6/16 - Brad's ACSC Graduation Ball & Ceremony

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I finally got to wear a dress that I bought over a year ago to Brad's Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) graduation ball. I was glad that I didn't have to worry about finding a dress and jewelry but I must admit I was dreading going. I bought this dress a year ago when I was feeling much better and was not having medical conditions which prohibited me from exercising on a regular basis. That said, I felt like a stuffed sausage but at least it fit. :)

Brad has never had to wear this dress white uniform before. I got all the pieces he needed for it when I was in Jacksonville house hunting a few weeks ago. The only thing I didn't get is new medals; his medals are woefully not current but we can fix that when he can get all the stuff he needs when we move to Jacksonville again.

We actually had fun at the ball. We had good company at our table and the food was pretty good. We don't have many pictures because I couldn't take my camera. I didn't have anything to put my phone in except for a giant purse, diaper bag, or backpack. None of those things went with my outfit so I just left my phone in the van. Brad took his phone but his Droid Motorola takes not so great pictures.

Our ball was on Saturday night and Brad's parents drove in to town on Sunday evening. Graduation was Monday morning. There were about 480 graduates in Brad's school and we were in a 1,000 seat auditorium. The students were told they could have one guest. Haha. Needless to say, many people didn't have anyone come so we were okay with 4 people. There are lots of international students and many of them just traveled to the states by themselves since they were here for 11 months. There were also many other students who geo-bachelored it (came here without family). 

 I was super tired from a busy week before and caught a cold that was kicking in by Sunday night. I tried my best to stay awake during graduation.

The picture to the right is just a very small part of Brad's graduating class. You can't see him in this picture although he was actually quite easy to find among the almost 500 students since just about 30 of them were in the Navy white uniform (most of them are Air Force).

Here is Brad looking cute in Aiden's graduation cap. Thankfully they didn't cal out all the students by name (that would have taken forever). One representative from each service branch went up to the stage to accept the degrees for that branch. After the ceremony, they all went to their classrooms and picked up their diplomas. Brad did a great job this year. It was a challenge for all of us to find a balance between his work (school) and enjoying family time. The first semester was very rough and Brad spent most of his evenings reading. The second half of the year was much better and we actually got to interact with Brad in the evening and on the weekend :)  Brad sacrificed for us quite a bit. He decided it was more benefit to the family for him to be okay with getting a few B's and being able to spend time with his family rather than get all A's. That's sacrifice. It might not sound like it but Brad was very capable of getting all A's and settled for a few B's for us, his family.