Official Birthday Ball Picture!

This just popped up in my inbox! They had a new option to just email the photo they took with a copyright release, so we can print as many pictures (in whatever size) as we want! Yay! :) Now who to send one to...

The 235th Marine Corps Birthday Ball, Friday November 12, 2010 (24 weeks, 6 days pregnant)

North Carolina Baby Shower!

This past Saturday, my friends threw the girls and me a wonderful Babies Shower! It was very intimate with just close friends in attendance, and we all had so much fun. The girls got some great things, and Rush and I are have a good head start on all the things we are going to need for the girls. They say pictures are worth a thousand words so I'm going to let them do all the talking. ;)

 The goody table!

 Are these not just the cutest?!? Their first bath toys. :)

 CUPCAKES! :D

 The loot. ;)

 You can't tell but there are two of each there. The pink says "Daddy's little angel" and the purple says, "I "heart" going to Grandma's!" Thank you Dallas!

 Lindsay got the girls some socks and our two mattress covers! (Those are going to come in handy!)

 Cathy got the girls some hooded towels and matching washcloths! I must admit I kind of freaked out a tad when I started thinking about bathing two, and the fact that it's starting to sink in that there are two!

 Here's my "OMG, we really are having twins!" face. LOL. Carrie got the girls two swaddles and their pacifier pods (a storage pouch so I never lose them!)

 Michele got the girls an adorable (and ultra soft) blankie that has two little bears on the corner that say "Best Friends" :) along with a Daddy's Angel bib, changing pad, bottle brush and the two cute little tank tops below in the next picture.

 Stefanie made these two adorable outfits! Onsies with an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on the belly with matching tutus, and bows! They are going to get SO many "oohs and aahhhs" in these bad boys. ;)

 Hannah supplied us with the much needed thermometer and our first batch of diapers! We should probably look into buying up stock in diapers...

 You can't see it, but Kristen got the girls a Johnson & Johnson bath set with some more wash cloths!

 Kristal got us the ever-so-handy drying rack and dishwasher baskets for all of their bottles, pacifiers, and whatever else I find out I'll be washing on a regular basis. :)

 Stefanie's mom surprised me and sent us two beautiful sleeper gowns and (probably Rush's favorite gift) a gift card to Outback for when I send him out to get it to go!

Not pictured was the joint gift my hostesses went in together to get. They got us the exersaucer that grows with them! I think it is going to get tons of use! Thank you Stefanie, Kristal, & Kristen! It's also too bad that we didn't get a picture together.

So I found some pictures on my camera...

The pictures I found were from August 14th, 2010. The date that Rush's cousin Roy graduated from OCS! We were able to take off and drive up to Quantico to see the ceremony and help celebrate, and I was able to take a few pictures before my camera died. I'll try to describe what's happening in each picture and where Roy is (in the ones where they all look alike!) *Also Rush or Roy, if I label something incorrectly or screw something up, feel free to leave the correction in the comments and I'll edit it!*
Okay so I know it's kind of small, but Roy is the Marine located directly under Hawaii's flag at the very front. They are in formation coming in for the ceremony.

 Roy is smack dab in the middle of the picture, standing in the front, next to the guy that is all by himself.

 After the ceremony they walked out in formation. We had to wait for them to all leave before they were allowed to come back and talk to family and friends. Of course they were put to work picking up chairs that were located at both ends of the blacktop <-(for lack of a better word.) Roy is walking in front of the one guy that is taller than all the rest.

 There he is! HI ROY!

 I think he saw us, but had to pretend we didn't exist. (Just kidding, he waved back!)

 I found him! Rush and I stayed towards the back during this ceremony (located in the Marine Corps Museum) to let families get closer, so it was a mess trying to find everyone once it was over.

 Rush (I believe) is pinning on Roy's "butter bars" to his alphas. I don't know the technical term for the "butter bars", but it means he's a 2nd Lt!

 They look so much alike in this picture!

 In case you are wondering, we went further into the museum to get away from the crowds so that Roy could get "pinned" by his family. :)

 Proud Mama (Mary) pinning the "butter bars" on the lapels of Roy's alphas.

 Proud Papa (Howard) pinning the other "butter bar" on the other lapel of his alphas. Problem was trying to make them look even and symetric without a ruler. Yes, they have a ruler and guide book for how to put insignias on uniforms!

 And last but definitely not least, proud brother (Will) is pinning the last "butter bar" on Roy's cover (or hat for all the non-military.)

 Roy shaking hands (or was, I wasn't quick enough) and giving a silver dollar to one of his OCS instructors. *Roy or Rush please let me know if I messed this one up!

 Group shot! (On a side note, I can't believe how small my belly looks, once you're big it's hard to remember not being big!)

I hope you all enjoyed! We had a great time up in Quantico and are very proud of Roy! He's currently still in Quantico going through TBS (The Basic School, for Officers.)

May I have this dance?

Before I get started I just wanted to say that we also celebrated Jake's and Jean's Birthdays this past week.
So HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY!!! Sorry we weren't able to be there to help y'all celebrate, but I hope that you each had a wonderful day!

So last week on November 10th the Marine Corps celebrated their 235th birthday! And of course the Marine Corp (like every year) celebrates with dinner, dancing, and cake! One of my favorite things about the ball is that it's a formal affair, meaning I get to get all dolled up and get to see Rush in his "blues" or formal uniform. :) We didn't get to take too many pictures, but we did take a professional one there, I'm just waiting for them to email me! This year I not only got to dance with Rush a few times, but I got to have a dance with Gen. Miller, and then watch him salsa dance with his wife (Rush of course was not willing to salsa dance with me!) ;) We also watched the Gen. in charge of 2nd division do a little jig on the dance floor (he wasn't the only one dancing, but he was hard to miss since he's such a big guy!) So here are the few pictures I did take!

This was of the band that played for us during the ceremony part of the ball!

 Rush and me at our table :)

 My hair (I should've taken more pics, but oh well...)

 This is for Jess and Robin! Belly shot (25 weeks) all dressed up. :)

Hopefully I'll get the shower pictures put up soon too!

Marine Corps Marathon!

Well the MCM & 10K were a success!!! I'm proud to say that everyone in our little group finished the race without any (major) injury and was able to walk hobble afterwards. ;) Robin and I finished our 10K in one hour and fifty-one minutes, and that is with me needing a potty break and hobbling around on my gimp knee (that I didn't know I had.) As for the others I don't remember everyones' times, but what matters is that they finished!

Overall I think everyone had a great weekend, Rush and I drove up Friday and was able to eat with dinner with everyone, and even got to hang out with Roy and Will afterwards. Then Saturday we got up early and had an AWESOME buffet breakfast, before we headed out to our desired locations. Robin and I had planned on getting on the Metro and heading into DC for the day, but when we got to the station the line to get on the Metro was no kidding probably 2 to 2 1/2 hours long! So we quickly nixed that and decided to head up to Annapolis with everyone else. (Apparently someone thought it would be a good idea to plan a rally and another 10K walk today (the day before the MCM) needless to say I wasn't happy, it messed up all of our plans for the day.) Anyways, Navy was playing Duke that day so we all met up with Quinn and his Naval buddies and tailgated with them for a little bit before Robin and I headed out to explore downtown Annapolis. It was a whole lot of fun too! We stopped in a little chocolate/candy shop and got hot chocolates and a chocolate covered pretzel stick and sat by the harbor to eat and drink. Then we did some window shopping before Leland and Laura picked us up and we headed back to the hotel. It was time for dinner and to load up on carbs (more them than us, but I was still more than happy to carb up on some fetticini alfredo.) Oh and sadly Navy lost to Duke 31-34. But on a high note Baylor beat Texas and A&M beat Tech!!!! It's always a good day when A&M wins and Texas loses. :)

 Not sure who these guys are but they were good and put on a neat show near where we were tailgating. They even had some dancers that danced a "jig" or three. Pretty sure they were a club within the Naval Academy.

On to Race day! We were all pretty tired (it's hard to get to bed early when you are busy hanging out and catching up with family you hadn't seen in a while) but we all managed to get up and get ready before the crack of dawn and on the road to the Metro station. This is a picture of us in the backseat of the rent car on the way to the Metro! Quinn was a good sport and jumped in the back (where I am fairly certain I would've ended up (had I not been carrying his nieces) because I'm the smallest framed.)

Lucky for us we got on at the end of the line so it wasn't too crowded. Then us 10Kers parted ways with our Marathon runners to go to our respective start lines (us 10Kers start at the 20 mile mark for the marathon runners and we all start at the same time.) This is Lindsay our backdoor neighbor, she's due 2 days before me! She was with a group of women running for 2/6 (some wives, others mothers or sisters, etc.) who are currently in Afghanistan.

It was a pretty neat experience, there were random people cheering everyone on at different spots on the road, and there were even a few places that were blaring music (either from the radio or a small band) and we even passed a group of women drummers! Since we were the last 6 miles of the marathon there weren't too many neat sights to see, but we did stop to get a picture of the Jefferson memorial with the Washington memorial in the background.

Robin surprised me when I came out of the porta potty and took a quick picture! I have hand sanitizer in my hands (in case you were wondering...)

Once Robin and I finished we quickly found a place to sit and eat and drink from our goodie bag, and let our feet and knees have a rest. Then since we knew it would be a while before we saw any of our group finish the marathon we went to have a look around at all of the goodies being given away. We were even able to get a short massage! Our plan had been to finish and change and then go look around downtown DC but we were both hurting (me more than Robin) so we ended up not getting very far, and just went to the bleachers to wait for our group to come across the finish line. We had a pretty good view from our bleacher seats!

 Can you see Laura? I spotted the Texas Rangers hat before I saw her! :)

 Not long after I spotted Rush, first thing I noticed was that he was still wearing his gloves! He used them to wipe the sweat off his face! *I married a smart man!* :)

 Then came Quinn, strolling along, like he didn't have a care in the world!

 Hats off to you Leland for running another marathon!

Once Leland crossed, Robin and I walked hobbled over to meet everyone at the Iwo Jima Monument.

 A thumbs up! (Pretty sure that means that running a marathon is getting checked off of his bucket list, and never to be done again!)

 Leland and Laura

 This is a pretty good side belly shot of me at 23 weeks!

 Quinn and Jill

 My man in his fashionable blanket skirt! ;)

 Robin and me! The 10Kers, which we will probably do again, just not pregnant!

Once we all finally got back to our hotel we went to celebrate with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. *This is totally a side note, but their serving portions are ridiculous! Each plate they served could've fed 3 adults! And of course we didn't know this when we ordered.* We still indulged and took home a few slices of cheesecake to eat once we had more room in our tummys! And Robin just had to get a picture of me eating mine (Rush is watching the Rangers game) with my big ole belly and faithful bulldog. :)

Over all I think it is safe to say that everyone had a great weekend. I wouldn't mind going back to do the 10K again, I just don't know if I want to do it pushing a double stroller! I hope everyone enjoys the pictures! :)