Bryan's week

Bryan's birthday this year happened to coincide with his promotion to Lt. Colonel, which made for a very eventful couple of days!  We first celebrated Bryan's birthday, starting off with a dinner of pork loin with cranberry relish.  It was pretty tasty!  He opted for Texas Sheetcake for his cake this year, since we had to go fairly low-key (due to the fact that we were smoking 6 pork roasts and baking 100 cookies for his promotion the following day!).  The kids each gifted their dad with various homemade cards and random toys and candy, and Tyler spent $8 of his own money to buy him a flashlight (since the boys have officially lost at least 3 of Bryan's flashlights).  It was very sweet of Ty.  Now on to Bryan's promotion!  We've been waiting months for this to go through!  There was a paperwork error which delayed things by several months, which made me (and my bank account) very grumpy.  But it finally happened!  The ceremony was very nice, and timing worked out so that Scott and Catherine happened to be in town and could attend.  So that was cool.  As I mentioned, we decided to cook the food ourselves, rather than cater the little reception afterward, and it turned out really nice.  We did pulled pork sandwiches, homemade coleslaw, chips, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and bottled root beer.  We took the kids out of school a little early and headed down!  Woo hoo, Bry!!!