Birthday, Califonia, Disneyland, Thanksgiving.

My birthday has always been an exciting time since it falls so close to Thanksgiving. The 21st can never be the EXACT date of Thanksgiving, but it is always a few days before. I was born on the Monday before Thanksgiving in San Pedro, California...three days later, I stayed home with my mom while my dad took Rebecca and Ben to have dinner on board his ship, the USS Missouri. Growing up, I would always look forward to the week of Thanksgiving because I would get to celebrate with friends and then we'd have a half day of school before Thanksgiving and we would drive to South Carolina to spend the holiday with Grandma and Grandpa Morgan. Always an exciting week.

ANYWAY, this year, it fell the day before Thanksgiving so I decided I would go to California for all the festivities: my birthday, Thanksgiving, Jessica's birthday, the 10K Turkey Trot, Black Friday...

AND we decided to go to Disneyland on my actual birthday. Sold.

The weekend before I left, I had a couple separate celebrations with friends. Thursday night I went out to dinner with some girlfriends at Georgia Brown's in DC-its a lowcountry cuisine place and I've been wanting to go forEVER. So delicious.

Friday night, G and I went to go see "Lincoln". WOW. I came into this movie with high expectations and they were exceeded. SO GOOD. Masterful, powerful, inspiring...Daniel-Day Lewis was sensational, spot on in his interpretation of Lincoln. When the movie ended, the entire theatre started clapping, after sharing in some laughter at the Congress jokes that had been made..we were in DC after all. Its been a long time since I've been speechless at the end of a movie, but I was at this.

AND G ALSO GOT ME RAY BANS!!! I love them.

I flew to Orange County on Tuesday the 20th-when I woke up the next morning it was my birthday and I could hear my nephews in their room chatting :)

Off we were to Disneyland! We first went on Autopia-I rode with Daniel. Hes a great driver.

Eventually we went over to California Adventure-it was the first time I was able to go to "Cars" Land. It is so impressive-it looks just like the set in the movie.

We had a really good time. The weather was beautiful, the boys were well-behaved and we got to go on a lot of rides. A great way to usher in being 24.

Thanksgiving morning (Jessica's birthday) we woke up and ran the Dana Point Turkey Trot 10K. Every time I come to stay with Ben and Jess over the holiday, we run the race.

We went home and started pie-making. After eating a delicious dinner at Jessica's aunts house, we walked down to the beach at Emerald Bay to watch the sunset. Gorgeous.

The rest of my visit was really nice. I got to spend time with my nephews and go Black Friday shopping with Jess. Gavyn enjoyed pretending to be Spiderman and Saturday night I babysat all three boys-it was perfect.

Freedom.

Its not unusual for me to find myself randomly thinking about America during the day. I love history, I live right across the river from the most powerful city in the world, I come from a military family, I watch shows like "JAG" and “The West Wing” and so forth…But the past week because of obvious major events I have been thinking even more often about our country and how truly blessed we are to live here.

I’m not going to go into many details about the election because that’s not what my blog is about, but I will say this: I was disappointed with the results Tuesday night, but not gloom-and-doom depressed. The whole day/night I kept thinking about how wonderful it was that we have the freedom to vote who we want to public office-we hold that control. And even though the day symbolized division, it made my heart happy thinking of how united voting makes us. Most people going to the polls last Tuesday went there full of hope that their man would win and become President of the United States. We were in a way, united in that hope.

I feel so blessed that I had the ability to vote. This was my first time being able to vote in person, and my heart was pounding as I pushed the buttons on the machine. I am an American. I have the right to vote someone into office, and the right to vote them out of office. And so does every other American.

(And I know I wouldn’t go into the election, but I love this picture of Mitt by Charles Dharapak. Sue me.)

I think its only appropriate that Veterans Day was five days after the election, because of course we wouldn’t have the right to vote without the service and sacrifice of our veterans. I get so upset with people who are so defiant about not voting. My thoughts are: educate yourself on the issues and go vote. If civic duty doesn’t motivate you, just think about the many men who suffered and died on the beach at Normandy or in the jungles of Vietnam so that you could be free to voice your opinion.

Thankfully, I have three great veterans in my life who have always been great examples to me of being selfless, disciplined, and faithful to the cause of defending our nation.

1^st Lt. Lloyd H. Morgan, USMC ret.

Grandpa Morgan was a Marine for 33 years. He served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, most notably fighting at the Chosin Reservoir. He was able to vote in Virginia on Tuesday and was so happy :)

Lt. Col. J. Alan Price, USAF

Grandpa Price was an enlisted sailor in WWII in the Navy and then joined the Air Force. He was a fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam and worked at the Pentagon and other assorted stations. He passed away four years ago and I wish I could call him and tell him thank you.

Cdr. Clark A. Price, USN ret.

My dad will always be the very best person that I have ever known. A lot of this ties to his career in the Navy as a JAG Corps officer. The Navy was lucky to have him because he is the most just, fair person that I know. He was the epitomy of a good naval officer.

I will be forever grateful for all veterans that have served our country, and those who did not return. We were able to choose our next president because they were ready to fight on our behalf. How blessed we are.

"King of New York".

About a year ago, G and I heard that "Newsies" was going on the stage as an Off Broadway production in New Jersey and knew we HAD to go. I used to watch the movie all the time when I was little because my sister was in love with Christian Bale and I still LOVE to watch it and listen to the music.

Anyway, this March they moved to Broadway and I have been trying to go ever since. I haven't had a chance to go for one reason or another, but this weekend, it worked out for Britt, Caity and I to go! FINALLY.

We had to get individual seats because there weren't three together, but it was okay because they were 50% off and the musical was UH-MAZING. Oh my goodness...seriously friends. It surpassed all my expectations. The dancing was amazing, the singing was amazing, the guy who played Jack Kelly was amazing...AHHHH. There was so much energy in the theatre and you could tell the actors were really enjoying themselves. I HIGHLY recommend it. To everyone. It will make you happy. I can't wait to go again in January with my sistas.

It was the perfect day. We were only there for Saturday (longggg day) but we had a great time. The weather was great-not too cold/windy but cool enough to wear a jacket-and we had wonderful time seeing "Newsies" and walking around Manhattan.

Success!

Raja.

One Saturday last October, Jaklyn and I ventured out to run some errands. We went to Target, and when we came out, walked by PetsMart and saw they were doing cat adoptions. We went in to leisurely look and there was only one kitten to come up to the cage and interact with us.

We came home with this:

We eventually settled on the name Raja because she has stripes that make her look like a tiger, specifically the one in "Aladdin". Growing up, I never had a real pet, other than a few fish because Papa Price is not a fan of animals in the house. So this was pretty exciting for me.

A lot of people don't like Raja and I can understand why. She is fiesty, bratty, and spicy. I've gotten a lot of scratches and bite marks from interacting with her. A lot of the time I wish she could be like those sweet cats you see that just sit there. But she has her tender moments..

A few reasons why Raja is great:

She makes a nice taco filling.

Shes likes books.

She appreciates Sunday naps.

She stays clean.

She knows when she's done something bad.

She misses us when we go out of town.

She can sleep in any position.

She helped me paint my room.

She waits by my door for me to get home.

She's really tall.

And sometimes, she's just cute.

Happy 1 Year Adoption Raja!

37th Annual Marine Corps Marathon.

Sometime when I was at BYU, I decided that in the future, I wanted to run a marathon. Since it goes through DC/Arlington and I love Marines, especially my Grandpa, it was a no brainer to run the Marine Corps Marathon. I decided to wait until I moved back to DC and could train at the same altitude as the race. A month after I moved back my Grandpa Morgan moved up to Woodbridge to be closer to mom and dad, and we became very close. I have loving memories of my Grandpa from when I was a little girl: he called me "baby" because I was the youngest (and still does sometimes), he was the one who set up the VCR for me so I could watch "101 Dalmatians", he was the one who taught me the importance of doing genealogy, he knew how to fix anything, and he would always cook grits and bacon for breakfast when we would visit. But my Grandma was a very chatty person, so when we were all together, he would never have a lot of chances to talk. The past year and a half I have talked more with my Grandpa than the past 21 years combined. We've looked at pictures and documents from when he was in the Marines and he has told me so many awesome stories that I can't wait to tell my children some day.

I decided last summer that it was the perfect time to run the Marine Corps Marathon, and this past February, registered along with 30,000+ people. I have been so excited, because my Grandpa would be able to be there in person, and see me run this race in his honor.

Along with a troublesome knee, the week before my race I had a bad infection that almost led to bronchitis, and Hurricane Sandy was coming straight for the East Coast (we are all okay at my house) expected to make landfall the day of the race. Great.

Luckily, everything worked out-the race went on as scheduled with no storm yet, and my disease was gone.

Saturday afternoon I headed to the expo at the DC Armory to pick up my bib and mock shirt.

Sunday morning Britt put this sweet sign on my door before she left for Iowa :) hashtag sweetroommate.

G had to take his parents to Reagan at 5:30, so he came over after and came with me to the start line on 110 by the Pentagon...after stopping at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and driving around Crystal City looking for a parking place. Here I am after taking his coat, because I was cold. It was real early.

I wrote this on my wrist for some inspiration whenever things got hard.

Here is the shirt I made to wear. Special thanks to my mom, who really is the one who did all the work.

Slow flyover by Marine Ospreys during the opening ceremony.

As you can tell, I was pretty excited.

And we're off!

G was there cheering for me at Georgetown (mile 9), the Mall kind of by Lincoln (mile 16), and on the 14th street bridge (mile 20). Every time I would get to where he was, he would run a little bit with me LOL. This is in Georgetown on M Street.

There were definitely times where I struggled...mile 20-26 my back started hurting so bad I wanted to cry. I really thought I would die before I could make it to the finish line at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Rosslyn. When I got to the finish, I ran up the last little hill and I saw my parents and G waving at me, but I only really noticed my Grandpa, sitting in his wheelchair covered in a blanket. I ran up to him and started crying, half because I really wanted to die, and half because I just love him. After we got our medals, I met everyone and we took some pics.

 

I am so happy that I was able to run the Marine Corps Marathon in honor of my sweet Grandpa, Lloyd H. Morgan, USMC (Ret.). He is my hero.