The events of 9/11 influenced my decision to want to join the Marines. I heard from my friends the horror they experienced living in NY and felt the uncertainty we faced on the west coast too. Since that moment our entire country changed and the specter of terrorism was in every training exercise in the Marines. The burden for the war on terror has fallen unfairly on all the lives of those in the armed forces. I’ve seen the exhaustion of the endless deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in the lives of my friends. Listening to some of the family stories is one of the reasons why I knew it would be unfair to marry Carmen and to put her through that kind of torture in our new marriage. It was something I felt I needed to do for my family but I always felt guilty hearing from my friends who soon deployed after they graduated as officers. I got their phone calls about how the war effort seemed to never end and the pain their family was going through. It’s been 17 years since that terrible day and it seems like our country has forgotten that thousands of Americans still fight this war on terror and their families still bear this burden. Today is a day to pray for all the families who are still fighting this war. #911 #Waronterror #armedforces #USMC #Navy #Marines #September11
Some of you young adults and college students ask how we paid off my student loan debt and paid for 2 people to go to seminary on a missionary and therapist salary. Car and food budgets are probably the biggest budget killers and here is a visualization of what biking and cooking can do for your budget. Living simply and giving cheerfully is not something that is impossible to do. I know that we aren’t the lowest spending family in San Diego and we made our budget like this because we felt like we could sustain this. The hardest thing about budgeting is actually making a commitment to a simpler life or else budgeting just feels like torture. (This was done on Mint.com under the Trends feature and I highly recommend it because you can see what your spending is like vs others in your city.)
A shot from my first Pro show courtesy of @eric.lipton  I’ve been using the www.GainsinBulk.comAthlete’s Digestive Formula for a year now and I love it as a digestive aid. I used to just take a probiotic but I get a lot less bloating and gas with their formula. If you want to give their products a try use my promo code DavidP10 for 10% off your order! #GainsInBulk #GIB #PNBA #INBA @inbaglobal_official @gainsinbulk #teamusa #bodybuilding #weightloss #fitness #curls #arms #shredding #legs #contestprep #bodybuilding #worldchampionships #inbaglobal #naturalbodybuilding #muscleshow #musclecontest #Worldchampionships #INBA
Daddy Daycare Day 3: I’m thankful that I get to bring my son to work. I’ve brought him into a couple of meetings in person and online but none of my co-workers have complained yet about a crying baby. Super thankful that they are accepting of me because I saw myself on my webcam and my natural prejudice was to think I look super unprofessional 😑. But I think that’s just the bias we have in our culture, even my own instinct was to want to give my baby to his mom and get back to work. Maybe our culture is changing for the better and become more accepting of men taking care of their kids.