Baby Benjamin!

We got a new little puppy this weekend!!! Ok, so that was the biggest news of the weekend, but that was just Sunday. I drove down to Seattle Thursday night just in time for a farewell BBQ for Aaron on our roof deck. He cooked up some delicious wings and we all hung out by the fire enjoying Aaron's last night in Seattle. Friday morning I headed over the water to the Kitsap Navy base for an Officers' meeting. We got to take a tour of the submarine training facility including playing in a full sized simulator of the control room. It was pretty awesome. At the end of the day I finally got to have my little promotion ceremony! I officially got promoted about a month ago, but I had to wait to do the oath and paperwork with the CAPT. Now it's really official. Good thing I at least got my raise a month ago. Now I'm a Lieutenant Junior Grade :)

[Me Re-affirming my Oath]

Saturday night we got to do a little celebrating in honor of being promoted. There were actually several people who got promoted this summer, so 4 of us threw a combined celebration at a billiard in Seattle. The Navy tradition for promotions is called a 'wetting down' were the person getting promoted gets to use their first paycheck increase to throw a party for everyone else...goodie. At least there were 4 of us throwing our monies in so it could be a pretty decent party with all our colleagues. Also part of the 'wetting down' tradition is to get wet down...so towards the end of the night we each got a little surprise in the form of a glass of ice water being poured on our heads. Somehow they coordinated a sneak attack on all 4 of us at the same time. Well done fellow officers.

Sunday was the big day! We had been looking for Boxer puppies and found this little guy online and knew he was the one. Too bad he was also all the way down in Portland, so we had a nice little drive to get excited. We picked him up, hit up the Petco on the way home, and had a few hours to play at night before bed time. So far he's doing really well and only whines a little bit when he gets in his crate. Yay for little Benjamin!

When we got home Tara was eagerly awaiting us and was in for a little surprise. I think right now she's just wierded out by how small he is. She'll put him in his place if he starts acting up, otherwise she just ignored him. Hopefully when he gets a little bigger she'll pretend to play with him every once in a while!