family day:july 16th 2009

waiting for the "moto run" to start and trying to keep off the grass... jones and i explored mcrd... 

with grandpa martindale in his new shirt... thanks to karens awesome idea to make tshirts for jones... i made him two, one for family day and one for graduation day... they said: "i am proud of my daddy... he is a marine" ... he was very proud of his shirt.. we would ask him where daddy was, and he would point to his shirt... he loved them!

waiting... with grandpa clark and great grandma martindale...

i was so so so very anxious here... such an exciting moment... waiting to see brent for the first time... knowing that all the moment would be is him standing feet from us, in formation, not able to look at us or notice us in any way... but at least we got to see him... then they ran by... 

(the moto run... they, the new marines graduating the following day, are doing their morning run of three miles... they run to where all the family and friends are waiting, then stop and stand in formation for minutes while we all cheer... then they finish their run...)

too bad that i cant remember the name of this dog... i was, once again, too anxious... but here is jones with the marine corp mascot... waiting for brent to come...

yeah!!!... he is finally in front of us... i loved it!!!!   can you find him???

at the luncheon after all the family day events we learned about the marine corp birthday (actually in november)... brother bennett is... yes... actually cutting the cake with that huge knife/sword... marine corp tradition... just before that, the six marines sang the marine corp song... we loved it!

then... the oldest marine (yep, that was brent) is fed the cake first... he must approve and say that the cake is good enough to eat...

then... the oldest marine must feed the youngest... and he also had to approve of the cake...

jones loved seeing his daddy... we all ate dinner together on base... i didnt want to leave... but brent had to report back no later than 545pm... such a tease... to see him all morning... and then having to leave him there... oh, not to mention all the rules while we were there... no holding hands while walking... no holding jones while walking... pretty much we got to look at one another... and i only got one little goodbye kiss... but it was the best hello/goodbye kiss that i had ever waited for!!!!