The National Museum of the Marine Corps

The reason behind our trip to Virginia was to meet and visit with my amazing workout accountability partner Bill and his family.  Bill and I met on Twitter after he posted his P90X transformation pictures.  I am pretty sure that when I saw the pictures he posted on Twitter my mouth dropped off my face!  Anyway, if he's telling the story, I began stalking him on Twitter but I don't necessarily remember it the same way.  We ended up deciding to do Insanity: The Asylum workout together and keep each other accountable to the program by texting each other every evening.  Most of the time we tried to do the workouts at the same time which was fun.

Over the course of those 30 days we got to know each other pretty well and he invited me to bring the family down and spend some time getting to know him in real life.  I thought it would be fun and so did Curt so we started saving our pennies.  I wish I would have taken more pictures of Bill, Robin (his beautiful wife), Riley, Reagan and Lauren (his kids), but to be honest we just had so much fun hanging out with them that I didn't think about taking photos... well, I did think about it during our super fun/crazy/intense workouts but I was busy working my butt off (literally) so it just never happened.

On one of the days Bill's work schedule allowed him a little free time and he invited Curt and I, along with the boys to go to the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico.  We didn't know what to expect from the museum, but I can tell you that we didn't expect it to have the depth that it did.  We all loved it.  Here are a few of the things we saw....

 This is Bill helping Jacob try on the gear pack the Marines get to carry around with their necessities.  If I'm not mistaken, the pack weighs 40lbs.  Jacob, weighing around 60lbs. couldn't even stand up with it on.

The Marine vehichles in the museum are not reproductions, but actual vehicles from each time period.

There were several areas that the boys were able to try on the gear, again, these were from different periods in history.  It was definitely interesting to see how things have changed over time!

 Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal.  This is the original photograph.

 This is the flag.

 The boys hanging out in one of the Marine vehicles, I want to say its a tank, but I don't know if I am correct.

The museum is filled with a ton interesting exhibits.  The boys favorite exhibit was one where you walk out the back of a helicopter and land right in the middle of the fighting in Vietnam.  What was once an air conditioned and comfortable museum quickly became a hot and uncomfortable place.

If you have a chance to visit the museum, I recommend it.  I had no idea of the history of the Marines... and if you have the chance to walk through with a Marine, even better...