Proud Parents

You know I am proud of my kids ALL the time...but there are some times in their lives that are extra special. You parents out there know what I mean.

Today was one of those. All week Conner has been at Young Marine Junior Leadership Training School. This was a school to teach him to be one of the leaders at Young Marines...basically what its name says. To "rank up" you have to go to this school. We have not been able to talk to him all week.

This morning at the Smyrna, TN National Guard Training Base we watched him graduate from the school. He earned a special award for having a perfect score of 500 on his Physical Fitness Test. There were only 2 of these awards given to the ~40 young men and women there. Way to go Conner! We were so proud and so happy to see him!

Getting his graduation certificate and test scores

Getting his award for perfect PFT test

Hayden was glad to see his big brother!

Even Mari Cate and Conner were glad to see each other--a little bit!
And Mom and Dad were proud parents and glad to have their boy home!

Yeah, it was a little hard...

Sunday, we dropped Conner off at the National Guard Training Base, 2 hours away from us for the week for the Young Marine Junior Leadership School. We will not be able to talk to him for the whole week. It is very hard to drop your child off for a whole week and not have any communication with them...unless something is wrong. So I am praying that I don't get a call, as much as I would like to talk to him to make sure he is ok.


We are going up on Thursday and spending the night because they will be graduating at 8:00 on Friday morning (what were they thinking???) We didn't figure we wanted to leave here at least by 6:00 and possibly fight the morning rush hour traffice and possibly miss the graduation.


So here are the last pictures we got as we dropped him...and you know me...there will definitely be pictures from the graduation to share!


Conner is the one pulling the red duffle bag.


This was as we were driving off. They already had them outside starting some PT it looked like.

The True Meaning...

of being caught...

with your hand in the cookie jar!

Needless to say, Hayden was quite proud of himself! And enjoying the cookies too...notice the drool!

Get Ready For Picture Overload!

Pictures of our new home (at least for the next 6 months). We are really enjoying it...still decorating, but really enjoying it.

The next collages are of our Florida trip. The last one is the whole gang that went with us. Everyone had a great time.

No....we didn't fall off the face of the earth!

But we did just get our internet and cable installed at the townhouse, so I have TONS of catch up to do! Since my last post, I still have all the pictures from the beach to post, Conner's birthday pictures, and pics of our new home. No, we didn't buy a house...just rented a townhouse for 6 months to take a breather and figure out exactly what we want to do.

I have got to get to bed right now though, so I promise to get them up on here tomorrow...be sure to check back!

Just a teaser...

He's having a ball!! And so are we!

Well, we tried to keep it a secret from the kids...

but just couldn't! They needed a little bit of excitement in their lives right now! We are headed to Panama City Beach on Sunday! Can't wait to show pictures of everyone enjoying the beach and ocean next week! I may even try to share some during the week, if we have internet service! Check back!! Hope you have a great week too!