EIB and St. Louis Trip

Congratulations to Drew!! After lots of hard work, he earned his Expert Infantry Badge last Friday. Drew has his CIB (combat infantry badge) which he earned in Iraq, but the EIB is a well-respected, non-combat related badge. Drew trained for a couple of weeks with his team to prepare, but last week was the test. It started on Monday with a PT test (no big deal) and land navigation but then they got into the 'lanes' as they call them where they have to complete a series of tasks in a high stress environment in a limited amount of time. The hours were crazy too with Drew barely sleeping all week. The graders are tough and tend to mark off for the littlest of things. To give you a better idea, 388 guys started and only 35 were pinned. It ended with a 12 mile ruck march which Drew enjoys. Great job, Drew!! I am doing a poor job of explaining it, but it's a big deal!
I wish I could have been in two places at once so I could be home to celebrate his accomplishment but I was off to St. Louis for the weekend. I had a great time! Here is the official 26 weeks picture (6 1/2 months) from Friday.

Friday night I was able to see good friends who threw me a baby shower/dinner at Bartolinos (my friend Tina's family's restaurant). So fun and of course the food is so good! Before hand I was able to meet Tina's daughter Natalie who was only 5 weeks old at the time and her big sister Josie is who is almost two. It was great because the moms were invited too so there was much 'baby talk' to go around from the new mom, mom-to-be, aunt, and Grandma perspective. My mom loved it too! It makes it so real when people are giving me presents for my son... Drew and I are going to have a son!!! Thank you to Tina, Carrie, Amelia and their moms for making me feel so special. Truly a nice time!
Here are a few pics. I was surprised to see the baby books and toys on the table when we walked in. I didn't realize we were having a 'baby' dinner. Such a nice surprise!




On Saturday my parents and I were invited to my friend Mary Beth's wedding shower. I have been friends with her since grade school and was asked to be a bridesmaid but... their wedding is in July and I am due in July... so I will be unable to fly in for the wedding. I wish two of our biggest life events were not falling in the same month but there's nothing we can do about it. We are so excited for both! I wanted to at least make it to something 'wedding-ish' so the shower was a perfect opportunity. It was great to see her and her soon-to-be husband Eric. My friend Brian who has also been a friend since gradeschool was there too. Here's a pic of us. The bride-to-be looked great! Sooo excited for them! :)

Sunday I rounded out the weekend with a trip to see Drew's mom Jeannie (soon-to-be Grandma!). We went to Babies R Us where I showed her different things on our registry and things we already have so she could picture the nursery. Then we got lost in baby clothes. I could buy everything in there! Thanks to Jeannie for getting him 5 new cute little outfits. His wardrobe is slowly growing... he now has 8 outfits. Something tells me we'll need more than that. :) We then enjoyed dinner with Gram which was fun to show her my quickly growing baby bump. The conversation seems to center around Baby H these days. We just can't help ourselves!
Last night I got home safely and Drew enjoyed seeing the new baby things. I tried to stuff as much as I could into my carry-on but our parents will bring the rest when they drive down next, which may just be when Baby H arrives! Thanks again to everyone who contributed to such a special weekend!