We enjoyed a long weekend in Enid, Oklahoma with my brother Joe and his wife Megan, my parents, and several members of Megan's family. We celebrated Joe's graduation from UPT. He'll fly the A-10 starting some time next year.Ellie was a great road-tripper, mooing at cows and neighing at horses. She's convinced that the longhorned cattle she saw were rhinos, and who am I to argue? She also had a pretty good time staying up WAY past her bedtime at the graduation dinner.
Staying up late was worth the wait for cake.
She went down the big slide at the park many, many times...
... and proved that a grandpa will do anything for his only grandchild.
She made sure to show Grammy lots of love!
I had a lot of opportunities this weekend to think about my brother's accomplishments this weekend. He loved airplanes as a kid. He built models and knew all the names of all the military aircraft. Lots of kids love airplanes and dream of flying them. But he went out, got his degree, earned his commission in the Air Force, and graduated from pilot training. Part of me thinks, wow, that was a pretty short amount of time in which to learn everything he needs to know to fly an airplane all by himself. But mostly, I'm just so proud of him, for achieving what he set out to do, and I'm so thankful that my daughter has such a great example in her Uncle Joe.
