Graduation, Part 2

It was a little confusing to me that they gave the guys their Airman's Coin and called them Airmen on Wednesday, and then had a "graduation" on Thursday. Bottom line, after Thursday, it was officially official: Airman Aiduk! We got to the base in the morning but because it was raining they had "in house" graduations at each squadron. (What they usually do is this huge parade with all the flights together. I guess it's pretty cool, but I wasn't disappointed to not have to worry about a baby in the hot sun. And Jesse wasn't disappointed to avoid doing drill in front of us...apparently his flight wasn't too skilled at marching together!) So we saw him and his sister flight graduate...it was a pretty quick ceremony, but so cool to see.

Our good friend Josh Peterson came all the way by himself to spend the weekend with us! (Josh is a recently commissioned Air Force officer...I wish I could tell you his actual title...lieutenant or something cool like that!) So now they're Air Force Buds :o) Shout out to Josh - Thanks man, for the time and money you took to come celebrate with us. It really meant a lot to us both. Thank you!

After the ceremony we got to go tour the guys' dorm. It was wierd seeing the place he's been sleeping all this time. The coolest part about being up there was that his MTI came up and introduced himself to us all and really surprised Jesse by all the compliments he gave. He was especially struck by Jesse's maturity and work ethic, praising him for working hard even behind the scenes in ways the other guys never noticed. And he said he was glad to have Jesse in his flight, and wished that he'd scored the extra three points he needed to get Honor Graduate, because he thought he deserved it. I was so proud of my man! :o) After that we got to take him off base and we got him pizza for dinner.

Friday we picked him up and had the WHOLE DAY with him! We went to Luly's Bakery and had their famous 3 lb cinnamon roll! It was the size of a small child and soooooo delicious!

Then we went to the Alamo...in the rain! :o) It wasn't too bad, though. It was really neat to see it in person. We got to walk all around the church and they had lots of neat information and guides explaining things. Interesting fact: there is a hotel a few blocks from the Alamo that is an odd shape...only 14 stories high but really wide. The construction plans were for the building to be much higher, but they realized after it began that the final building would cast an evening shadow on the Alamo, which is illegal in the city of San Antonio. It would be a huge sign of disrespect. So they changed the shape of the hotel! I thought that was cool.

We ate a yummy dinner at Joe's Crab Shack on the Riverwalk and then we had to take Jesse back to base before our car turned into a pumpkin...or he turned into dead meat...or before curfew! Always a sad thing!