Mustache Man and I attended his battalion's Marine Corps Birthday Ball on the 13th of this month. This year, it was held in San Diego and the Manchester Grand Hyatt. We had been looking forward to it since July. We paid for a plane ticket to get my mother in law down here so she could stay with the kids while we were at Ball. I had bought my dress in August. We reserved a room at the hotel, paid for another medal for Mustache Man's dress blues uniform, and amazing shoes for me. My lovely and talented friend Jen did my hair. This year was going to be the best. ball. ever.
Much to my delight, this year I was not only 21+ years old, but I was also not pregnant. Bring on the booze! I knew we couldn't be so lucky as to have an open bar, so we made a stop before getting to San Diego to pick up some rum and start the pre-running in our room. The hotel was beautiful, and so was the Ballroom. It didn't feel cramped like it did the year prior. I was three sheets to the wind before the ceremony was over. This would normally not be something I'd encourage myself to do, but I am usually very self conscious in similar situations, and it was able to relax and enjoy the event.
I vaguely remember dinner. The steak was medium and perfect, and I remember dropping a piece on my dress. There was a lot of white man dancing going around our table, and the Marines I sat with, they rocked it! I was introduced to the "Shopping Cart", and "Lawn Mower". Mustache Man and I drunkenly tried dancing to some fast songs, which he later told me were some sort of beaner music. Oh well. I don't remember, so its hard to be too embarrassed. We got in line and had our pictures taken. Then it all went downhill. We went to pick up our pictures after the allotted amount of time to have them developed, and they were nowhere to be found. We asked the photographer, who was downright rude for no reason! He told us that we should have come to him sooner, implying it was our fault and not his. I broke down into tears, which always makes Mustache Man super protective... not a good thing for the person making me cry. The photographer's employees remembered taking our pictures, and remembered printing them. The photographer tried suggesting that our friends probably picked them up - we were staying the night at the hotel so that didn't make any sense. Finally, realizing that we weren't drunk enough to just give up and walk away, he gave us our money back. Jerk.
The saddest thing was this is the skinniest I've been in years. I've been working my butt off since August to get into shape, and I had a sexy dress that looking amazing. My hair was done. I was so happy. And the asshole lost my pictures... to what might be our last formal event. I wanted to gut him. Now, I'm just hoping that karma catches up with him. And that by some miracle my pictures show up. Our room was nice, but not so much that I could understand why on Earth someone would pay 400 a night for it. Luckily, we got a major discount through the event. We woke up at 4:30 am, and couldn't go back to sleep. It felt almost like we would be wasting our precious time without the kids by sleeping. Go figure. So we watched movies in bed, and recovered from our night of booze and bad dancing.
Otherwise, we had a great visit with Mustache Man's parents. We went to Knott's Berry Farm with them, and to Julian. Julian is a small, history packed town with a fantastic cemetery and Mom's Pies. It was a very relaxing and fun visit, totally the polar opposite of what people usually expect when the in-laws come. The kids loved doing Christmas early (Zach has a new train set that he is OBSESSED with) and we are very eagerly looking to moving from California and (hopefully) back to our dear Washington.
Tomorrow, we leave for St. George, Utah. We're going to be spending Thanksgiving over there with my "other" family, the ones I lived with shortly before I got married. We're so excited to see them again. The last time was in March, and we'll be meeting my cousin's newest addition, Asher.
Enjoy the Bird, everyone!
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