Click here for pictures of the ceremony on Rachel's camera. Click here for the movie of the "swearing-in" ceremony. Be patient, it may take a few minutes to download (it is a 60+ meg file.)

November 27, 2006
Sherrie picked me up at the Oakland airport this morning. She had traveled to San Francisco yesterday with Rachel and Ryan. It is "tithing settlement" time and I had interviews until 9 on Sunday night or I'd have gone along with them. They left Las Vegas at 9:45 a.m. and finally arrived about 13 ½ hours later (normally an 8 ½ hour trip!) Traffic out in the middle of nowhere would just come to a stop and then creep along…at one point it took them 3 hours to go 100 miles. My flight, on the other hand, left this morning at 7:00 a.m. and arrived at 8:20 a.m.! And, because of the Thanksgiving holiday, there was only one seat available on any plane to Oakland that would get me there in a reasonable time. Unfortunately it was a first class seat so I had to endure being coddled for an hour or so.

We headed out to Martinez (via the temple to take a picture or two) and toured Rachel's office and met some of her co-workers, had lunch and then headed back to "the City" to get ready for the afternoon swearing-in ceremony.

We had some time so we watched a few episodes of "The Office" (one of my birthday presents from a couple of days ago).

The swearing-in ceremony was held in the private office of Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the California Supreme Court (Rachel had "externed" for the Chief Justice last year.) It was an impressive ceremony and everyone there was completely gracious and friendly. It was a private ceremony just for Rachel and she is the only one that he is swearing in this year.

In attendance at the ceremony, in addition to Sherrie , Ryan and me, were:
Janet Ellenberg and Gale Tunnell (the Chief's secretaries)

Staff Attorneys:
Alice Collins
David Miller
Darien Pope
Beth Jay and
Jake Dear

A friend of Rachel's, Paul Gruwell, who is externing for one of the justices, took the pictures.

We visited the "courtroom" and the office where Rachel worked and then walked over to the City Hall to see the Rotunda area where they are planning on being married. Then we headed to North Beach for dinner at one of their favorite places, the "Steps of Rome".

Ryan had a three hour evening class (taught by John Jay Osborn, Jr. who wrote the book "The Paper Chase" - subsequently made into a move and television series - and from whom Rachel had also taken a class.) so we dropped him off at school and headed home to get into pj's and watch some more episodes of "The Office". Their apartment is right over an Albertson's so we stopped in at the Starbucks counter there and bought some hot chocolate and hot eggnog (it was a typical chilly San Francisco evening.) When Ryan returned, he gave me a copy of the book "The Paper Chase" that Rachel had bought for me earlier and that he had taken to class and had the author sign ("11-27-06 To Keith Thomas, What a wonderful daughter you have. Sincerely, John Osborne"). And, of course, we couldn't agree with him more.

November 28, 2006
Rachel dropped us off this morning, after we had stopped for a Jamba Juice and a bagel, and we were home by 11:30 a.m. No, we didn't get to fly first class, but the flight wasn't full so we weren't too cramped. The seat belts, however, were a little tight and we had to loosen them up. There must have been little kids sitting in those seats on the previous flight! :)

When we arrived home, we found that Rebecca had sent a package with pictures and her old shoes (and the new ones that didn't work). I'll put the pictures up on the website in the next day or so.

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