Drop and Give me….what?!?!

The kids and I are visiting Marine Corps friends at Quantico, which is always fun.  But this trip has been made extra-entertaining for several reasons.

1. The kids are attending VBS on base with their friends.  And you ain’t been to VBS until you’ve been to Marine Corps VBS.  Yesterday’s activity involved Martial Arts (a.k.a. Marine Corp Martial Arts or MCMAP.)  Sammy had the privilege of sitting next to a real live black belt, red stripe and all.  When he was told that this warrior could kill him with his pinky, he let out an airy wow in half fear/half admiration.  And as I dropped them off today, I overheard talk of bomb-sniffing dogs making an appearance.  This is all such a far cry from egg toss or craft corner!
2. Speaking of dropping them off, the young Marine who was apparently ‘voluntold’ to help with VBS and was stationed at the registration desk surrounded by gangs of sweaty children and their eager-to-drop-them-off-Moms, had to pause our registration process to take a phone call which began with him saying loudly “…no…I can’t…I’m at the f*cking church thing for kids.”  Thanks for the kids’ new VBS vocab word, buddy!
3. Speaking of f-bombs dropping, a fish fell from the sky and almost landed on my head.  I’ll give you a few minutes to process that statement before I give you the full story.  And I know some of you are thinking, “Of course, Tommi.  Only you.”  To which I would have to agree.  Because you just can’t make this stuff up!  Ok, so, we were at the pool on base.  I was standing by our table, which THANKFULLY had an umbrella, when I hear a loud thud right.over.my.head.  And that’s when a huge fish bounced off of the umbrella and splattered at my feet.  Apparently a bird lost its grip on dinner mid-flight, and I was the lucky recipient of its takeout.
4.   Marine Corps Pool: the safest place on earth.  Seriously, if you’re planning on taking 4 kids to a pool but are a little nervous, try to go to one filled with Marines.  Talk about safety.  I’m pretty sure it’s humanly impossible to drown at a pool filled with Marines.  And this hypothesis made it a bit easier for me to watch 6-yr-old Silas do this:

And as an added bonus, there’s plenty of reading material at a Marine Corp pool via tattooed backs, lats, calves and chests.

Plus, if a huge fish falls from the sky and splatters at your feet, it’s all hands on deck to clean up the mess.  So there’s that.