Air Force Ball recap

I received a very desperate-sounding comment from (I think) my mom and sisters in Vienna to post more about the Air Force Ball. And I wouldn't want to disappoint my fans. ;) 

I did indeed spend way too long trying millions of different things with my hair, but I was fairly satisfied with the results in that it was out of my face, elegant I guess, and stayed put all night (until I got home and found a bobby pin down the back of my dress.) 

Phillip took a few photos of my in our yard before we left for the ball. And at the ball? No. I am married to a photographer with a million photographer and PR friends and as far as I know none of them took a picture of either of us, much less both of us together. We did, after all, do a photo shoot with his work friends at the "professional" booth set up to take couples shots (like at prom). I use the term professional loosely because the shots are terrible. They spent a lot of time setting up a backdrop and then managed to get the wall in every shot? But if you really want to see them, you can go here or to my Facebook page. I'm grateful that there is at least one shot of Phillip and I together even if it isn't great.

Oh my goodness I am making a ridiculous face in this picture. It looks kind of goofy and squinty at this size, and when you zoom in it just gets worse and worse. So I won't be zooming in. But Phillip went to all that trouble to do some funky photoshop thing to this so I thought I'd show you. 

Ah, a lovely shot of me in the car - but you can sort of see my bracelet and wrap and purse here. My mother-in-law and I made the bracelet and necklace when she was in town last time, and I really love them! What you can't see is that my nails were (are) super cute with pretty sparkly tips. That's right, I did it myself. And I kept (keep) getting distracted by the sparkles under the lights throughout the evening. I like this polish!

As for the ball itself, we got there extremely early because we're still not very good at judging Denver traffic. So we went to Starbucks and ordered a giant latte to share and I went to the bathroom and the nice Starbucks guys gave Phillip the latte for free. And it was amusing to be in public in such fancy outfits. I felt sort of attention-whorish.

We went back to the Marriott Hotel at six when the "social hour" was supposed to start and ordered a couple of drinks. One each. Because they are excessively expensive and who could afford to get drunk at the AF Ball? Not an E3, no sirree. We sat around and watched people chat and Phillip said hi to the occasional person who's photo he's taken. All the people we actually knew were incredibly late, so we spent the social hour wandering around while Phillip took pictures and we discussed the pros and cons of all the fancy dresses. 

After the social hour we were all allowed into the ballroom and I had to save a table for all of Phillip's still absent friends. Can I just say that I hate saving seats and from now on I may just refuse to do so? Phillip wandered off to take photos and I had to tell a million people that, yes, this is an entire empty table and no, you may not sit at it because a bunch of PR people who are wandering around supposedly working will be right back. It made me feel quite cliquish and I didn't like it. But I did manage to make room for three people I didn't know and make their acquaintance while I waited. 

The PR people finally did show up, and dinner finally started, and I had the steak, of course. There was also a chocolate fountain or two that I raided with Phillip's supervisor before dinner actually got underway, so I had a bite of steak, a bite of broccoli, a bite of marshmallow covered in chocolate, repeat. Dinner lasted a long time and it was actually rather hard to have a conversation because it was SO LOUD. But we all know how I love to eat, so I can't really complain. 

When dessert was served, a veteran pilot gave a very interesting talk about his time as a prisoner of war. He spent six years as a POW and talked about how he and his comrades survived by holding on to their faith, American values, and stubbornness. He was really fascinating and a little hard to understand. After his speech and another by the Commander of Buckley, they had a dance-off between the First Sergeants and Chiefs. They both prepared this goofy dance routine and performed. It was really funny. After the dance-off they finally started the dancing for everyone else. By that point in the evening I actually wasn't feeling very well, so we left without doing any dancing. They were only playing hip-hop line dances, and as we all know, I'm pretty much terrible at those. Except the macarena, at which I excel. 

So that's pretty much it. It was very fun to see all the men and women in uniform acting goofy with their families. I definitely want to go back next year!