Wow…sorry about that…

Well, I just realized 2 things….#1, I never finished my 30 day blog challenge.  Fail on my part. :-/ I’m not really sure why I didn’t..it’s not like I was busy while Adam was at boot camp.  Although, looking back, those 8 weeks did go by quickly.  And #2, I realized that I haven’t posted anything since March 23rd!!  

So, to catch everyone up….A LOT has happened since March 23rd!  Most importantly, Adam graduated boot camp on April 8th.  I have to brag too, he graduated as the Academic Award winner for his company!  The little shit didn’t tell me about it either, so I found out the day of graduation when I was reading the program before the ceremony started!  We have since moved to Brunswick, GA and we are settling in quite nicely.  Adam loves his job at the CG Station.  He says the guys there are awesome and he is enjoying what he is doing! The area is amazing; tons to do and tons to see.  We are excited about being so close to Savannah, Jacksonville, FL and Charleston, SC.  Adam is on a 48 on/ 48 off duty rotation so we do a lot of exploring on his days off!  Out of boredom, I have started looking for jobs myself…soo, keep your fingers crossed for me! Well, that’s it for now. Hopefully it won’t take me another month to post again!

This first picture is of Adam in formation during the ceremony.  The second picture is Adam receiving his Academic Award and the last picture is Adam and I after graduation! 

 

They earned their colors!

Romeo 184 weekly journal Graduation 4/8/2011

I would like to start this entry saying that Romeo hit week five like a truck, but unfortunately it was Week five that hit us. At this point in a company’s lifespan, it is classified as a “senior company”, and is expected to set the example for any junior companies. Because of this, our credibility as a locked in, experienced company must be unerringly consistent, and mistakes are not taken lightly. With this increase in accountability, however, comes the pride of being one of the companies that sets the bar- not to mention of the benefits of knowing our training is progressing and we get to come home soon. As for our daily activities, Romeo got to play with- I’m sorry- “familiarize ourselves with” various emergency signals, many of which were essentially fireworks with a waterproof casings. Shortly after our pyrotechnics period, Romeo had our first uniform inspection. As our last inspection, Romeo excelled. Our final point count came out to 55/60, with the only points lost bring those weighed in the pop quiz questions hurled at us to keep us on our toes while our garments were analyzed… one could argue that the event amounted to evidence that Romeo is slow, but pretty. As we progressed into the middle of our week, Romeo continued with the usual training, pushing ourselves from being strong, to being coast guard strong. There was an unexpected surprise in our personal flotation device (PFD) class, however. In what was expected to be a simple briefing on how to properly don bulky orange life vests, our instructor skillfully kept our attention by spicing up the lesson with increasingly more difficult time constraints coupled with an abrupt cut of the lights. Furthermore, this all took place in the form of an elimination style competition- I had no idea putting on life jackets could be interesting. Thursday marked a very special point in not our training, but in our careers. We received out first orders. We lined up with a strong mixture of fear and excitement sloshing through our skills as we tried to process the potential of what was ultimately an utterly unknown procedure that would decide out lifestyles as we are initialized into the fleet. We individually stood in anticipation, waiting for out names to be called so we could have out futures yelled to us in the form of a station and location. Oddly enough, having the burning question of “where?” quenched only sparked up a wildfire of further inquiries. The unknown unknowns could rest in the back of the mind, but known unknowns had a tendency to force themselves into nagging our thoughts, as we found out over the next several hours. Havening a spot on the map to point at without having a mental image to cling to has prevent to be as intimidating as it is exciting. Fortunately almost the entire company was at least content with their orders, if not excited. Every request that went unanswered on our dream sheets was at least outweighed by possibilities. As if the build up and blessings of the week were not enough, we had yet another monumental benchmark land itself on our calendars on Saturday when our company commanders took us for a stroll to the beach. After playing in the sand for a few minutes and discovering firsthand how much a life raft weighs, we were deemed worthy to be granted our colors. Now, in previous entries, I have referred to our company flag several times, though I neglected to mention that this “flag” was little more than a white rag with an “R” stenciled on it for identification purposes. When a company earns its colors, it is a strong symbol of accomplishment that signifies that the company has evolved from a unit of recruits to a group of shipmates that uniformly conquers the trials and tribulations of boot camp as a single entity. If you have a loved in Romeo, ask them about their peers, I guarantee they will supply you with a hearty list of names backed with even heartier series of stories about those names. Our red and yellow flag is a symbol of that concept, and every one of us has put a bit of ourselves into those colors.

 

Day 25: Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs

Welp, this one is going to be kind of random because I do not have iTunes on my computer, I do not own an iPod and so, I’m going to use my parent’s iTunes.  I do have some of my own music on here and I really do like a lot of what my parent’s listen to..so, it shouldn’t be too bad!

1. She loves you by The Beatles

2.  Broken Down Cowboy bye John Fogerty

3. Little Bitty bye Alan Jackson

4. L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole

5. Desperado by The Eagles

6. APolitical Blue by Little Feat

7. Thunderbird by Stevie Ray Vaughan

8. Say  a Little Prayer by The Glee Cast

9. Save the Last Dance for Me by Michael Buble

10. I’d Love You All Over Again by Alan Jackson

Well, that wasn’t soo bad! I do a like a lot of those artists!  This music is a lot better than what they play on the radio these days.  I would listen to music like Nat King Cole, Stevie Ray Vaughn and John Fogerty over that other crap any day!

 

Journal from Week 4

http://www.uscgbootcamp.com/go/doc/763/1040619/

Week Ø4   Romeo-184 Week Ø4 has turned out to be a fantastic time period for Romeo-184.  During the latter half of our third week, we were being steadily conquered by a recruits greatest foe – sloth.  Romeo was missing time objectives readily enough to acquire the name “Slowmeo”, which was even written on a piece of tape and placed on our company flag.  At the start of week four, however, we had a bit of rain cleanse our flag of the embarrassment and our performance had improved enough that our Company Commanders deemed it appropriate to leave our pride as tapeless as it was. Soon after we had our first serious inspection, our squad bay inspection.  For those who have never served, the squad bay inspection is a “white glove” inspection of our living quarters, a direct reflection of our overall cleanliness and organization as a group.  The score we received was a 53 of 55, which is a very impressive score for a week four company. Shortly after starting off on the correct foot, Romeo hit the range simulator for our marksmanship classes, which was ultimately concluded with our marksmanship test, a gauntlet of speed and accuracy that tried our skill with the firearms.  After we individually tried our hand at gun slinging the number added up with our pass/fail rate being sufficient to earn Romeo our first pennant – a ribbon to hang beneath our flag to show all within view that Romeo knows it way around a pistol. Around the middle of our week, our boot camp midterm crept up on us and demanded that we prove our academic worth.  Much like our previous trials, Romeo came out swinging, K.O.ing the midterm with a glorious 100% pass rate earning a second pennant to display with pride. Two fabric trophies is a great way to start for a young company but Romeo was not done yet.  The Red Cross visited our halls humbly requesting blood donations for those in need.  Romeo answered the call.  The generosity flowed quite literally from our hearts and our donation rate was so high we earned yet another pennant for our dedication to good will.  With three of a potential three pennants earned, Romeo’s success rate is inarguable and will not quit until our flag flies over so many ribbons it looks like a colorful mop head. We finished our week with accompany wide run off base.  As recruits we were anticipating an agonizing trek through several miles of heaving chests and cramped legs, but we could not have been more wrong.  The jog was at an incredibly tolerable pace and we were pumped full of pride as we sang our marching songs past the people on the street.  Immediately after the run many of my ship mates were commenting on how much they enjoyed the experience with one saying he was disappointed when he saw the gate and others excitedly looking forward to the next run.  Conclusively Romeo is proudly marching on to next week with smiles concealed behind our military bearing. Until next time…..

 

Day 24: Something you’ve learned

Something that I have learned recently is patience.  Since Adam left for boot camp, I feel like the number one thing I have gotten out of his absence is patience!  It may be hard at times, like having to wait for Tuesdays when they post the weekly journal, or Thursdays when I get my weekly letter from him.  But, I think that the patience that I have learned from him being gone is going to help our relationship a lot in the future when he is gone for deployments.  I may not like it, it may make me anxious at times, but I know that if I am patient, then something amazing will come out of it!

It’s funny because as I am writing this, I keep thinking about when he is going to call me with our orders.  This is probably the only time in the whole 6 weeks he has been gone that I have not been as patient.  I am trying as hard as I can to be patient, and I know that a watched pot never boils, but come on cell phone, please just ring!!!!!

 

Day 23: Favorite Movie

I would have to say that my favorite movie is ‘The Notebook’.  I can watch this movie over and over and over and over and over again without getting tired of it!  I know it drives other people crazy though because I can pretty much recite it word for word!!  As mentioned in a previous entry, I also love the book by Nicholas Sparks.  I really think I love this movie because of where it took place, the time in history and the characters.  I love South Carolina, where it was filmed and I love the 40s and 50s.  I also absolutely LOVE the characters and the actors that play them.  They could not have picked better actors to play Allie and Noah! Yes, you can call me a loser for loving this movie, but I don’t care, it is my all time favorite!!

 

 

Day 22: What’s in your purse?

Well, let’s see. My wallet, my set of keys, Adam’s set of keys, a notebook for when Adam calls with our orders, 2 pens, girl stuff, 3 kinds of chap stick, camera, 4 packs of different types of gum..(not sure why I have 4….), and a random sharpie.  That’s about it…not very exciting. I just cleaned it out last week so I don’t have anything random in it.  My wallet is the interesting one..it has everything in it! 2 checkbooks, random cards from my high school ID to debit cards and about 15 different gift cards to various places that I’ve collected over the year.  Yup, this post is pretty boring!!!

 

Day 21: Favorite Picture of yourself ALL TIME Why?

I know, I know…it said a favorite picture of myself, but I couldn’t find one that I liked the best.  Plus, these are two of my favorite pictures of all time so, why not just share these??? Obviously, the picture below is from our wedding.  We had an amazing photographer and this picture was just sort of a candid shot that she got of us.  We were actually walking around the side of the building and for some reason we stopped to do something and she got this picture! I think it’s adorable!!

 

 

I also LOVE this picture of my sister and me.  We put a TON of miles on that cozy coupe and we always had fun with it!  I just love this picture because you can tell Kari and I were having so much fun riding together.  Just the look on our faces is what I love, that is just pure happiness right there! In the picture, I am the one on the left and Kari is on the right!

 

Day 20: Nicknames

Hmmm….let’s see. I have a lot of random ones. My sister calls me ‘Mee’ because everyone else calls me ‘Aim’.  My grandpa calls me ‘Lizzy’ because my middle name is Elizabeth.  My friend Courtney calls me ‘Scooter’…not really sure why…  And pretty much everyone else either calls me Aimee or Aim.

 

Day 19: Something you miss

I really miss my 3 year olds from the preschool where I taught.  Yes, they gave me stress headaches, caused me to pull my hair out of my head and want to cry BUT, they were so cute and they could be so sweet too!! I really miss the things that they said, the jokes that they told and all of their endless questions! I could write a book about all the stories that they tell and all of the crazy things they said!  For example:

While we were setting the table for snack, one of my little boys asked me, “Does everyone get college cheese?” and I just smiled and said, “Yes, everyone gets cottage cheese”

‎”Why is it called the long eared bat??”-Me “Because it has teeth!!!!”-3 year old…”What color is the yellow tuna???”-Me “Orange!!!”-Different 3 year old….it was a rough day for my 3s!

After I gave out cow stamps on the kid’s hands, one little boy rushed over to me and yelled sooo loud “My cow is missing a feet!!!”

I loved when my little kiddos were worried about me.  One time, of them said to me “Ms. Aimee what are you doin on that chair? I say get down..you could hurt yourself!!!”

And…this one has to be my favorite…..

Girl-”When I grow up, I’m going to be a human like my mommy”
Boy-”What’s a human?”
Girl-”It is what girls grow up to be…”

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