Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame

My dad is now a member. The induction ceremony yesterday was lovely. There were over 500 people in attendance for 19 new inductees.

These are some of the photo highlights from the day.

Me and my dad

My dad and mom

Kendra and Nathan
Nick is out to sea right now. Last we heard he was off the coast of Brazil. I think we should photo shop him in and then this would be a great family picture.
The ceremony lasted 2 1/2 hours (including lunch). Spencer did a FABULOUS job. He never cried or complained or got whiny. We brought lots of books for him to read and lots of snacks to eat. Food and books- not a bad combo for happiness.
My dad with his entourage. They all drove to Phoenix from Tucson. Good friends.
My uncle Terry and aunt Karen. My uncle had eye surgery last week.
Nathan and my aunt Janis

Girl, my dad and mom

The 4 generations. I think Spencer is allergic to looking at the camera.

Lois and Jerry

My dad getting his medal from Governor Jan Brewer.

My dad and Jan (will I be arrested for referring to the Governor as "Jan"?) have known each other for a long, long time. My dad served 4 terms in the Arizona House of Representatives. She was elected right after he left. He continued to do a lot of lobbying though, so they have done a lot of legislative work together. We were joking that as she put the medal on him she whispered in his ear, "Hey Larry, I'm the Governor, what have you done with your life?"

Spencer clapped for every person.

After the ceremony Spencer and I rushed home and I got him down for a nap. Then everyone came over and we had a champage toast.

Later that night my mom and dad, Nathan and Kendra and me, Spencer and Michael went out for ice cream. No pictures though. Too busy eating. I got peppermint candy cane. The holidays are here!

Flashback Friday

Spencer's 1st Halloween

2007

He was 7 weeks old. 7 week old babies don't do much in terms of celebrating pagan holidays. He did look cute in his little jack-o-lantern jammies and pumpkin hat though.

It was Ginger's 1st Halloween with us too. She was just getting over a double ear infection (that was lovely for me to handle with a newborn) and was feeling a little pissy when I took this picture.
Spencer's 2nd Halloween
2008

A 1-year old has cause to celebrate on Halloween. Although Spencer didn't eat any candy that day there were lots of cool activities.

We took lots of pictures with the jack-o-lanterns that Daddy stayed up until all hours of the night carving.
Then we went to Frank School to visit the kids I used to work with. We saw Maryellen too.

Then we had lunch with Megan at Applebees. Can you tell that Spencer's pants had been removed at this point? It was too hot for pants by noon. Sheesh. Phoenix.

Amy gave us this costume while I was still pregnant. Spencer makes a convincing Scooby Doo.

Ginger was a pumpkin fairy.

We went to a little festival/carnival.

And went trick-or-treating at 1 house (our neighbors). That candy on the floor was the only candy Spencer got. His parents ate it. I have a feeling this year will be different.

I spent an ungodly amount of time this past week trying to figure out how to make my blog update on other people's blog lists. Here's the scoop. Bloggers all over the world have been having the same problem since last December. It has been widespread since March. Blogger has never officially made a statement about what the problem is or how to fix it. Computer programers who know about such things have said that it is the result of a weak code and blogger doesn't want to talk about it because they don't know how to correct it.

It is only slightly comforting that I'm not the only one affected. But, I feel lame that it looks like my blog is never updating when none of my friends are affected.

Until blogger gets their act together and figures this thing out, just check my blog often. Don't believe the feed. It lies.

My Dad

My dad. You know and love him from funny stories such as, "the crab salad" and "the Martha Stewart addict". This is an old (last Christmas) and not really good picture. I'm too lazy to scan anything or go searching for a good picture right now and this one was easy to find.

Anyway. We are so proud of my dad. He is being inducted into the Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame tomorrow. The Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame is sponsored by Unified Arizona Veterans and supported by the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services and the Arizona Veterans’ Hall of Fame Society, with recognition by the Office of the Governor. It annually recognizes and honors Arizona veterans who have honorably served their country through military service and who have continued to serve and inspire their fellow man with deeds and accomplishments throughout their lifetime.

Since its inception in 2001, 184 Arizona veterans from all professions and branches of the service have been inducted to the Hall. 106 recipients are living today including five Medal of Honor Recipients.

We are all going to the ceremony tomorrow. My dad is bringing a small entourage from Tucson with him. The Governor will be there. It will be a proud moment in my dad's long and illustrious list of accomplishments.

Scaredy Cat

Over the weekend I realized that something about the living room just wasn't working. I decided to move some funiture around in order to fix it. I basically just switched the King Chair with the loveseat and then angled the King Chair to face the TV.

This is before.

This is after.

You can't really tell in the picture, but it made a huge difference. Job well done.

While moving the funiture I accidentally bumped the carbon monoxide detector and it beeped. Ginger is afraid of anything that beeps. She crawls up from the end of the bed to cuddle with me when my alarm goes off in the morning. She goes in for 10 sessions of psycho-therapy when the smoke detector beeps to indicate low battery. She attempts suicide when the smoke detector actually goes off.

Unfortunately I hit the monitor twice, so she was beside herself with panic. What a chicken. Her solution to the beeping mania was to crawl into Michael's lap. This is Michael's "I'm not amused by the dog on my lap or my wife taking pictures" look. It took her quite a long time to recover.
No post on "A Beagle and A Baby" would be complete without the baby.

Spencer, looking like a bobble-head. And like a prisoner in standard issue prison stripes.

If you look closely you will see that I cut the feet off his jammies. That boy just doesn't go for the footy pajamas.

The Fair and The Party

Here it is, right in your face. 50% of the reason we went to the State Fair. Jumbo corn-dog. It was lip-smacking good.

Oh, who are we kidding? Corn dogs are 90% of the reason we went to the fair. It's inevitable that you'll get a little mustard on your face when eating a corn dog.

You'll also get a little powdered sugar on your face when you eat some funnel cake. It'll get on your shirt too. And your pants. And on your stroller. And there will be a little bit in your hair. It's good eatin' though, so no worries.

Spencer LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the animals. We let him out of the stroller and he ran from cage to cage petting them. The KKK must be hard up for members. They're letting sheep join.

The petting zoo was a lot of fun. Spencer made contact with every animal in there. He was very gentle too. He must remember our daily reminders that Ginger doesn't like being smacked around or having her tail pulled.

This llama gave me the stink eye. I was as nervous as can be that Spencer was going to get kicked to Timbuktu. Oh. My. God. How cute is this newborn pig? I actually don't know that it's a newborn. It could be a midget 12 year old. But he was awfully tiny.

These pigs were sleeping peacefully and then some nasty lady dug them out of the hay to get a better picture. Rude. Hey nasty lady, how would you like it if I came to your house at 3 am and pulled you out from under the covers and started flashing my camera at you?

The cow licked Spencer's hand right after this picture. He screeched with delight. It was the best moment of, well, just about ever. Not such a big fan of cotton candy. I wanted to get something deep fried for dessert. I wasn't sure what. I decided on this: A deep fried Reese's Whipped Bar.
I was a little scared of it at first. Then I bit in. Heaven on earth. Really. Spencer and Michael shared a sno cone. It put our food bill at $50 for the night. After the fair we headed over to Joshua and Amy's for their annual Halloween party. I didn't get many pictures.

This is Joshua. He had a magic sword. We didn't decide to go to the party until that day. We needed quick, free costumes. We went as "the family in pajamas". Just chillin' in jammies. Isn't this the best costume ever. Shireen is 8 months pregnant. They came up with this idea, I think, as soon as she got the positive test. The original. Weekend activitites of the near future:

Halloween Night and then the zoo with Chelesa and her kids

Fall Spectacular dinner with Maryellen and John

My mom's 60th birthday party

(P.S. I did some research about fixing my blog feed on my friends blogs to make sure it updates. The solution for a lot of people having the same problem was to add yourself to the list of blogs you follow. I did it. It worked for awhile. We'll see if it's a permanent solution. I didn't want yout to think I was conceited for adding my own blog!)