Reception: Day 10

Halloween! Blake loves holidays, and he was aware that he would be spending Halloween in boot camp, but that was OK.

Who knows what the heck he's doing! But one thing's for sure; whatever it is, he's going to be doing it for another week.

Well, on to the news. Carol and I each got a letter from Blake this week. Most of the info in the letter was the same that we talked about on the phone, but it was good to see something from him in writing.

Just to touch on it, he said that he would get to leave on December 18th to come home for Christmas, but he was expected to pay his own way. He said that he might take the bus since it was cheaper, but we'll talk about it as soon as he gets an address to write to. One thing's for sure, we're going to make sure that he gets to come home, by plane, bus or whatever.

We were concerned that he didn't have a way to access any of his money to make his purchases for stuff that he needs but he said that they gave him a "credit card" with enough money on it to make it through basic training. There's not much that he needs to spend his money for anyway, except phone cards (which is another story altogether).

Blake said that the reception phase was getting old fast. They don't even have them do PT because they don't want anyone to get hurt before basic training starts. They just spend their time policing around the barracks and doing drill practice. The fireguard is the one who wakes everyone up at 4 in the morning, so he hasn't even seen the trash can being thrown down the aisle. You old timers like me will think he's missing out on so much... That's what I thought, too.

Blake was supposed to have gotten his dog tags and eye glasses on Monday. He called the eye glasses, BCGs, for "Birth Control Glasses"... Use your imagination. Apparantly, they're not very stylish.

Well, here's hoping that he can get out of reception and into basic training sooner than expected. I'll keep you all informed of anything new we hear in the meantime.

Thanks for stopping by and keeping track of his progress.