Andrew's Graduation

I'm so proud of Andrew for earning his BS in Professional Aeronautics. He worked so hard and it was an honor to celebrate with him at the graduation ceremony held at The Museum of Flight. Before the ceremony, we were able to go through a little bit of the museum; including "boarding" a Concorde and Air Force One. Arlie wished the planes would actually take off, while that would have been a nightmarish situation for me. My heart was pounding hard just walking onto the Concorde (such tiny little windows)! I told Andrew I should probably go back every weekend and practice some aversion therapy. Heh.

Gig Harbor Street Scramble 2012

We participated in Gig Harbor's street scramble for the first time this year. The largest in North America, you're given a topographical map with numbered points on it. Each point is given a point value, along with a corresponding clue and question to verify you actually visited it. You could either go for 90 minutes or 3 hours. Because we're insane, we decided on the 3 hour version. At least it was a beautiful day for it:

Andrew and Arlie consult the map to make sure we were going the right way. After we climbed 80+ stairs. Carrying strollers. (We were.)

You know Gig Harbor is hilly, but you probably don't realize how hilly until your wife is wheezing up hill #20 behind you vowing to add some cardio to her workout repertoire.

Just for reference, we started this whole shebang at sea level.

After being a little sad that we didn't hit more points, we headed back to Skansie park with 1 minute 2 seconds to spare. Arlie made a rocket and both her and Andi had fun making it fly while we waited for them to tally the results.

To our surprise, we won 2nd place! Yay Team JA3!

All I can think when I see this photo is that Andi marches to the beat of her own drummer. Which is absolutely true and brilliantly captured here:

Yay some more! Totally worth the 2 broken strollers and aching feet!

The Award For The Best. . .

. . .After Nap Hair & Face goes to. . .Andi! Congratulations Andi!

Awards

I received a nice award from the Washington State Patrol, "District 1 Communications Officer of the Year". Since Chief Batiste works out of District 1 it was a pleasure to get the award from him, he's a pretty amazing leader of our organization and I enjoy working with him.

He was also gracious enough to stay after the ceremony and let us award recipients get some family photos.

I also had an official picture taken with Governor Christine Gregoire but didn't get one on my camera. Guess I'll have to wait and see how that turned out (crossing fingers I don't look idiotic). I had straightened the heck out of my hair but then it wouldn't stay in a very good bun - we're not allowed to have our hair touch our collar while in uniform. So. . . I'm not thrilled it looks so crazy in these pictures but at least it wasn't touching!

Awards Ceremony

I got a plaque from the Chief for excellence in dispatching for an incident I handled involving a pursuit and trooper-involved shooting. Lori next to me also received a plaque because she's freakin' awesome and took care of EVERYTHING so that all I had to concentrate on was dispatching. I have another picture where I'm actually posing with my plaque and the Chief but I look possessed. Cross your fingers the official State Patrol photographer got a good one because awards like this don't happen very often.

P.S. Does that uniform accentuate that I have the shortest waist humanly possible or what?!