Turkey Trot

Caden wants to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!



That turkey is 27 pounds, believe it or not. It was Brian's prize for winning the Turkey Trot 5-Mile Race. He managed to finish in about 29 minutes (WOW). It was an up and back course so I saw him on his return. I told him to keep it up because WE NEED A TURKEY. Now, I am not sure we need 27 pounds of turkey, but at least we'll have plenty of leftovers!

As for me, I certainly didn't win, but I did have a 5-mile personal record of 38:40, which put me at about 7:56 splits for each mile. I didn't feel like I was going faster than usual, so I kept thinking perhaps the mile markers were in the wrong spot. Ha.

Take care and once again, Happy Thanksgiving!!! We will miss seeing our family but are fortunate to have some good friends out here to share the day with us. Have safe travels and a blessed holiday.

Marine Corps Ball

The Marine Corps Ball was last weekend and it was our very first night away from Caden. He stayed with our neighbors, Mel and Kevin. They were so excited about it and couldn't have done a better job. Caden loved running around in the walker chasing their dogs and thoroughly enjoyed Mel's beef stew. He was restless that night so unfortunately, they didn't get much sleep!

For us, the night started off shaky as we got lost on the way to DC (standard operating procedure really), but the rest of the night went great. The food was yummy and Brian managed to snatch an extra dessert. We did not know very many people but hung out with Brian's platoon commander from Radio Battalion in Hawaii. Other than that, it was refreshing to have some QT with just Brian, minus little guy.

In other news, Caden began crawling yesterday! I was on the Webcam with my Mom and she requested that she see her grandson crawl. So I put him on the floor and figured he would do his usual low crawl, but he surprised us both! He went from the crawling position to sitting position last night too, so it was a big day. He also eats a lot of our food lately. We can't get away with eating anything in front of him without him demanding some for himself!

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is almost here. The Turkey Trot 10K Race is Saturday and we're having dinner at our house Thanksgiving Day. Daryl is flying in and Brian invited a few other friends and their families.

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope your thoughts echo ours in that we have a lot to be thankful for. Please keep all the deployed military and their families in your thoughts over the holiday season.

Where did puppy go?!

Daddy does Caden's hair while Mommy is running


Carrie's birthday (She was in town on business...yay!)


We converted the exersaucer to a walker toy


Chilling with Daddy, playing with the remote (a favorite toy)


Beautiful fall color seen from our front door

Monkey Boy

Halloween was a a fun event for us this year. The festivities began Friday when we went to our neighbor's 80's themed movie party. We dressed as Elizabeth Shue and "Thor" from Adventures in Babysitting. Brian looks good in a mullet. We did a lot of kareoke and made lame attempts at dancing.

On Monday, we carved pumpkins. Caden was not sure what to think about that.

We often call Caden "spider monkey" when he gets hyper and climbs all over us, so it was easy for me to select his Halloween costume. (And yes, that is a banana peel on his head.) I took him trick-or-treating with the neighbor kids. I have never seen so many trick-or-treaters in my life, and the amount of candy they collected was insane. Caden will have a ball next year. He did enjoy his pumpkin bucket and chewing on his tail.

Brian has recovered from the Marine Corps Marathon, which he ran on Sunday. This race is the 4th largest marathon in the U.S. He placed 147th out of 20,675 finishers. He was pleased with his time of 2:58:51 but of course he wants to do better, so the training continues. His favorite part of the race was running past the beautiful gothic architecture of Georgetown. He said the scenery during the race was incredible, but the course was much hillier than he anticipated.

I made the leap today and registered for the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon on May 18 in Fredericksburg. No turning back now!

Ma ma, da da

Good morning!

Well, our little guy is now 9 months old. He recently starting saying a lot more new sounds...he babbles ma ma, da da, ga ga, etc. Another tooth broke through last week...he now has 7. We took him on his first bike ride earlier this month. We turned his carseat around yesterday because his legs are so long (who does he get that from?!). We have also been feeding him little pieces of our food. It's fun to see him pick stuff up and put it in his mouth.

No, he is still not crawling. He prefers assisted walking/running. Perhaps crawling is just going to be skipped for this kid?! He does speed everywhere in his walker though, so his legs are definitely strong. He loves playing outside and watching the neighbor kids. He laughs a lot lately...especially at flyswatters and when we tap him on the head with (new) diapers.

Brian's marathon is next Sunday. He is a little nervous for it as it's been tight training for a marathon in one month. I haven't run in a few days as I somehow caught yet ANOTHER cold. I guess the changing weather doesn't agree with me. I hope the boys don't get it.

The trees are finally turning colors and it's beautiful. We're excited for Halloween. Caden is going to be a monkey. Keep your eye out for more pictures!

Bath time is always fun

Big yawn (Cute outfit from Gramma Bernitta)

First bike ride

Momma's little boy is growing up

First pair of "big boy" PJs (Note the USMC bulldog)

DVDs are a favorite toy

Big toothy grin in his England outfit (Thanks Em!)

Naylor's Beach Triathlon

Camping with Caden was a new experience, to say the least! It was a little chillier than we would have liked. He woke up around 2:30 a.m. and wasn't very happy. I took him out of the pack and play and he snuggled with momma the rest of the night. The other difficult aspect was heating up his food and keeping it warm. Apparently Caden is not a fan of cold food! But all in all, it was not too bad. We went out to eat that night so Brian had some good pre-race food.

The race was at Naylor's Beach, which was about an hour and 45 minutes away (although I am still wondering where the beach was?!). It was a USA Triathlon sanctioned event so there were a lot of good athletes. Brian was apprehensive leading up to it because he did not feel adequately prepared. His cold didn't help either.

However, apparently his lack of confidence (and lack of sleep!) did not affect him because he performed awesome! He placed 20th overall and 5th in his age group with a time of 1:31:16. There were 117 male competitors. He was just a minute and a half off placing in his age group.

The race started one hour late due to fog. It was so thick they could not even seen the buoys when they swam. Brian said he had to stop a few times and focus and look around. Not good! But he was pleased with his swim for the most part, especially since he was unable to do any open water swims leading up to the event. The bike portion was difficult. Twenty-six miles is a long way and Brian has never done a race that long. He felt okay and averaged about 20 mph, which is what he expected. His run is always his strongest portion. He had the 5th fastest time out of all the runners in all the divisions at the race. He managed to pass quite a few people and move back up.

Helping Daddy prepare

Look at that fog

Coming out of the water (on the "beach")

The bike part was tough

Great job Brian!

So all in all, it was a good experience. He's still sore from the race and had to drive all the way to North Carolina that night for work the next day. Not fun! He is excited for training next year. He figures, if I can do this well without training a ton, just think what I can do if I REALLY try! Oh no. A fellow Marine approached him at the event and asked if he was interested in the Marine Corps Triathlon team. He contacted the coordinator yesterday and hopes to hear back soon.

The race motivated me too. I miss racing! I've been running a lot lately, with Caden in the jogging stroller, and am almost back to pre-baby shape. I want to run another half marathon next spring...maybe Virginia Beach? It looks like a fun race. Laurie and I always talked about doing it and now that I live here, it's only three hours away.

That's all for now. I tacked on two more fun pictures of Caden. We play peekaboo with him in the kitchen. He'll hear us calling him and come sneaking around the corner, straining his neck to see us. It's so cute. He also enjoys playing with my curtains lately. Hmmm...I have learned that a baby's favorite toys are usually not toys.

Peekaboo!


Drapes are fun

Thanks for checking in! This message was long...sorry!

Race Season Begins

It's race season for Brian. He had a race last weekend where he did the running legs of a duathlon and his teammate did the mountain biking portion. It was chilly so we had to bundle Caden up. He wore a cute outfit from his Great Aunt Cindy...this kid is stylin!

Bear Hat


They finished 4th in their division. Brian ran 6-minute mile splits and was fairly pleased with his performance. He competes in the Naylor's Beach Triathlon this Sunday. We're going to camp the night before. That will be interesting with an 8-month-old. We all have colds so hopefully that subsides by the weekend.

Fredericksburg Off-Road Duathlon




Caden talks constantly lately. It sounds like he says "ma ma" but of course it's just babble to him. I'll just pretend it's real. We took him on an 80-minute hike on Sunday. He was awake the entire time and loved it. He's such an outdoorsy kid.

Quantico Creek


Playing after the hike


We got some sad news that my brother's dog Riley was involved in a farm accident this weekend. She died Saturday night. We're thinking of you Mom, Dad, and Jeff, and of course, sweet Riley.

We love you Riley

Grandparents Day

Good morning. I don't really have much to report...just thought I'd say hi!

Everything here is fine. My parents left Tuesday. They gave Caden only about 1,000 hugs and kisses over the course of the week! Dad handled the traveling okay but is still recovering from his surgery. We're so glad he made the trip anyway. It was neat that they were here for Grandparents Day. We didn't do a whole lot...just a lot of QT here at home. We enjoyed a lot of good meals (and ice cream), toured the Marine Corps Museum, and walked down at the Quantico dock. I also drove them around downtown D.C. before dropping them off at the airport. We got to see most of the monuments and buildings from the road and about 500 police cars, since it was September 11. We couldn't see the White House so we'll have to try for that next time.

Caden isn't crawling yet. He has seemed so close for weeks now! He manages to get into everything anyway by rolling or running around in his walker. He does aerobics in his crib at night and usually wakes up a few times for no reason really. That's not really helping me get good sleep, but oh well. That's the name of the game being a parent, right?!

Favorite toy: Similac Lid

He always laughs when I shake my hair at him

Baby in a Basket

Grandparents Day


Our First Date in a LONG time!