Eight years ago Tamie began working on achieving her CPCU(Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters) degree at Farmers Alliance. She finished over a year ago, just before Gwen was born. Tamie's reward? A fully paid for trip to the CPCU Annual Seminar, this year, in Washington D.C. Lucky for me, I married a smart woman, and got to tag along for the ride! We left McPherson, Friday the 7th. This was the first trip away from Gwen for the both of us. We dropped Gwen off at daycare(which wasn't easy at all), and headed off to Wichita to fly to Houston, then on to D.C.
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| Our view from atop the bus. |
Friday night was uneventful, we were both exhausted from traveling. We ordered room service and called it a night. Saturday, we got up early and hopped on a tour bus. Yes, we were the very touristy looking people with cameras out, pointing at the amazing sights of D.C.
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| The Washington Cathedral. |
The bus took us all over the city. We were short on time Saturday, so we simply sat on the bus and stared at all of the sites. The buses would constantly stop at the major buildings. We could get off the bus and walk around, and then catch a different bus later, however we needed to get back to the hotel for the CPCU conferment ceremony at 3:30pm.
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| Union Station, we became very familiar with this building in the coming days. |
Pictured below is the CPCU ceremony. What a ceremony it was! There were over 1,400 new CPCUs joining this year alone. The original keynote speaker was supposed to be ABC's Robin Roberts, but, due to her medical condition and the death of her mother, she was unable to be there. Instead, we were joined by ABC's Joan Lunden, who gave her Ten Secrets to Success. It was an inspiring speech to say the least. Just after the speech, Tamie, along with the 1,400 other CPCUs stood to say their vows to the CPCU society to finally be officially conferred. To end the ceremony, the oldest remaining CPCU came to the stage. His name is Myron(can't remember his last name). Myron has been in the society for 63 years, and had just turned 100 years old!
Shortly after the ceremony we met with the president of Farmers Alliance, and his assistant and her husband for dinner. A VERY nice dinner. Dinner was at the Charlie Palmer restaurant. Needless to say, we felt a bit out of place. It was an incredible way to end a memorable night.
Tamie and I ended our long day by calling home to talk with Gwen. Hearing her say 'baby' over and over made our day complete. We wished her goodnight, and went to bed too. We knew it was going to be a long day of touring D.C. tomorrow!
