Words cannot descibe how proud I am

For 21 years the most amazing man I know has served for our country.

In 1989 he entered the United States Marine Corps



In 1997 he was honorably discharged and enlisted in the US Army

In 2005 he was a Military Science Instructor for Boise State University where we met :)

I only got to share the last 6 years of his military career with him. In those 6 years we faced many times apart for training and one deployement.  I wouldn't change that time for anything in the world. Even if we couldn't spend every day together or even talk to each other each day, or eat dinner together every night, or fall asleep in the same bed or even in the same time zone. Those 6 years were some of the toughest but also the best years were I met some amazing people and developed a new respect for military life and know how strong you military wives are out there.

I still remember the day he deployed. I was stuck to his side from the minute we woke up to the minute he had to leave. I am always a cryer. But that day I held back all the tears. I knew I had to be strong for him, for us. And I tried to do this during the deployment too. He already had enough stresses out there. He had to be the strong one out there for his Soldiers, I could be the strong one at home for us.

This is one of the photos from his deployment last year.

I think we are still getting used to the idea of taking our time in life and not rushing to get in vacations or finish to do lists for fear that he may deploy or have to leave for trainings and schools.

Words cannot say how proud I am of him and his accomplishments. I am happy to be able to share that with him. This past weekend when we had his retirement ceremony was definatley more emotional than I had thought. We all shared some tears before and during the ceremony.



Getting ready to head out. I heart him

Gene and our best friend Darren who presided over the ceremony for us



His brother gave a very emotional speech and toast

Presenting him his award from the President of the United States

Presenting him with his flag

I just presented him with his award

His awards and flag

Men in uniform... do I really need to say any more?

I love my 1SG



I know it's difficult to hang up the uniform after 21 plus years, but I'm happy I get to be there every day with you. I'm excited to start this new chapter together.

I'm cheating on the pavement with my treadmill

So Sunday I was supposed to run 20 miles. But this weekend was my loves retirement ceremony so we had family here. They left early Sunday but I spend the day just relaxing. It was a busy and emotional weekend and I needed a rest day! I figured I would run it on Monday but I slept in so my opportunity passed me :(
So today it just HAD to get done. Only way that was going to happen was if I ran it on my treadmill so that's what I did!

20 miles in 3 hrs 11 min. My son was funny and asked if I was going to run a marathon on the treadmill :)



First few miles were the toughest mentally. As soon as I got over that I actually got into a groove and was feeling really good! I was hydrating like normal. Around mile 15 my legs/hips were fatigued. At mile 18 my feet were really hurting and I just wanted to be done already. I feel like I felt more pain running on the mill than I would running outside. Maybe it's cause when I run outside I 'escape' and don't focus on the pain but on the treadmill it's all I could think about I couldn't get it out of my head. I also think I didn't hydrate enough. I started feeling really low on energy and even nauseous at the end. I think it might be cause sweat a lot more on the treadmill than I do when I run outside so I should have took that into account and hydrated more.

Overall I felt good (besides wanting to chop my feet off at the end) This is my last 20 miler and I have one more double digit run before my marathon on May 14th! I probably should make a post on my goals for the marathon but honestly I don't know what they are yet :/

Well anyway I'll leave you a picture of my runners tan. My legs needed a break from the sun so it was a good thing I ran on the treadmill :)

Here's the full pic. Can you see the tan lines? At least most people didn't notice it till someone would say something then they would laugh haha. Oh well I wear those tan lines proud! 
Check back tomorrow for a post on the retirement ceremony :)

My little man

At 11:54 pm you will officially be 10 years old.

You are special and changed my life the minute you came into this world

I couldn't imagine my life without your smile

A day never goes by when you don't make me laugh with your great personality and sense of humor.

I will support you in whatever you want to be when you grow up even if it is still Spiderman and Superman. Maybe you will be Superspiderman.

You give my life so much more meaning and purpose

Even when you become a teenager and will probably want nothing to do with your boring mom, I will still be there asking you all the boring question of how your day went or the embarrassing ones of which girls like you.

I will still be the loudest cheerleader at all your sports games.

Or if you are a WWE wrestler, I will yell out your wrestler name you already chose "Baby Iz"

No matter how old you are, where you are living or what you are doing, you will always be my baby boy.