The Boy's Piano Recital

Yesterday was a big day for the boys. They had their first piano recital, and they each did great! It is hard to believe that just 9 months ago they had never seen a piece of sheet music, and yesterday they were up performing! We are so proud of both of them. My favorite things about this video are:
1. Tyler is so shy about announcing his songs - I missed half of it! - and he is back in his seat within seconds of finishing his second song.
2. Tyler is bouncing up and down during the first song, while he is trying to keep the beat. This is what we did at home to practice, and it was cute to see him doing it during the recital.
3. Spencer loves the applause, but doesn't want to appear to love it. So he does his embarrassed-trying-not-to-smile face after both sets of applause. I'm so glad we have that face on film! I love it.
4. Spencer's cool hand and foot work during his second song. He has worked so hard on perfecting that song, and he asked his teacher if he could use the pedal during the exciting parts. I was just plain impressed!
Way to go, my studly boys!!!
(The boys and their teacher)

Our walking girl!

Little Ruby has made the plunge. It has been well over a month since she has been "able" to walk on her own, but she has really resisted making walking her primary form of getting around. I think it had almost become a game to her - refusing to walk - as you can see in this video. We would stand her up to have her walk back and forth between us, and she would squat to the floor, laugh, and then crawl instead. Little stinker. But as of last week, she decided that walking was pretty fun and that she would just start doing it. And she is the cutest little thing ever!!!

Only in the Guard...

Last weekend was the first B-course class graduation that we have been here in San Antonio for. It's always fun to get dressed up, go to a nice place downtown, and enjoy a fun night out with our squadron friends. And this night was no exception. But only in the Guard are antics like the pictures below demonstrate acceptable for a formal event like this. Here's the background: our unit here has a pretty wide range of ages, with several up there in years. We are just about the youngest ones in the squadron...and we're no spring chickens! So anyway, the "Silverbacks" - as the older, graying pilots are known - decided to have some fun and dye their hair for graduation. A pretty funny little joke, since hair color is not very well tolerated in the fighter community. So the youngsters of the squadron (the Majors here evidently have to fill the role of the Lieutenants) thought they'd one up them and all dye their hair silver! As you can see from the pictures, we're talking shimmering silver. Bryan was the first one to get the spray job down outside the hotel, and so they went a little overboard on his hair. It was all fun and games until he started realizing that he'd be meeting a WWII flying ace with spray painted hair, would be giving out the Top Graduate award during the ceremony, and then (unbeknownst to him) he would be awarded the Top Instructor Pilot award from the students. Look at that glowing hair up there!! It's a fuzzy picture, but I had to include it just to show the glowing silver hair atop his head. At least I know what to look forward to in another 20 years!

At least we got a "before" picture taken before we left!

Our visitors from Germany

This past week we had the very fun opportunity to host our friends (and landlord!) from Germany, Maria and Eschi, as they visited us in Texas. This was Maria's first time to the United States (first time on an airplane too) and we had a great time with them here. We took them to the Riverwalk downtown, took them out for Mexican food, and also made a special trip to Super Walmart. I know that seems like a strange thing to take visitors to see, but there is no such store in Germany (or Europe for that matter). They couldn't believe the sheer enormity of it! One thing that was pretty funny was that they had never heard of a garbage disposal and frankly couldn't see the point. I explained that this one small feature to the American sink was one of the most highly missed things while living in Europe. We were so happy to finally have one again after 5 years of living overseas!! They were not impressed. :) On their last night here, Maria and Eschi made us a delicious German meal of Schnitzel, saurkraut, and croquets. It was wonderful! Then we taught them the art of making the perfect Smore out in our backyard. Although in general they find that American desserts are way too sweet for them, they really liked the smores and plan to make them at their next BBQ in Germany. We had a great time with them here, the kids enjoyed seeing them again, and it brought back a lot of wonderful memories of our time in Germany. Thanks Maria and Eschi!!