Military Retirement Ceremony

I still can't believe that Joe is now retired. Ok, technically he's still on active duty, but he's on terminal leave until 1 Jan, when his retirement is official-official. But for the most part, he's retired after the ceremony! It hasn't quite sunk in yet, and probably won't for a little while, it'll just feel like he's on a long leave. I have more to post on that, but need to gather my thoughts.

It was a very nice ceremony and we were thankful our families could make it in from out of town.

One thing that made it even more special was my brother officiated the ceremony. It was so nice and memorable to have that family connection. Another memorable thing was at the end of the ceremony the Air Force Song played and everyone sang along - including my brother. What made it memorable (and something you don't see that often) is my brother is a Captain in the Army and there he was singing the Air Force Song along with everyone else. He did serve in the Air Force for almost 8 years, so it was cool that he remembered the lyrics and could join in. I don't think you'd find that many Army guys who could sing the Air Force Song.

One of Joe's many certificates

 I got a couple spouse certificates

His shadow box. 

Neat story about the flag is it was his grandfather's flag (retired Navy), and then it was supposed to fly on a mission to Afghanistan and long story short - the flag ended up going around the world.

I gave the kids silly string to surprise Joe with when he got home. They enjoyed that!