Veterans Day ... an excuse to post pictures:

In honor of Veterans Day, I share with you pictures of my favorite Sailor in uniform. Because I just can't resist!

The weekend after his Pass-in-Review (a.k.a. boot camp graduation)

Picking him up after A.T. (annual training) in 2010

About to leave for A.T. in 2011

After his PIR

Being recognized as the honor grad for his division during PIR

With his parents after PIR. His Dad is also a Veteran.

reason #whatever why I'm a lucky lady:

My husband knows how to bake a cake from scratch. Including making the whip cream filling and chocolate icing from scratch. And the kicker is, it's his Dad's recipe. (Who by the way is a Vietnam War veteran and former cop of two different towns. He just happens to also love cooking and baking.)





While he was doing that, I was enjoying this:



What a surprise, it's a dry red whine.

Anyway, he made the cake on Friday night for a Saturday evening birthday party because we had plans to spend Saturday afternoon seeing Les Miserables, one of the few musicals my husband has ever expressed an interest in seeing. And it was pretty great.

On Saturday night, I did something for the first time.



No, not enjoy a delicious beer. I've done that many times before.

I played the Wii. Yes, I'm 28 years old and I've made it this long without ever playing a Wii. (Unless .... is Rock Band or Guitar Hero part of the Wii? Can you tell I'm not into video games?)

Oh yeah, like I said, it was a birthday cake he made. Here is the birthday girl.

three years :)

happy veterans day

In honor of Veterans Day, I'd like to honor my favorite sailor:



This photo cracks me up because that's so them. All of them. Individually and collectively.

a quarter of the way through it

I realized today the Sailor will probably be in Florida for a total of 13 weeks, and we're only about 3.5 weeks in. Oh man. 9.5 weeks to go. This is going to take awhile.

The long haul

I miss Rob. We don't know when he'll be home for good. It's looking like early to mid-December ... but it just depends on when he can get a spot to start the classes he needs, so for now it's just day by day. He has to take three sessions - the first one is one week, the second one is two days and the third one is eight weeks. But as each session ends, you have to wait for a spot in the next session to open up. So once he starts the third session, we'll have a better idea of when he'll be done. And HOME!!! Hopefully home for awhile.

Also, if he wants to come home for Thanksgiving, we have to pay that. The military only pays to fly him there for training and fly him home when he's done. And I assume to fly him home for Christmas, since that is mandatory that he comes home. But coming home for Thanksgiving would be his decision, and thus, on his dime. Hmm. This changes some things.

Boot camp was tough because we could only talk on the phone once every couple of weeks, and through letters. But it was only 8.5 weeks. This might shape up to be 10+ weeks apart. At least we can talk on the phone and text each other. I still miss him tons though.

post-husband time

once again, it is the day after a weekend with The Sailor, and I'm feeling the post-husband blues. because of the holiday, he got to come home for four full days - Thursday night to Monday night. it was sooo nice to spend so much time with him, but I miss him being around 24/7! unfortunately (well, fortunately really) he'll be done with his classes at Great Lakes this week, and then it's off to his next station. which is much much much father away - so no Husband Weekends. but, the sooner he goes to the next station, the sooner he can be done with training, and be home again. of course, it might also mean the sooner he goes on deployment. ahh, the joys of the navy life.

Video from The Sailor's Navy Boot Camp Graduation / Pass-in-Review

Navy Pass in Review, July 17, 2009

Divisions marching in ... all 13 divisions made up of 971 sailors




Honor Grads being honored (including my sailor!)




Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense, was the speaker




My Sailor receiving his Honor Grad certificate

liberty

I visited Rob last weekend. Eventually he will get weekend liberty and can come home from Friday to Sunday, but for now, he gets daytime liberty, so last weekend and this weekend I'm up there.

Anyway, last Sunday, after checking out of my hotel, and doing some shopping/browsing, we had some time to kill before dinner, so we went to the Waukegan Harbor. I don't know what this is, but I had to take a picture of Rob in front of it:

More photos from The Sailor's liberty time

Today Rob and I were able to spend some time with our families at Rob's sisters house. It was nice to do something not at a hotel or restaurant.

With my family


With his family


Just us

Navy Boot Camp Graduation / Pass-in-Review at Great Lakes Naval Base

The Sailor's Pass In Review was yesterday!

Here come the divisions


I brought a camera with a better lens


Special Guest Speaker: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Kind of a Big Deal.


My Sailor introduced as the honor grad of his division


So happy to finally see him!!


Skee ball


In his "peanut butters." And he's rocking the BCGs because his normal glasses need to be replaced. Yes, he is really tall. 6'4. I'm 5'7.

11 hours!

Tomorrow is the big day!!! Oh man, I am SO excited. Rob called me earlier to let me know he passed Battle Stations, and to chat, and we had a nice 20 minute conversation and I did not want to hang up when the time came. But I will see him soon.

So after work, I finished packing, and when I was ready to load up my car a huge thunderstorm rolled through. I was already running later than I wanted, so I just ran out to my car anyway. I had to trek around a HUGE puddle in our parking lot (the sewer drain was overflowing). And of course I got soaked. And like 5 minutes later the rain let up. Oh well. Now I'm in my hotel 4 miles from base ..... so close.

8 MORE DAYS

I thought time was moving slowly before ... now that we're in single digits, it's moving s-l-o-w-e-r. But ....

1. I got an official letter today from the Navy congratulating me on my Sailor's accomplishment at being selected as the Honor Recruit for his division. "This selection is based on his individual performance of duty in all phases of basic training including leadership, initiative, military bearing, response to orders, sportsmanship, qualities of a good shipmate and high overall scholastic standing." WAY TO GO ROB!

2. My mom photocopied a letter she received from Rob, and this part cracked me up: "My next week of training is fire fighting. I've already started studying for it, and it's actually very interesting. So much so, that it's got me thinking about becoming a fireman (which, of course, I've never considered before because firemen don't carry guns). I suppose I'm more like my father than I realize."

Another letter

I got another letter from Rob yesterday. He is doing good, but he's sick (again!) and it sounds like he's exhausted. But, he said "unless I lose a limb or something, I'm not going to stop." So let's hope it doesn't come to that.

So I'm trying to plan a fun-but-relaxing weekend for him when he's on liberty next weekend. Hopefully if you're reading this, you are one of the 20+ friends or family of Rob that I emailed a tentative Friday-Saturday schedule to.

babies!

So this is the summer of babies ... for everyone else. Tonight I got to meet my pal Ginney's new baby boy Gus. Photos on my Flickr, but you have to be a contact of mine to see them. If you don't have a Flickr account, I think you can log in through a yahoo account. But then you have to request to be my contact.

Anyway, Gus is super adorable, as is Ginney's oldest Analise. And it was so so nice to sit and chat with Ginney. I miss when we both worked downtown and could meet for lunch. And then before that when we were wild and crazy college students (oh boy do we have memories).


Also, I got a letter from Rob tonight that was very sweet and included his "top 10 reasons for missing Maggie while in bootcamp." AWWW.

another phone call :)

Rob called me again tonight! I asked him what he did right this time :) He was kind of quiet on the phone, but it had something to do with standing at attention ... or something. It was quiet on the phone. Either way, I'm pretty lucky to have received four phone calls from him so far - only one has been "routine" the other three were earned because he is doing well. So way to go, Rob.

He said he's enjoying boot camp a little more each day. He's glad he joined the navy. He said the hardest thing is the "bad apples" in his division - the recruits who have bad attitudes, and make it harder for the rest. So, if that's his biggest problem, that's pretty good. At least he's not complaining that he made a huge mistake, or that he can't take it physically. He sounds in pretty good spirits on the phone.

Also, he mentioned that there is a chance he will do A-school at Great Lakes instead of Florida. This would be fantastic! Of course, he won't know for sure until the last week of boot camp. So I won't get my hopes up just yet.


In non-Rob news, I had a nice Fathers Day with my Dad. My parents came over to watch the Cubs game, and I made lots of yummy food for them - fried green tomatoes, slow-cooked BBQ country style ribs, grilled chicken & veggie kabobs. Way to go me. AND the Cubs won. Woot!

Half way done with BC

Tuesday was a great day ... I got a phone call from Rob and I got a letter from him. Actually, it seems like he writes a few letters during the week, and then sends them all out on Sunday. Or Monday. Anyway, it was a great day. And today I got the information about his graduation. Although I recently discovered www.navyformoms.com, which is also a good site for wives (and other loved ones), so I feel like I already know a lot of "insider" information about PIR (pass in review, or graduation), although I wonder if knowing more is stressing me out more, now that I'm trying to figure out the logistics, considering every recruit gets four guests, but only one vehicle pass to get on base, and I'm the only one staying near base the night before. Hmm.

Anyway, in my non-navy-wife life, I had a band concert last night. It was interesting, since we got locked out of rehearsal the week before, so it had been almost two weeks since we all played together. Plus it was raining all week, so we weren't sure if we'd get rained out. But, the concert went really well. We have two concerts the week after next, and they are both patriotic, one with cannons for the 1812 Overture, which should be fun.

And in completely useless-to-anyone-but-me news, Mad Men season one is available again on Comcast On Demand. So there goes my weekend. Not that I really had any plans. The past few weekends have been so busy for me, I would like to keep this one free of plans for now. Plus I really need to clean the apartment. Don't tell Rob how messy I can be when he's not around. Because I'm always the one complaining about his clutter. But he's the one who sweeps and stuff.

Phone call!!

Rob called me again tonight!! I was hoping I would get another Saturday night phone call, and sure enough, I did, and this time I answered!!! I was actually on my way home from dinner with my parents when he called (they were driving), so my Dad pulled over into a parking lot, and they got out of the car so we could have privacy, which was sweet of them. We talked for about 15 minutes. Oh man. It was so nice to talk to him. He sounds like he's doing well. Boot camp is challenging, obviously, but it sounds like it is a good experience for him, and he is still glad he's doing it.

AHH I miss him so much! I hate waking up on the weekends, that's the worst time. During the week, I'm busy with work and stuff, that I miss him, but I don't feel his absence as much. But I really feel it on the weekends, especially when I wake up in the morning, because it's like "well, how am I going to distract myself for the next 16 hours?" And then I think that it will be at least October before we will be living together again.

BUT when we were talking I made sure to tell him as much as I miss him, I am so so so proud of him.

first real letter!!!!

I got my first real letter from the Seaman Recruit today. He's doing well. Surviving. I guess he had the flu (as did a lot of other recruits) so I'm sure that sucks - being sick away from home. He said getting letters makes boot camp more bearable - so send him letters!! If you need his address, let me know.

Also, he asked me to fill him in on current events, because they keep them isolated. So I had to think, what's been going on in the past three weeks? I filled him in on the Air France flight, George Tiller's murder, and Stephen Colbert doing his show in Iraq with the USO (hilarious - the Iraq episodes are airing until Thursday - way to go Colbert!) Did I miss anything else of importance in the news? I'm sure I did.

Missed Call

 I started off strong

So last night I got a phone call from The Sailor! Unfortunately I was out at a bowling alley, and didn't hear my phone. But he left a voicemail. It was mostly about financial stuff, but there was a "love you" near the end :) But I'm really bummed I missed a chance to talk to him! Considering the last time we actually talked was over two weeks ago, and I don't know when the next chance we'll be. At the most, in about 40 days at his graduation. But I have no idea if a call will come earlier. I wish the Navy would at least tell us a window of time, like, in the evenings after 5pm, or on Saturdays after 3pm or something, so at least I get a chance to pay more attention to my phone. Oh well.

I kept myself pretty busy again this weekend. Thank you friends!

Friday night: Dinner with friends

Saturday:
Played at the GSU graduation with my concert band in the morning
Went to my sister-in-law's dance recital in the afternoon
Stopped by my parents' house since I was down the street
Went bowling in the evening with friends to celebrate my brother's birthday

Sunday:
Crashed at my brother/sister-in-law's last night since I was in the city and tired and they have a comfy couch, we just chilled in the morning/early afternoon until they got moving and I went home. The rest of today has been spent doing the things I've put off: dishes, laundry, etc.