On Wednesday, Nov 7th my mom flew in from Colorado for a week. I actually made it safely to the airport (anyone who has driven in VA and the DC area knows what a feet that really is-by the end of the year VA will more than likely take the lead for the most highway fatalities). On Thursday I introduced my mom to pajama days. A pajama day is when Jackson and I spent the day in our PJs! Great relaxing fun...you should try it some time. Mom was so helpful and dove right into doing the MOUNDS of laundry and dishes that had piled up.
Saturday, November 10 was the 232rd Birthday of the Marine Corps. For those of you who do not know, the Marine Corps makes a really big deal out of their birthday and celebrate it with a huge ball. This year the ball was held in Richmond (A dirty nasty city about 75 miles south of Stafford) and since mom was in town Dan and I got a hotel room and stayed the night down there. No Marine Corps ball is complete without one really good story...we made it to the hotel safely, had gotten dressed, and headed down to the cocktail hour. As it got closer to the time of the ceremonies we decided it would be a good idea to check the seating chart and locate our table in the main ballroom. We quickly scanned the list of over 800 names and came up empty. After a much closer inspection of the list we still did not find our names on the list. HUMMMM...I know we paid in cash and signed up over a month in advance. After tracking down the officer in charge of the ball we discovered when they had made some last minute adjustments to the seating chart they had deleted about four tables from our company, including the table of the company commander. So long story short, we ended up standing in the back of the ballroom for the duration of the ceremonies and then were taken to the hotel restaurant to be served our meal. Although the situation was extremely frustrating we ended up enjoying our time with our friends. The next morning we headed out with the Sala's and the Elliott's for brunch at The Tobacco Company. The food was great and the atmosphere was enjoyable. Over all, we had a great weekend. Happy Birthday Marines!
The Girls - Trisha, Melanie, Me, and Tess
The guys - Dan, Abdula (International Officer from Kuwait), Rich, & Aaron
The Prego Girls - Me and Melanie
The Dads-to-be - Rich and Dan
Breakfast - Aaron and Trisha Elliott, Rich and Melanie Sala, Me and Dan
Dan had Veteran's Day off so we decided to take mom to Baltimore to the National Aquarium. It was so fun to watch Jackson look at all of the fish. He was mesmerized as we walked down the center of a five story coral reef full of fish. If you find yourself in the Baltimore area the National Aquarium is a must see.
On Wednesday we said goodbye to my mom. I wish she could have stayed another week or more. It truly was wonderful to have her around. Jackson really misses her!
Sunday Dan and I celebrated our sixth anniversary. My how time flies when you are having fun. Dan let me sleep in and he took Jackson to get me breakfast in bed and flowers. It was a memorable morning. I hope for many more fun adventurous years to come. Being in the Marine Corps I doubt we will lack adventure.
I had another doctors appointment on Monday and the baby looks great and is growing, growing, growing. After the ultrasound the OBNP decided not to change my due date and said I am growing a big baby! YIKES!! So all is well with the pregnancy and I am starting to feel a little more like myself as I head into my 12th week.
The biggest news is we just found out Dan will be a Combat Engineer for the Marine Corps for the remainder of his carrier. The selection of their military occupational specialty (MOS) is a complicated process...here is my understanding of how it works...all of the 2nd Lt in the company are ranked according to their performance in The Basic School. The class is them broken into thirds (A top 1/3, middle 1/3, and bottom 1/3). Each 2nd Lt ranks their preference of MOS from 1-15 and then all the information is shoved into a computer. In order to get a quality spread the top 1/3 of the top 1/3 is given their first choice based on the needs of the Marine Corps, then the top 1/3 of the middle 1/3 are given their choice of MOS, and then the top 1/3 of th bottom 1/3. It continues on selecting MOS by thirds and as the Marine's first choices are taken by Marines chosen before them MOS further down on their list are selected for them. SO needless to say depending on your class standing you may or may not get one of your top 5 choices. After the computer spits out what it feels is the appropriate MOS for the Marines the SPCs (not sure what this stands for, but it would be the equivalent to a drill instructor at boot camp with a lot less yelling) from all of the platoons get together and swap MOS for their Marines to get the best fit possible. After all was said and done Dan's class standing was the bottom 1/3 of the top 1/3 which is great when you look at it over all but not so great for MOS selection because he was not given a choice until the 7th pull. However, he did get his second choice of Combat Engineers. He is a little bummed about not getting his first choice of Infantry, but is glad he will be in an MOS where he can lead Marines.
SO...what does that mean for us? After Dan graduates from The Basic School on Jan 18th he will head down to Camp Lejeune for a two or three month engineer school. Because the school is shorter than six months the Marine Corps will not allow me to accompany him, so I will be staying here while he is in school. My friend's Melanie and Trisha will be staying behind too so I will have plenty of company. We still do not know what duty station we will head too after Dan completes his MOS school, but we are trying our hardest to get back to Camp Pendleton in southern CA.
I guess that is all from VA...sorry it was such a lengthy update. Now that I am feeling a little better I hope to update more often. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.
3 comments:
I'm SOOOO glad to open your blog and NOT look at your grill - as lovely of a grill that it is!
I'm glad your mom got to come out and you had such a nice time with her - and got a break!!
Good to hear you are feeling better these days. Never fun to be sick AND chasing a kid. We just had our pajama day yesterday. We still do it like once a week. Summer always asks to have pajama day!
I had a wonderful time with the kids, especially PJ day!!!! I do remember those days when Analisa was little. All I can say is "this to will pass" Give each other a hug from Nana!!!!
I too was glad to see something new on the blog. That's lousy you won't be able to go with Dan to his next round of training, but I'm glad you have good friends there to support you. You and Dan looked lovely at the ball. Amanda actually went to the Marine Ball in Kigali, Rwanda. Crazy.
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