Yeah!!!

The ball is over!!! Next week my life returns to normal and I can go back to having two hour lunches and I can go home as early as I want - yeah!!! Friday was a little chaotic and stressful, but it went. Here's the play by play:

In the morning I got up with Kurt and his dad and went out to the golf course. The guy running the tournament really didn't need my help, but since I was there, I volunteered to sit at the registration table and take people's money (I'm pretty good at that). I was originally going to play golf, but decided I'd better not and gave my ticket to our friend Mike who had a good time. Instead, I went to work and made sure that everything was on track for the ball.

When I got to work the ladies were printing the last posters and programs and the Master Sergeant was gathering the detail that was going to help with the setup. Everything seemed to be going fine, so I left for the hotel. When I got there the tables were in their correct places, but there was only one guy putting everything else together - no chairs or tablecloths or anything like that. We started putting our flags up and getting everything we could arranged. By noon, we were done and waiting on the hotel staff (who decided to take a two hour lunch break), the emcee who was still golfing and all the rest of the people participating. They all came, slowly, but never at the same time. The color guard practiced by themselves, the emcee ran through everything by herself, the COL came after she left and made changes to her script and the audiovisual guys were having serious issues. That was the stressful part, but it all came together right around 5:45pm, 15 minutes before people were scheduled to arrive. It was a good thing I brought my outfit to the hotel and was able to just change there. The room looked great, but we never had a chance to rehearse the evening (which would be apparent later).

People started to arrive around 6:00-6:15 and we were supposed to have a receiving line, which is a stupid thing where where everyone gets to go shake the host and General's hands and maybe have time to say hello. No one likes doing it and we actually voted not to have a receiving line, but the COL decided he wanted one, and that was that. It was a complete bust, and no one went down to the room where the receiving line was and they (the General included) just ended up standing there. I really wanted to say 'I told you so' to the COL. But no big deal, they just closed the line early and everyone mingled. Everyone seemed to be doing fine. Except for starting a bit late, everything was going fine. The first mistake was on the part of the emcee (an Officer who no one is really fond of to begin with). She decided not to look at her script and told everyone to take their seats right before the toasts, so after we were seated, we had to stand back up again - a small thing. After all the toasts were finished, next was a video presentation and the emcee did a horrible job of getting everyone's attention. She just wasn't loud and didn't have a voice that carried well. Once the video started, everyone quieted down and watched, until the sound went out. The AV guys scrambled and were able to get it going after about 30 seconds, but it felt like a long 30 seconds. They also had to mess with the sound board to get it to sound right (which comes in later). After that there were a few announcements that no one heard, because again the emcee just kind of sucked, and then dinner. I was smart in putting my table in the back with all the funny people who had no manners (we had a great time), but was not smart in forgetting to tell the hotel that we should be served first. Dinner took forever but the food was actually pretty decent. The emcee made up some time by talking fast through the history of the aviation branch and then got to the cake cutting ceremony. They did the cake cutting and she asked everyone to remain standing for the singing of the Aviation Song. This is where I went "oh sh*t". I forgot all about the background music for the song. I mean, I asked someone else to get it for me, but I didn't ask him what he did with it or how we were going to play it. With everyone standing there waiting for the music to start, I ran up to the front and told the emcee that we would have to sing without music. It is an awful song to sing and even more awful without music. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but still I was quite embarrassed. I was lucky that our Command Sergeant Major didn't make it to the ball, he would have killed me. After the cake, there was a short break before the entertainment. They started off singing "Sweet Home Alabama" which sounded awful since we had messed with their mixing board during our video presentation, but they worked it out. The rest of the night went okay, the General was mildly entertaining and didn't talk for too long. For the end of the night, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice and had arranged with the DJ to play the background music for the Army song. Unfortunately, the emcee decided to wonder off script again, and the DJ's cue to play the music got messed up and everyone stood there for an awkward few seconds until I was able to get his attention and get the music going. After the ball ended I snuck off to a back room and just relaxed while waiting for the ballroom to clear out. I didn't want to hear any remarks about the night, good or bad, from anyone. Plus, my feet were killing me and I need to get off them (it's taken two days now for my poor feet to recover). Overall, I had a great time and I think most of the Soldiers did too. The glitches that we had were pretty obvious, but all minor except the singing of the song without music. I realize now that if we had even one full dress rehearsal, none of those things probably would have happened, but it would have taken a lot more work on my part to get everything coordinated for a rehearsal. A fair trade-off I think. Now all that's left to do is print out thank yous and hand off the continuity book to someone else. I'm definitely ready for maternity leave :)

Almost forgot...

Happy Earth / Birthday Misty!!! (at least I think you're birthday was yesterday/today:)

Crazy Week

So, I got out of planning Kurt's and my wedding by sneaking off to Iraq, but now it's coming back to bite me in the butt. Instead of planning a wedding for 50 people with a million magazines that tell you exactly what to do, I'm planning a Ball for 500 people with very little help. The event is costing around $20,000, so there's a lot on the line (thank goodness I wasn't the one who signed the contract). The ball is this Friday and we're scrambling to get all the last minute stuff done (like programs, seating charts, collecting $, coordinating with the band and entertainment, etc.). So I'm not really ignoring this blog, I'm just crazy busy. I actually worked until 6pm yesterday which is a first for me. I'll write more once this whole thing is over. Wish me luck!

Pictures

Okay, so these aren't the greatest. I don't actually look as big as I really am when I'm in uniform, but you'll get the idea.

First, my cool maternity pants. The green on the front is all stretchy.

I may not look huge, but I am. The elastic band in the maternity pants actually broke.

An old picture just to compare

NEW BLOG!!!!

I admit, two weeks is a bit long for me not to blog, but I can come up with lots of excuses - nothing to blog about, having too much fun on spring break, I was tired, etc. Weak, I know. So here's the latest... I'm pregnant. Yes, I know everyone is aware, but now I actually FEEL pregnant. Before now I felt like myself in a bigger pair of pants, but now I feel huge, tired, cranky, hungry and I get uncomfortable easily. It used to be really cute/exciting when Jonathan kicked but now I yell at him and tell him to get his feet away from my rib cage and to stop punching my bladder, very not cool. Still, no real complications. The doc tells me I'm healthy and I really have no big complaints. Only one month to go - yeah!

Moving on... I'm trying really hard to remember what I've done over the past two weeks. April 1st was pretty fun with Micaela, she just loved playing stupid April fools jokes, "I lost my breakfast!" or "there's a spider in your hair" type stuff. It was pretty cute. That next Thursday the Weavers came down to visit and take her back up to PA for Spring Break. During their visit we made our first trip to Baby's R Us (can you believe it's took us that long?) and Kurt's parents kindly bought us a new carseat, the one necessary item that we didn't have. They left on Saturday so that Kurt and I could enjoy some of the weekend together. So what did we do with our first day to ourselves - we cleaned the house from top to bottom. It took all of Sunday, but the house looked great, a good way to start the week. I had to work on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and half of Friday because the Aviation Ball that I'm in charge of planning is getting close and I had some work to do on it. My boss was out of town all last week though, so I took super long lunches and left early just about every day. On Wednesday I took off work and we spent the day with our neighbors who cooked a big breakfast and then we all went to see the Leatherheads matinee. I thought it was a good, it was worth $6 just to see George Clooney. We took a short break afterwards and then met up again in the evening for a round of minigolf. I thought I was kicking butt, but I ended up getting 3rd out of 5 of us. It was a fun day. Meanwhile, Micaela was having a great time in PA playing with her cousin Nicholas. I guess they were outside a lot, playing in the woods, on the tree swing, fishing, and all that other good PA stuff - next they'll have her hunting :) Life is now back to normal, except that Kurt is leaving tomorrow to spend the week up in PA flying followed by drill this weekend. After that, and after the Aviation Ball is over, it's just a matter of time until I'm done here and we get some time off to relax - we can't wait.

Oh yeah, last weekend we went and got a Costco membership and did a mom-size shop (about $500 in groceries, no kidding). I'm definitely a subscriber to www.livingonjunkfood.com. Did you know that you can buy M&Ms in 5 lb bags! And you should see the amounts of cheese they sell... I like cheese.

I don't have any gigantic Liz pictures, but I've received multiple requests, so I'll try to get one posted tomorrow. Adios!