Look Mom! I have a NEW trick!

If Jack could speak that is probably what his loud shrill of excitement would have translated to this morning when he figured out he could push the on/off button on the TV to make it turn on and then back off again. And of course if you do it once might as well do it a MILLION times more. I am sure I will have to curb this habit before long, but for now it is just fun to watch him discover a new thing.

Let it snow...NEXT YEAR!

Needless to say I was not all that happy to wake up to snow on the ground yesterday morning. I have had about enough of winter! However, it did give me a chance to take Jackson out on the deck and try and get a few pictures of him in the snow. He was amazed by the snow, but not so happy when he sat down in it and got it on his hands. It is still raining today so I we have only ventured out once. Dan's brother, Michael, and his wife Drew will be arriving from Hawaii early tomorrow morning. Michael is in Quantico for a Marine Corps seminar. Dan is on his way up from Camp Lejeune as we speak to spend the weekend with us. I hope where ever you are reading this from you are enjoying the weather, and if not just think you could be here in rainy, yucky VA. Have a good weekend everyone!

Go Navy! Beat Army!

Ok, so I know that the game was a long time ago, but we FINALLY got up to Annapolis to walk around the Naval Academy and so the spirit seemed apprropriate.

I have been there twice as a child and was surprise how much smaller it felt to me. When we were there I felt like we walked around all day and had to walk forever to see everything. It is always interesting to visit places again you have visited as a child. On of the Marines who is at Combat Engineer school with Dan was a graduate of the Naval Academy and happened to be visiting his sister this weekend. He was gracious enough to give us a tour. I would have loved for it to be a bit warmer, but we still had a wonderful time.

After walking around the campus we had to stop in the gift shop, mostly for the purpose of me finding a bathroom :) Dan was taking Jackson through the shop in the stroller and stopped to look at a Marine Corp Rugby jersey. He went to leave and a lady passing him said, "oh he is so cute with his puppy." Dan immediately said, "Puppy?" and low and behold Jackson had grabbed a little bull dog stuffed animal with a Marine Corps tee shirt on off a a shelf and was snuggling and kissing it. It was certainly cute. SO cute in fact the puppy came home with us, after paying for it of course.

After leaving the Academy and determining that downtown Annapolis was way to busy for us to find someplace to eat we decided to take a little jont over the Bay Bridge. It was just as big as I remember! Of course I don't remember having to pay $2.50 to cross! After taking our trip across the water we decided on a whim to go over the Baltimore Inner Harbor and get some lunch there. So we plugged the National Aquarium address into our Garmin and headed out. A little side note about the Garmin....GET ONE! It took SO much stress out of this trip and perhaps one day will save our marriage! We arrived with little difficulty to the Inner Harbor and found some lunch. Then we told Garmin to take us home and off we went. It was a great little day trip!

The Many Faces of Jackson

I got a new camera this week and have had fun shooting quick shots of Jackson. I LOVE my new camera and am excited to use it. Here is a little something I put together of all the faces of Jack. He is quite the ham...

Happy Unvalentine's Day

Ok...so if any of you know me well you know I am not a HUGE fan of Valentine's Day. It has always been my arguement that a day should not be disignated to do something you should be doing EVERYDAY! We should be loving, appreciating, and honoring those we love everyday. However, since we are now with child I am going to have to put aside my immaturities and embrace this holiday. So here is our Happy Valentine's Day greeting, but my little peice of rebellion is posting it late in the day so most don't read it on the actual holiday. Maybe by next year I will get over my strange obsession with the holiday...until then Happy Valentine's Day!

Semper Fi

I am not sure if any of you caught the new Marine Corp commercial during the super bowl. Here is a link to the extended version. I thought it was really neat! The only place that is not real footage is in San Francisco where I guess the city would not allow them to video tape it, so the footage is done on a Blue Screen. Enjoy and Semper Fi!

http://our.marines.com/cms_content/show/type/blog/id/169

SoCal Weather In VA

It feels like a nice breezy Southern California day here in Virginia. Jackson and I spent a little time on our back deck. Here is little Jackson in action.

Graduation Time...

Ok, so Dan's graduation from TBS was two weeks ago, but things have been in a constant state of flux lately. Graduation I am sure was wonderful, but Jackson didn't even make it through the opening remarks before he had had enough. So I spent the ceremony out in the hall with NUMEROUS other moms and little ones. Luckily we were able to peak in the door and watch Dan walk across the stage. It is hard to believe he is done with TBS! It went by a lot quicker than we anticipated. Last Saturday he headed down to Camp Lejeune where he will now be in Engineer School. He graduates from that school May 14th and then will head out to hopefully catch the birth of our little girl before he heads to 1st Combat Engineer Battalion at Camp Pendleton, CA. Jackson and I will head back to Colorado on March 15th by way of Camp Lejeune, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, and Amarillo stopping to see various friends and family along the way. Hopefully we will be able to Join Dan in CA in June or July. What a fun year it is going to be! Here are some of the pictures from graduation.

Dan, Capt Prato (Dan's Boss), Richard Sala

Arron Elliott, Dan, & Richard (ALL GOING TO CA!!)

Richard & Melanie (Melanie is due March 5th)

Our little family

Big News!

Jack is now walking! He decided to have his walking debut the night before Dan left for North Carolina. He must have known his daddy would have been very upset if he had missed it. I am going to attempt to attach a video of his new skills.