Tyler's Promotion

Tyler was promoted to Captain today!!! OoooRah! We we're both very excited, it's been a long time coming. I was able to participate in the ceremony and "pin" Ty, along with the Lt. Colonel, I was a little nervous but it all turned out okay. Only afterward did Tyler tell me that I was suppose to "punch" the pin in. I wish I would have known that! Anyway, I am so proud of Tyler and all the hard work that he does, he's the best!

Here is a funny picture of our good friend Cody saluting Tyler. For all of 15 minutes Tyler actually out-ranked Cody. We told him to enjoy it while it lasted.
Introducing: Captain Cody Thacker and Captain Tyler Hart

Charlie's Graduation

Charlie has finally completed his 6 week Puppy Classes. He did an amazing job and is a very fast learner. Some of the things he learned: His name, touch, come, sit, sit/stay, down, shake, dance, and I can't remember what else. He is going to miss his friends, especially Bridgette. He fell in love with this little Pomeranian, and I think she was crushin' on him as well. The day before he went to the groomers for the first time, he got a pretty cute hair cut, I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell from the pictures.

Home to Salt Lake

Ty had a couple weeks off work, finally, so we decided to take a trip home to Utah. Last time we went home we drove and vowed we would never do that again. Luckily JetBlue recently opened up a flight from SL to SD and we were able to get great tickets. I of course couldn't go a whole week without my Charlie-bear so we bought him a $75 (one-way) ticket as well. Ty must really love me to fork over $150 just so I could have Charlie with me. Or maybe he just couldn't live without Charlie either. Anyway, we didn't take too many pictures while we were in town (I really need to do better at that), so enjoy the few that we did manage to take (in random order).

I was packing up Charlie's suitcase and he kept jumping in. I was tempted to let him fly home in that, it would have been a lot cheaper....

Jim's birthday was on May 21st, Laurel made an amazing cake and we opened presents. Laurel's birthday was on May 24th, we had already left town and we're sad to miss it.
This is Porter and Charlie meeting for the first time. Charlie was a little nervous at first but great to LOVE Porter. They had so much fun playing together. Charlie especially loved playing "hide and seek", he just loved to have Porter chase him. They were so cute together, I can't wait to have them meet up again.
This is our nephew Trevor playing with Charlie. Don't they look cute together, they are just the right size for one another. Trevor loved having Charlie chase him around the yard.
Our cute niece Brooklynn, isn't she a doll!
Here is Toby (my brother Doug's dog) and Charlie meeting for the first time. Toby is a sweetheart with a lot of energy. Charlie was a little nervous with him as well, but I think they also had fun together.

Twilight Movie Trailer

Below is a link for the Twilight movie trailer. It looks pretty good, although I'm still not happy with the casting of Edward.

http://www.imdb.com/video/trailer/vi2380464409/

Family Visit

This past week we had our family in town. Broday, Corine and the Girls stayed with us, while Jim and Laurel stayed at a hotel on base. It was so much fun having family in town. We've noticed since we've moving to San Diego we sure get a lot more visitors. At least compared to North Dakota where my Mom was our one and only visitor. Anyway, we had a great time showing them all around San Diego. The girls loved the Zoo and Sea World the best.

Below: Kathy and Mackenzie at the zoo.

Tyler, Kathy, Corine, Laurel, Mackenzie, Brody and Eliza

Breakfast with Shamu. This was awesome, they have a breakfast buffet where you can have your own private Shamu show. It was so much fun and the food was great.

Brody, Corine, Eliza, Ivy and Mackenzie

Laurel and Jim, Mom and Dad, or Grandma and Grandpa
Our cute neices! Mackenzie, Ivy and Eliza

Recruit Graduation

On May 9th Tyler had graduation. At the end of every cycle the recruit es who made it through become official Marines and they have a huge graduation ceremony. This was the first one Tyler actually had to participate in. He had to lead his series, he was a little nervous since he hadn't done drill since OCS. He did awesome though and didn't make any mistakes. Below are some pictures from graduation.

Below: Captain Lopez, Lt. Tyler, and Captain Graves

Me and Tyler, doesn't he look amazing in his uniform.

This is the General (the little lady), she is in charge of all MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot).



This is MCRD mascot Molly. The Marines have the bull-dog as their mascot. I guess during WWI the Germans referred to the Marines as "devil-dogs". Which is why our blog is "devildogfam".

Happy BIrthday to Kathy

May 3rd was my birthday! I usually really look forward to my birthday, but this year I turned 28, and I am starting to realize that I don't like getting older. I had an awesome birthday though, Tyler actually had Friday and Saturday off (the first days off in about 3-4 weeks), so just having him home was the best present ever.

Tyler surprised me with an awesome present...and iPod Touch. It is amazing, I love it so much. I spent the morning playing with my new toy and I have to admit, I didn't share very well. Now that I have had it a little while I will let Ty play with it more.

After spending a relaxing morning at home we went to my friend Liz's house for a nice pool party. She made an amazing lunch to celebrate my b-day and Cinco de Mayo. It was a great time. The photo below is of Megan, Kathy, Patty and Liz.

Ella Minnow Pea

ELLA MINNOW PEA By Mark Dunn

I just read this book on Sunday, it was so good. Below is a description of the book I got off Amazon.com. This book was recommended to me and I thought it sounded very interesting, and it was. Its been a long time since I've read such an original idea. I really got involved in the story and couldn't believe how just a little bit of "power" can make people lose their minds. It was also sad to see everyone go along with it when no one agreed with the High Council. You'll understand when you read the book what I'm talking about. Anyway, if you read it let me know what you'd think, I'd love to talk to someone about it. Tyler just thinks I'm crazy. =)

"Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram (a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet)“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere."