Our first week in Utah

I can't believe we've already been in Utah a week! Time is flying by a little too quickly. I've had a lot of fun so far, its been really nice spending time with our families. The below pictures are in random order (I'm too tired/lazy to put them in their proper place) from our past week here. For some reason I didn't get very many pictures on Christmas day. Ty likes to tease me that I "made out like a bandit" each year, and this year was no different. Ty got me an amazing mini laptop (in my favorite color...pink), FIVE books, and of course new clothes. He's the best.

Bridger enjoying his new stuff (he also made out like a bandit)

Ty (and his family) had this plaque done of his Grandpa's service medals to give to his Grandma. It was really amazing!
All the girls (Mackenzie, Corine, Ivy, Kathy, Brittney, Eliza and Brooke)

Ty and Kath

Jared, Ethan, Janie, Bridger, Barry and Brooke

My mom Connie, Brooklynn and Trevor

Nicole and Brooklynn

Bridger

Ivy and Eliza love their uncle Ty

All my neices and nephew

Brittney, Bridger and Kath

Charlie was SO good on the 11 hour drive up!

Charlie Company Outpost

I recently graduated the last group of my recruits, there are 440 new basically-trained Marines. These pics are from the outpost (the party for the DI's and their families after every graduation). It was the last training cycle that I'll be doing and I'll be reporting back to the legal office at the start of the new year.

Rick, Glen, Ryan and me

"We are Charlie Company, we drill better than Bravo Company..."
I got a going-away souvenir, they gave me a cool plaque for my time in Co. C.
I was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievment Medal for my 18 months training recruits as a series commander and executive officer in Delta and Charlie Companies. This is the CO, Capt Flores, giving the medal.

Marines from Charlie Company

The "J" Drill Instructors after graduation.

The Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal

The Crucible

Tyler recently finished his last crucible with his recruits at Camp Pendleton. The crucible is the last big event for recruit training that consists of a 54-hour field exercise, with about thirty obstacles and about 40-50 miles hiking, all on 2.5 MRE's and a total of eight hours sleep. Below are a few pictures of the crucible and Charlie company staff and drill instructors. (They are not allowed to take photos of recruits.)

Live fire range

Bivouac site (recruit tents)
Obstacle on the Crucible

DIs: Sgt McNulty, GySgt Caldas, Sgt Bishop, SSgt McBride

GySgt Molnar, Capt Hart, SSgt Reyes

Charlie Company Staff

Sgt Cortez, Capt Hart, SSgt Mott (watching the body sparring)

1stLt Ankrah, Capt Hart, Capt Flores (trying to stay warm on "the hill")

Funny

I saw this on my friend's blog (Shannon) and thought I'd share! Also, Tyler and I will be going home to Utah for a couple weeks and I plan on doing lots of fun posts while we're there. I just have to remember to not only bring my camera but to use as well! Happy Holidays!

Top Ten TV Couples

I'm going to try and make an effort to do more posts. Tyler is upset that I spend so much time on my bookreview blog and no time on our personal blog. I guess we really haven't been doing anything exciting lately so I haven't had a reason to post. Anyway, I participate in different blogger meme's and thought this would be a fun one to do on our blog. In order to participate all you have to do is compile a list of your top ten favorite TV couples and pass it on. It was hard to narrow it down and I ended up spliting it up by sitcoms and dramas. Below are my fun choices:

CHEERS: Sam and Diane

FRAISER: Niles and Daphne SEINFELD: Jerry and Elaine FRIENDS: Ross and RachelTHE OFFICE: Jim and Pam
DAWSONS CREEK: Pacey and Joey
FELICITY: Ben & Felicity
LOST: Jack and Kate
SMALLVILLE: Clark and Lois

CHUCK: Chuck and Sarah

Who are your favorites?

Marine Corps Ball 2009

Last week Tyler and I attended the annual Marine Corps birthday ball. It was a lot of fun, so much fun that I actually forgot to take more than two photos...ooops. Anyway, its always motivational to go and celebrate the history of the corps.

Vote, Vote Vote

Tyler had a meeting with his monitor yesterday and he provided us a list of all the JAG openings around the Marine Corps and we've narrowed down our choices to the below three. We'll probably have to rank the order and then see what happens.

I thought it would be fun to open up a voting poll to help us decide where to go. I already started one on Facebook, but thought I'd add it here as well (on the side panel, or you can leave a comment). So below are our choices, in random order:

-Miramar, San Diego: This is literally ten minutes from our house. It would be awesome to stay put for another three years. We'd still be close to family, amazing weather, etc.

-North Carolina: This would still keep us pretty close to family. Its a little father, but still not to bad. We love the East coast and think we'd have a lot of fun in NC. Plus, my parents just got home from a mission to NC and I think they'd love it if we were stationed there.

-JAPAN: Wow, I really think this would be an adventure. It would be cool to live in a foreign country and learn a new language. It is just SO far from home and I don't think we'd get many visitors. I'd have to bring Charlie, which would be a huge hassle. If/when Tyler gets deployed, it would be hard to be in a foreign country all on my own.

Cast your vote!

Miramar Air Show 2009

Yesterday we went to the annual Miramar Air Show. As always, it was amazing. I'm always surprised by the amount of people that come out for the show. We only stayed for a couple hours, but it was fun to walk around and see all the cool planes and even see a little of the air show. If you're ever in San Diego you should definetly check it out.

Video Footage of Anne Frank

Over at my book review blog I did a post about Anne Frank and thought I would put it up here as well. I thought it was pretty amazing, and a little creepy as well. While I was surfing through different book blogs I stumbled upon At Home With Books. They had this amazing post about Anne Frank. Apparently a couple of weeks ago the Anne Frank House posted this video footage of Anne, I guess its the only video footage that they have. To be honest I have actually never read The Diary of Anne Frank. I have a hard time reading sad stories, I've started it a few times but have never gotten through it. Anyway, below is a blurb from YouTube about the video.

July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.

A couple winters ago I was able to go to Germany with my brothers and sister-in-law. While there we visited the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. This is actually the camp where Anne and her sister Margot died. They have a small headstone and memorial there. All of the building had been torn down, although there are still huge burial mounds and a pretty amazing museum. While I was there I also picked up a copy of her diary, I really should sit down and read the whole thing, she has a pretty amazing story to tell.

Welcome Home Mom and Pop

After a very long year my parents finally returned from their mission to North Carolina. They took about ten days to drive home and weren't really sure when exactly they would arrive so I hadn't planned on going out until later in the month. Tyler and I got to talking about how it would be fun to surprise them, so we bought an airline ticket and it turned out that I flew in the very night they ended up making it to Salt Lake. Nicole and I planned an impromptu surprise party at her house and when my parents rang the doorbell I answered! They were totally stunned to see me (and I was stunned I kept it a secret). It was so good to see them again, it had been way too long.

We met Nicole and the kids at Gardner Village. The kids love seeing all the witches and Halloween decorations. What a fun place!

We had a family dinner to welcome them home and got to talking about old times. Nicole used to kick butt at the Crab Walk game (and still does), here is a cute video of her and Trevor racing.