It Gets Harder

The title makes it sound really dismal, but this is the Army, and nothing is as it seems. He is in a "make or break" phase of Blake's training at this point. When he text messaged me that he had entered this phase Monday morning, he was very excited. By the end of the day, he was saying that this was great because it was really interesting. We're all sending our support for him through this. Even the pups know the sound of the text message beep and look up when he has something to say.

Yesterday was Blake's 6 month anniversary in the Army. He should be getting his rank soon, but he said that they would pay him retroactively to that point when he finally does. He's not really excited about going through the ceremony that they always do when someone gets a promotion, but it shows that he's put in a lot of hard work and is deserving of what he's getting. We're proud of him.

He got to spend the weekend in D.C. last weekend. Because everyone did a roadside cleanup campaign, they were all given weekend passes and Blake got to spend the first night off base since Christmas leave. He said he was going to do all the things that his friends had told him about such as eating at Chili's, going to the mall, maybe a movie... Wait a minute. That doesn't sound any different than if he were at home. At least he was taking his camera to take some pictures. We will be seeing those pictures soon.

Lot of stuff has happened. Blake's been on post for almost 3 months now. He misses us all and would love to hear from you. If you email me, I'll send you his mailing address so you can keep in touch.

More news when we know more ourselves.

4 Weeks Into Training

Well, we're at the 4 week mark in Blake's training. He's enjoying the training, but he's also looking forward to graduating and getting to his first duty station. He heard from a friend of his, Williamson, who is finished with his AIT and on his duty station. Blake wants that, too, but there's still several weeks ahead for him.

Blake had two wisdom teeth and a molar pulled a week ago last Thursday, and he's still in pain from the whole episode. He was on 72 hours bed rest, but he used the time during the night to take as many shifts as he could as fire guard. That gave him a little pocket change to use during the week. Last Friday, he saw an eye doctor to get some glasses--FINALLY! Hopefully, he'll get a pair now. He never did get his glasses in basic training.

We'll have more to report as we learn more. Right now, it's class every day. Sometimes exciting--sometimes not so much so. But he's hanging in there and doing a great job.