The Citadel - Charleston, South Carolina

Nonny's 80th Birthday celebration was held in South Carolina this past weekend.  Since the travel to the East Coast is an all day affair, we decided to go early and spend the weekend in Charleston, SC.  Stacy, Shelby and I arrived around midnight Friday night.  Saturday morning Stacy went to the local "box" to workout and then we were all off to see The Citadel.

It amazed us how much the rings there favor the Aggie Ring.  Pretty cool!

Shelby loved seeing all of the military stuff!

I think he liked the chopper the best.

"The guns"

Now that Shelby's older, we realized we can go back to being in the photos and let him shoot! :-)

The buildings were a fav of Shelby's because they all "look like castles!"

This gentleman was there with his family.  He asked Stacy what year he was and shook his hand.  Stacy explained our rings were A&M, not The Citadel.  They ended up having a cool conversation.  We found out he's currently serving our country and was just at home on R&R.  He got his picture with Shelby after we explained to Shelby that he was a soldier on leave.  He was going back after the weekend, so the family went on a visit to campus with him.  Made me crying knowing he was leaving them all again soon.  We thanked him for his service.
Only later did I regret not getting his name and letting Shelby send him care packages!  What was I thinking...Shelby would have loved that!

And we all traded cameras so we got family photos.

We kept seeing bulldogs around...then we figured out why.  So cute!

Shelby picked out a Citadel football as a souvenir so Stacy went out and tossed the ball around in the large field.

See the ball?  He's getting better at catch and cradle.

"stand clear of ramp when horn sounds"  Seriously?  Because anyone would stand in front of this tank at all?

Shelby is acting like the jet shoots footballs out...lol

Dive for the ball

And then he got a pic with a current student who introduced himself as Ben.  He was with his Mom and such a young gentleman.  He even let Shelby wear his hat for the photo, which was cute.  His mom was rightfully proud of her son.

408K

This past Saturday I recruited a couple of my CrossFit buddies to run an 8k with me.  I signed up for the 408k in San Jose this year, but I am going to be out of town for the actual race.  408 is the area code for San Jose.  This race is in support of the Pat Tillman Foundation.  Thank you to everyone that help me raise $500.  So, we ran a week early.  Yes, those are 20lb vest we wore. 

We started with 3.  Me, Eric, and Ryan.

Shelby wanted to send us off.

We ended with 2, 43:45 later.

 

Eric rolled his ankle about 900m into the race.  He decided to go back to the house and ice it.  I am glad that he did, the ankle was black and blue the next day.

We finished at the local high school.

Thanks guys for joining me on the run and for playing baseball with Shelby afterwards.