Visit from our Group Commander

Tuesday was an amazing day. We learned last week that our new-ish Group Commander would be visiting us....exciting!

If you'll recall, we attended the Change of Command Ceremony at Fort Carson in July when he took command....and we also attended the formal Dining Out/Formal Ball where he and his family were the guests of honor.

You can imagine the excitement level as both the Soldiers and the Family members busily prepared for his very first visit to the 84th EOD Battalion.

We had a special time set aside and our Battalion FRSA ("FRSA" is best explained here) and I conducted a briefing on the state, strengths and challenges of each of our Family Readiness Groups ("FRG" best described here). Since we have 7 FRGs across 3 different states, (4 at Fort Riley, 2 at Bliss, and 1 at Fort Leonard Wood) we have some very unique/special challenges. Our presentation was scheduled to last 30 minutes....nearly one hour later we were ready for lunch! Our Commander was very interested in the work we're doing...and he took lots of notes. We were pleased as punch when he confessed that he could offer no suggestions on improvement but asked if he could take some of our ideas back to the Group for implementation!! Wow! (If anyone is interested in seeing our presentation, it can be found online here - after clicking the link, you'll use the navigation buttons in the bottom right hand corner of the presentation screen!)

We then had a "working lunch" and each of the on-site FRG Leaders were invited - we filled the conference room with vivacious chatter and laughter. What a great time.

Our amazing group

He took the time to honor one of our most outstanding volunteers - he presented her with a special award in recognition of her outstanding efforts for the most recent quarter. She's pretty much amazing and we were all proud for her!

Congrats Pam!!

Debbie receives special recognition from our Group Commander!!

Later that night we hosted him for a cozy dinner. After dinner, all the FRG Leaders and their spouses came over to enjoy some dessert and coffee and social time. WHAT AN AMAZING NIGHT. We stayed up late (on a school night, oh my!) telling stories and laughing like old friends. The atmosphere and ambiance was simply the best. We even managed to snap a group photo with the FRG Leaders & our Commander (we're all laughing b/c our spouses were snapping photos with a million camera phones!). Life does not get any better than Tuesday night. We rolled into bed, very late, very satisfied and still giggling about certain parts of the night's conversation. So wonderful. Sigh. :)   

Love the faces in this photo! We've worked so hard side-by-side over the past months!