Hannah sports new eye wear!

Hannah is sporting some very cool new eye wear. She got them this week and so far has done well. She uses them primarily for reading.

Flashback to 1994

Back in 1994 JoAnna and I were married. JoAnna and I met on a blind date set up by our friends Jake and Kate, I worked with Jake and JoAnna worked with Kate. Needless to say, we hit it off and got married in November of '94. Our wedding included family and friends, some we are still in touch with and others we had lost touch with. JoAnna's Maid of Honor was Kate and her Husband Jake was one of my Groomsmen.

Their daughter was our flower girl and their sons were the ring bearers.

Well, we were going to church a couple of weeks ago and I headed into the choir room to get my music and this lady was in there that I had not met before. We exchanged greetings but didn't say a whole lot. I thought she looked familiar but just couldn't place it. I found out that she and her family had attended the church for years and were good friends with the pastor and his family but had moved to Florida. She, her daughter and mother were up visiting for a few days. I talked to Joanna in the church and she was looking at the bulletin and the lady's name was in there because she was singing with the choir and with the pastor. JoAnna looked at me and said surely it can't be the same person.

Well it was and we had just reconnected with friends that we had lost touch with about 12 years ago. We had a great time talking that Sunday and then one of the choir members had a going away party the next Saturday so we had another memory session.

Super Museum Sunday

It's been awhile since I have updated the Blog, we have been just a little busy but I have gotten to it and have some new things. Super Museum Sunday is when they open all the museums in Savannah for free and so we tend to head to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. They had a new addition this year of a B-17 Bomber that flown in the war and then fought fires and was decommissioned. The Mighty Eighth was able to get it from the Smithsonian where it was in storage. It is now in the process of being restored and will be named The Spirit of Savannah which was an actual B-17 that was a member of the Mighty 8th and was shot down on it's third mission in WWII.

Eric and Patrick

Hannah checking out the exhibits

Patrick and Hannah

Patrick

Oh No The Big 40 !!!!!!!!

JoAnna's Birthday is February 2 so we celebrated the weekend before. She knew there was a little get together planned but with Sheala's help we had a good sized get together. JoAnna's sister Jody and partner Beth drove down from NC and surprised her so JoAnna was excited.

We didn't want to push our luck with 40 individual candles so we opted to go with words. This way we knew she would be able to blow them all out.

The happy Birthday song!

Her 30th birthday that she mentioned at the end, if you remember, she made a comment about the center of the cake. So for her 30th, I ordered a cake with 30 red roses and it was supposed to have a chocolate pudding center. Well, I didn't pick up the cake, someone else did and brought it so when we opened the box, there was a beautiful white cake with 30 red roses and a blog of chocolate pudding on the center of the cake. It looked like a big pile of poo. It is a birthday we won't soon forget. One of our friends Celes was there for the 30th and was here for the 40th. It was great to see her again.

We ended up having a picnic on the family room floor. It was fun. Everyone was in a circle so we could all talk to each other.

Celes and JoAnna, catching up.

Elizabeth, Jeanne, Beth and Jody playing Boom Blocs on the Wii.

Patrick waiting his turn.

Inauguration Pictures

Here is a slide show of the pictures we took on the way to DC, while we were there and on the way home.

The Infamous Purple Ticket

As I started my count down to the Inauguration, many of you saw that we had received purple tickets. If you have seen on the news, searched YouTube, CNN iReport or just done a google search, you will see what we were doing and going through! Here are our pictures and video from the Purple Gate. I missed a great picture where everyone was holding up their purple tickets.

I am putting our whole story together to put up so that it can be read as a whole. Overall, it was an experience of a lifetime and we are glade we made the trip.

Inauguration Day!!

Well our journey to the Inauguration did not turn out as planned or as expected. While a bit disappointed, but what did happen was that we had an experience of a lifetime and we have a story of a lifetime.

We were there and we witnessed history!

We started the day at 4:00am. We headed to the New Carrollton Metro in Maryland where we got stuck on US 50 at the exit for about two hours. We then got in the station where we waited another two hours. The Metro was badly under utilized, because as people came up they stopped at the middle of the train. The ends of the trains were empty so we had seats.

We got to the Capital South stop and were directed behind the Capital to the purple gate. We arrived there at about 11:00am and it was just a mass of people. We talked to several people there and they had arrived at 6:00am and had been sent from gate to gate and was stuck in the third street tunnel under the mall for three hours. It was opened to pedestrians. Since we didn't have much time until the swearing in and so we decided to high tail it over to Congressman Kingston's office to watch from there. We got there and the door was closed so we were invited into the office of Congressman Chet Edwards from Texas. He let us watch the swearing in and the speech. We were able to see everyone and hear the crowd and the 21 gun salute from the windows.

Chet Edwards' Office

We spent some time in in Congress man's Kingston's office and then when we left, we ran into Congressman Edwards in the elevator. He took us down to the garage and helped us get out around all the crowds.

I wanted to get something up on the Blog but we will have more when we get home and I get more time. We are getting ready to hit the road.