several more of his instructors, who were very nice (and I have a hard time imagining them yelling at the recruits the way Erich described) and welcoming.

Friday was when it got really fun, though. I got there early, but about half the families were already there. We stood in the lobby of this huuuuuge church (Shoreline Christian Center - it has a STARBUCKS in the lobby, and that's all I'm going to say about THAT) for 45 minutes until they opened the doors and let us into the auditorium. At one point before they opened the doors, the recruits all came marching out in neat rows - they'd been in practicing more of the marching and various things they were going to do. They looked rather startled to see us all massed in front of them, but kept in step despite the cheering and yelling that each family did as their particular recruit went by. (I was by myself, so no, I didn't bother yelling for Erich - he couldn't hear me anyway.)

Mum and Dad got there 5 minutes before the ceremony and we got all settled in, each with a child on our lap. I had managed to get seats directly across the aisle from where Erich was going to be sitting, so had an excellent vantage point for taking pictures of him, although not as good for getting pictures of what was happening on the stage, which looked like this:

They had two huge projector screens with the DPS logo displayed until the start of the proceedings.

From my seat, watching the west half of the auditorium getting themselves seated. The empty row right in front was earmarked for the recruits.

C Class and D Class waiting at the entrance of the auditorium to march down the aisles and take their seats. A very impressive happening that I didn't take a picture of, because according to Erich, over-zealous family members have gotten pictures of their recruits marching in, and the resulting flashes have blinded the poor recruits and caused them to stumble and sometimes even fall. Ack! So I was good and didn't use my camera for that part. Wouldn't want to be responsible for an 80 recruit pile-up, after all.

Standing at attention (can you spot Erich?) after filing in, ready to be seated.


And sitting down waiting for proceedings to get underway. I love the rows of hats.

Here's Erich ready to march up and receive his commission. I love this picture - it's one of the best I got, and it was completely on the fly. I got it literally over my right shoulder with my left hand while catching Sophie with the other hand as she hurled herself towards the floor yet again (poor kid was bored out of her little blond head, but really was very good and didn't make a lot of noise).

Receiving his commission. The cowboy hat in the foreground is the next recruit on the steps, waiting his turn.

Shaking Governor Perry's hand after receiving his commission.


And marching back to his seat. Another picture I love. I have such a handsome, ship-shape, squared away husband!

This is Nick Castle, the president of Erich's class (D) and the one who was neck-and-neck with him all through the academy for first place academically. Erich beat him out just barely at the very end. Castle is a great guy and I'm sorry he and his wife are going to east Texas because I'd like to get to know them better. (He's on the far left.)

These are Erich's instructors. From the smiles on their faces, you wouldn't believe them capable of dressing down recruits at the tops of their lungs, would you? The guy on the front row, far right, is Sergeant Tullos - he is absolutely hilarious. Very dry sense of humor, subtle wit, and had me rolling every time he opened his mouth. Sergeant Garza is next to him, back row right is Corporal Cauley (very nice guy, said some really great things about Erich to me, and sorry that you can't actually SEE him here), and Corporal Johnson.
This is Mickley, a fellow recruit of Erich's that I really like. His wife and I have been emailing, and he's really funny. There's a picture of him and Erich back from the academy Family Day if you feel like going through the archives. Again, sorry this one's so hard to see!

Governor Rick Perry addressing the masses. If lightning won't strike me for saying so, the man talked for waaaay too long, and committed the unpardonable (in my book) sin of not even being a very good speaker. Forget the kids - I was squirming in my seat!

(Yawn.)

Travis, Erich's friend and carpool buddy through the early months of academy. (Another) really great guy!

Deet and my mother (my FIL right beside her) during the ceremony. I made Deet a miniature trooper's uniform, and he got SO many compliments on it! I couldn't quite match the color, but I got as close as I could. It even has miniature trooper patches on the shoulders, and a tiny badge!


Erich's not proud of his son or anything.


Erich, his dad Franke and Deet. Three generations! We were all so glad Franke came down for the ceremony - it meant a lot to Erich to have him there.

This is Erich and his bunkmate and one of his closest friends, Nixon. (Sorry, in most cases I only KNOW their last names!) This guy is who I heard the most about, and according to him, it went the other way too. Not sure if I should be worried or not... (but he's [yet another] really nice guy)

And my beloved holding his new credentials and bursting with pride. I love this picture.

No pictures of the girls because they were so busy running around and I had my hands full of babies, but I do have some of them in their dresses at the farm. Gabby had blue, Zoe had lavender, and Sophie had a pink dress - all with an identical green sash. Each had subtle differences, but all were flowy and the girls loved them. This is their very favorite Uncle Gabe, my closest sibling in age and my best friend growing up. Oh, and that's Gunnar, our beautiful (but rather dim) German Shepherd.



Well, I think that's all I've got! I wish I had more pictures, but I had my hands so full of babies and other stuff that I just couldn't get as many as I'd wanted. I think I captured the highlights, though, and I'm really happy with how the day went. After the ceremony, Erich, his dad, my dad, Gabby and I all went out to eat while my mother took the other three kids home. (She deserves a medal, by the way - not only for taking such wonderful care of my offspring, but also for not once complaining about all the extra work I caused her.)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! :o)

And now for something completely different!

He's still not walking. Why should he? He's an incredibly fast crawler, and if all else fails, he can always bat those baby blues and someone is bound to pick him up and take him where he wants to go.

He adores his Uncle Gabe!

Wuv. Twoo wuv.

My mother and I were talking about this the other day, and I wanted to get my thoughts out and in a somewhat orderly fashion.
People say they love each other all the time. They say they'd die for a person. They vow unending devotion, swear affection forever, say the bloom will never be off the rose. People are always coming up with prettier ways to show others that they care.
This, while certainly not a bad thing, is, in its own way, a bad thing. People give lip-service to the emotion and they feel they don't have to do anything else about it. "Hey, I TOLD you I loved you! Isn't that enough?" They couldn't be more wrong.

Love is not words. Love is actions. Love is dying to oneself daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes minutely, to help another person. Love is giving up what you want so that another might benefit. Love is making a meal when you are so tired you just want to lie down and sleep for a week, picking things up and putting them away so your husband sees a clean house when he comes home even though it feels like that's all you've been doing all day and nothing seems to help, changing a child's diaper even though it's the eleventy-billionth time that day that he's pooped and you're sick of it. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Deet.)

Love is showing the person you care for how you feel through your own self-sacrifice. It's easy to make sweeping declarations of love. It's not nearly as easy to live that feeling, to smile when you're tired and cranky and don't feel like smiling, darn it. To drop what you're doing, what YOU want to do, and take a family member from pillar to post, spending time, effort and untold amounts of money, just so they can have experiences and learn and laugh and expand their horizons. It's being in the front row of the recital hall while your child laboriously picks out "Red River Valley" on the piano and enjoying it, despite having heard that incredibly obnoxious song so many times over the past few weeks that mentally you're pulling your hair out and you've worn the enamel off your teeth from gritting them so much. It's learning all you can about a given subject because someone you care for is interested in it, or at the very least it's listening when they wax rhapsodic about it, nodding in the right places, asking questions at the right times, even if secretly you're so bored your eyes are crossing.

Love is hard work. It's not easy, not something you can play at for a few days and then decide you're done with when you've grown tired of it. Love requires commitment, dedication, and faith. And I believe that it is not something we can do in our own strength. I believe that God, our Divine Creator and the One who loved US all so much in the very beginning, is the wellspring of our own overflowing affection for one another. It is only through Him that we can truly die to our own selfish natures and give to our loved ones what they need (and deserve) from us.

I hope that no one reading this will think that I am a hypocrite for saying all this when I know all too well how lacking I am myself in so many areas. It doesn't make this any less true for me, despite knowing how much I need to improve upon. Maybe it makes it more true, because it reminds me of what I'm striving for, what I'm trying to give my children.

There are some in my family that I feel badly need to learn this lesson. It's not my place to teach them, but if anyone takes anything away from what I've said here, let it be this: Love is not something you do for yourself, to make yourself feel better. It's what you do for others, to help them set their feet upon the path, no matter the cost or benefit to yourself.

And for no other reason than because I love him, here's my blue-eyed boy. I have a bunch of pictures of him from today and yesterday, but I haven't downloaded them yet. Enjoy this one for now, and I promise that my next post will be much lighter and happier in tone. :o)

Sophie-central again!

Loving her frowsy big sister!

Have I said it already today? I LOVE my new camera!

She's a real hat lover now!

Poor baby jailbird...

I could never get such a clear close-up shot like this with my old camera.

Playing peek-a-boo

It's Deet's turn next.

Pitty-pat

That's what my heart does when I see this man.

MY graduation gift!

I should first say that I have the best husband in the world. Yep. Best one ever.

Why? Well, too many reasons to list, but today he bought me a digital camera. A camera leaps and bounds better than our old one, which, after four years of faithful service, is finally sounding its death rattle. (It will have a burial with full honors, don't worry.)
He said it was his thank-you gift to me for supporting him through academy. :o)

Anyway, I'm ridiculously excited because I now have a camera I can take GOOD pictures with, that really takes professional shots. I've wanted to get more serious about my photography for awhile, but it just hasn't been feasible until now. This camera isn't a digital SLR (my dream camera), but it'll stand in nicely until I can get one.

So three cheers for Erich!

And while you're cheering, enjoy the pictures I took today.

It takes pictures through the screen of the playpen, which our old camera wasn't even close to capable of doing. And I love the timing of this picture.

The very first picture of Turkish where you can see that he has blue eyes, not red!

We went out to the playground and spent an hour.

She's inspecting a bug here. She didn't want to slide until she knew exactly what KIND of bug it was.

And my favorite picture of Gabby today - it just makes me smile all over when I look at this.