Brian's Grad Week: Part II

On Friday morning, Brian's mom, sister, and I woke up and headed to West Point for the Graduation Parade! The last parade of Brian's cadet career!

During the Acceptance Day parade, plebes who have just gone through Beast (Cadet Basic Training) march towards the Corps and officially become cadets. I thought it was really neat that during the Graduation Parade, the Firsties marched away from the Corps, signifying the end of their time at WP. Then, the juniors took over each company and marched them by the graduating class. As their company passed them, the graduating cadets each saluted their companies as they watched them return to the barracks.

After the parade, Brian ran over to find us in the stands.

Of course, we had to take pictures with his funny hat!

We walked over to Trophy Point, which makes quite the nice backdrop.  :)

We grabbed lunch at Ike Hall and I ran around with Brian while he finished up some last minute check-out things in his room. Then, I headed back to the hotel with his family to get ready for the Graduation Banquet! My parents also got in on Friday night, so they got to meet up with us to head back to WP. (I even did my own hair!)

It's kind of sad realizing that this was our last formal event in the Mess Hall at WP (number 6!)

We had such a good time with his family, enjoying Filet Mignon and, of course, Oreo Cheesecake! When we sat down, each place setting belonging to a woman had a rose on it, which was a sweet touch. :)

The distinguished guest for the night was General Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army. He had a really good message for the graduating class, and it was really cool to hear him speak!

When we were leaving the banquet, he was walking out of the Supe's house with his wife to get on their private helicopter...already having changed into khakis and a polo!

Watching them take off from the Plain was really neat!  It got reeeeally windy, and then the helicopter just jumped off the ground! I told Brian that I would be fine if he wanted to find a job that afforded us a private helicopter to get around. This picture is supposed to be of us in front of the helicopter, which was so close!, but it is really too dark to see. :)

We headed over to the hop, or dance, after the banquet, but we only ended up staying for a couple minutes. We quickly realized that the wake-up call for graduation in the morning was only in a handful of hours!