Dining Out Pictures

Last night we attended the battalion Dining Out and Farewell to our Commander. It was a nice evening, but the events leading up to it were stressful. LT had to emcee the whole event and was on the planning committee so doing that along with commading a battery and still having the responsibilities of being the XO were a bit much! Then there was a little bit of a fiasco with giving the Commander's wife a gift that somehow became my worry and my financial woe! All that on top of mothering 2 little boys and trying to make sure VBS happens in a week. Things aren't going to be pretty at our house for a few weeks. July 1st can't get here soon enough! July is going to be my down month and I'm really looking forward to it.

Without further ado, here are pictures from the dining out. I have a new camera on its way compliments of my mother that will hopefully help me out with taking good pictures in low light. My current camera is worthless in these situations no matter what setting I put it on! Hopefully the next time I go to one of these things my pictures will be much better and well lit.

The festivities began with the making of the Artillery punch. It's a concoction of various liquids - tequila, champagne, red wine, beer, etc. and a little sugar. Each thing added to the punch holds some symbolic significance as it relates to Air Defense. Those brave enough to drink the punch lined up and took their swig. No thank you! This is a picture of the Commander getting ready to taste the first glass.

I like going to these things not so much because I get to dress up, but because I like seeing LT in his Dress Blues. He's a handsome young Lt. Since he was the emcee, I sat most of the night by myself.

One of the battery commanders got married a few weeks ago and had a mariachi band at his wedding. The Battalion commander told another Lt that he thought it would be neat to have a mariachi band at the Dining Out and here they are! They played and sang for about 30 minutes.

Each Battery presents the Commander with a gift. Most were plaques or wall hanging kinds of things. One Battery got him an autographed football by Chicago Bear Gale Sayers. LT's Battery got him a corvette laptop bag that actually closes with GM Corvette seatbelt connectors. It was a pretty neat bag except that the embroidering company misspelled the Col's name. It's fixable, though.

These are some of the women I've gotten to know as part of this Battalion. The woman in the center is the Col's wife. I'm actually the only person in this picture besides the Col's wife that is still part of the Battalion. The others' husbands have moved out of the Battalion to other positions.