AESBO Farewell Luncheon for Russ

Russ' farewell luncheon was held at an Italian restaurant called Johnny Carino's, which had opened a few weeks prior to our departure.  At the luncheon, Russ' co-workers presented his farewell gift, which earned a bunch of laughs.  MSgt Pokornik was never one to mince words and accurately attributed one of Russ' better known quotes of "Accuracy was never a requirement" in the going away photo montage he made for Russ.

 

 

The "boys from AESBO" (the "battle space operations branch" Russ worked in) pictured from left to right are:  Theron McClinton, Bill Geiwitz, Russ Roslewski, MSgt Michael Pokornik and MSgt Leurck.



Saying Goodbye to Butch and Snow

The movers came to load all our boxes onto the moving truck.  As with any moving day, it was pretty stressful.  To help ease my tension, I took some leftover meats from the fridge to give to my next door neighbors' dogs, Snow (front) and Butch.  Fortunately for all of us, I love giving "loveys" to dogs as well as receiving doggy loves.

 

 

It was sad saying goodbye.  I'm going to miss these two.

Preparing the Fish Tank for the Move

Russ had already taken Chompers to a local fish store since they couldn't accept two paku fish this size at once.  The store also said they'd accept the two "sucker fish" we had.  So Russ carefully netted Poky, Rocky and Phil and put them in the cooler for transport.  Russ was really sad to see Poky leave.

Since Rocky and Phil hid a lot, here's a rare shot with all three fish visible.

Bye-bye fish!

Roslewski Family Farewell Party

It's traditional in the Air Force to have farewell parties when one is relocating to a new assignment.  Neither Russ nor I wanted to have big going away luncheons at work.  So we each had a small luncheon with just our work sections and then a combined farewell party at our home.  Since the party was at our house, we figured the people who really wanted to go would make the effort to come.  Plus, we invited families to come along with our co-workers so our co-workers wouldn't miss out on their weekend family time.
In addition to our co-workers, we also invited our neighbors (both sides of our house and the two immediately across the street) since we'd gotten to know them relatively well during our short time in this house.  (I'd only lived there 18 months and Russ had only lived there 5 months.)
As usual, I really over estimated the food.  At least I made several of my co-workers happy by sending them home with lots of food.  Plus Russ' best friend Chad was in "bachelor mode" with his wife out of town.  So Chad also had several meals taken care of.
I only took a few pictures since I actually spent time socializing instead of playing photographer.  Sorry I didn't have more to show!
Here's Russ with Brian Watson and his son Andrew.

And here's Don Brink with his wife and children.

House Hunting in the DC Area

Russ and I are relocating to the DC area next month.  Neither of us is very excited about the move, especially me since I've had a previous assignment to the DC area.  The traffic is horrible!  Having to plan our lives around rush hour traffic is not something I like to do.
Russ will be assigned to Andrews AFB and I'll be working at Bolling AFB in DC.  We found a beautiful rental that's only about a 15 minute drive for Russ and a 25 minute drive (assuming there's not an accident at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge) for me to go to Bolling.
The master bathroom is HUGE!  This is only half the bathroom.  The "window" behind the tub is actually the shower, which has two side-by-side shower heads. 

 

 

The master bedroom has it's own fire place and sitting room area.  Since the house is so big (about 3800 SQ FT plus an unfinished basement) we'll use one of the spare bedrooms as an office for Russ.

The kitchen also has plenty of cabinet and countertop space plus a pantry.  (Sorry for the lack of quality in the pictures.  At the time I took these, I wasn't aware this would be the home we ended up renting.  We'd originally planned on buying a home and had been working with some realtors, but I just kept getting an inspiration that we shouldn't buy a home for this assignment.)  I hope we like it here!

 

In addition to looking at homes, we found some time to play tourist.

 

Here we are at the Washington DC Temple for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

We also stopped by The Mall in downtown DC.  

Of course we had to make a detour to the Smithonsian Museum of Flight.  As an Air Traffic Controller in the Air Force, this display was significant to Russ (and I had to act excited).

And I did manage to keep Russ from bumping into things since he spent a lot of time looking up.