Why I LOVE Tricia's house (I thought of two more than Ten and didn't want to cut any of them out):
12) Having girls night out with Tricia, Courtney, Bella, myself...and Clark. And sleeping in the big bed with Tricia and Courtney while the boys were at Father's and Sons.
11) Seeing Tricia totally defend my child to the manager at The Children's Place. It's a long story that can only be told effectively out loud, but it was great. Oh, where was I in this story? Hiding outside with the rest of the kids while she confronted the worker. Seriously, don't mess with Trish. I'm glad she is on my side.
10) Junk food...Ahoy fruit, Doritos, Cupcakes, M&Ms, Butterfingers, Crunch Bars, and Babe Ruth's...take your pick. But what about those elusive 100 grand bars? Tricia, any comment?
9) Getting to see Dan a.k.a. The Cleaning Machine in action. When I wouldn't allow him to help me with dinner one night, he decided to break out the Floormate and clean the hardwood kitchen floor all around me. I guess he decided that if I wasn't going to let him help me, he was going to box me in around the stove with wet floor. Still, I have to say the floors looked magnifico Dan!
8) Playing the "I know more characters than you from Star Wars" game with Carter and Courtney. Yeah, I lost. I even came up with Jar Jar Binks and they still beat me with some random Wookie name!
7) Playing and getting beat by Carter in Wii bowling AND baseball. And you might just chalk it up to the fact that I am pathetic at those games, but seriously, Carter is ridiculously good.
6) Bella groovin' from side to side with a big ol' smile on her face.
5) Spending time in ALL the rooms that my mom and I wallpapered.
4) Getting some kind of makeover. It's usually a
haircut, and it gets shorter every time I go. I like it more and more, but Tanner is worried I will come home bald after another visit. But I am just glad I have a free personal stylist anytime I need one.
3) Getting to be part of the mile a minute action that is Tricia's life. All I can say is that I am glad she has a sweet ride, because she spends a lot of time in that car.
2) The fact that Melanie STILL calls to hang out with us on the phone even though she is totally sad she can't be there in person. We were sad too!
1) Wii. Staying up with Dan and Tricia until 1 or 2am playing Darts and a running, skipping, and jumping game was definitely a highlight. The Wii told Tricia and I that we are BFF, as if we didn't know that already! I have to say my dart playing was pretty awesome. However, Dan and Tricia hit a new record low (or high depending on how you look at it) with their respective Wii fitness ages.
As you can see, they weren't excited about it at all.
This is the entrance to the midshipmen dorms..fyi it is the largest dormitory in the US.
On Tuesday, we drove the opposite direction and went up to Gettysburg, PA. We had fun seeing all the sites again, and it was even more fun to have Clark entertain us (and all the other visitors!) throughout the day.
The Outer Banks is known for having some beautiful lighthouses, and we saw most of them. We wondered why they were painted in alternating black and white. We found out that it is because those colors contrast the most and therefore are the easiest to see from the sea!
We also traipsed up some large sand dunes which were a lot of fun, and it even prompted me to break out into song singing Arabian Nights from Aladdin. Clark loved having all the open space to run (and roll!) around on. We even made the footprints in the sand that is now the background at the top of our blog. 
Our last stop was the beach. Clark loved playing and being chased by the waves, until he got knocked over. It was a beautiful evening and it was a relaxing end to a fun filled day.
We got this rare picture with Grandpa smiling! Maybe it was because he was off duty!
How do you commemorate a day that you have planned, prepared, worked, and dreamed about for 10 years? A lot of people don't like commemoration days like graduation because there is so much buildup and hype, there is no way that one day can possibly give you the satisfaction you desire after slaving away for so long and accomplishing so much. And it can also be depressing to think that you have accomplished your most difficult goal to date, only to turn around and realize that all it really did was prepare you for more even more difficult goals in the future. There will always be the hokie or lame (as my father stated) speech given by the class president that are so full of inside jokes that you wonder if you actually attended the same school, and the awards to those who accomplished so much that you wonder if they are in fact human...seriously.
Then there was the really great speech given by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and I recommend not only reading it, but watching it as well.
Clark also discovered that Grandma has really cool sunglasses. He was pretty careful with them the first day, but a few days later, he broke them :-( Sorry Grandma!
After the tour of the naval base, we drove over to where they have docked the Battleship Wisconsin in the harbor. We were able to board the ship and see into most of the rooms. We had a lot of fun running around on it and it was really interesting to learn that it fought in the first gulf war. It has since been decommissioned, but it is constantly maintained so it can be recalled anytime to go back out to battle.
After our military themed day, we drove over to Virginia Beach, and Tanner and his parents popped out of the car while I stayed with a sleeping Clark in the car to check out the beach. After we got back, we met up with my parents who had driven up from North Carolina and went to a pre-graduation dinner in honor of Tanner. It was a fun day!!
As you can see, Clark had no problem with that.
