ETPS Graduation dinner

Thursday night was the McKenna dinner at the Officers Mess - this is the official ETPS grad dinner. It was a very formal mess dinner, complete with a head table of many high ranking officials including three Generals. Also in attendance was the Canadian air attache who came from the Canadian High Commission in London just in honor of Peter - the only Canadian military member on the course. After dinner we spoke with him - nicest guy ever - he even offered us use of his 4 bedroom flat in London whenever we wanted! So, I think we'll be taking him up on that offer when we visit London in early January before coming home.

The dinner was full of speeches ... most of them irrelevant to me because I didn't understand the jokes : ) Also, the course representative, one of Peter's classmates and good friends from the course, gave a speech in honor of the graduates. They also had an official grad procession where each of the 19 graduating students (6 Fixed Wing Pilots, 8 Rotary Wing Pilots & 5 Flight Test Engineers) went forward to receive their certificates. It was a very proud moment for all the exhausted students and their wives/partners. There were some awards given out as well, including the McKenna trophy for the best fixed wing test pilot, it was given to Peter's good friend Bruce ... and here we are after a semi-drunk Bruce insisted he put it on our heads ... um, okay.



After dinner everyone headed to the bar ... of course ... Peter drove me home at 2 am because I was exhausted. He went back for a while to hang out with all his classmates since it would be their last night together. He stuck around until everyone was too drunk to carry on a normal conversation ... then he came home.

Since Thursday Fletch & I have had our Peter back! Peter now gets to enjoy over a month off work, he reports to his new posting in Cold Lake on January 22nd. In the meantime, we have some travelling to do in the UK .. then the move to Cold Lake and settling into our new house. It should be a good month and a bit : )

Team PM & tadpole