First Grade and Air Assault

So last Monday (August 9th) Caleb started first grade at Blanchard Elementary School in Mrs. Moody's class. He has a great teacher and he seems to be fine and doing well. He wouldn't let me take pictures of him the first day of school (first day jitters I suppose), so he let me take a few after school on the second day. Better than nothing!

 Since I'm not working right now, I volunteered to be the "room mom" to help with a few things. This week we worked on getting money from the kids to buy supplies for a teddy bear sewing project. Thank goodness the project was today - I was really tired of cutting teddy bears out of felt (44 of them) and shopping all around town for the supplies, plus threading the needles in advance. All the kids had fun sewing and putting the eyes, etc. on the bears. They turned out pretty cute. Caleb did a really good job sewing his teddy bear.

This past Tuesday Gary graduated from Air Assault school. It was a ten day class that taught everything about the integration between helicopter and ground combat forces. He had A LOT to learn in those ten days, which were very long days. Every day of the class some guys had to leave because they couldn't keep up either mentally or physically. Gary worked really hard at it every day, and sometimes I helped him to study. The last day was the kicker. They had to be there at 2:00am for a 12-mile road march with their ruck sacks that weighed around 40 pounds or so. If you had completed the class up to that point but couldn't complete the road march within three hours, you didn't graduate. There were quite a few guys who didn't, and several guys who fell out because of some medical reason - possibly either dehydration or just exhaustion.

The graduation was at 11:00am that same day. I went to go see Gary graduate, which was neat. And thank goodness the stands were covered, it was hot!  They did a demonstration of a typical person rappelling from a helicopter (but obviously this was just done from their rappelling tower, not a helicopter).

 There were three graduates (at the front of the picture facing us, Gary's on the left) who were the three best in the class of 143 graduates.  Gary received the Distinguished Honor Graduate award from the Battalion Commander - good job baby!

 Now we're just enjoying spending the extra time together until Gary's MCCC (career course) starts in September. I really enjoy that I'm able to pick Caleb up right when school's out. It's the first time I've been able to do so. Hopefully finding a part-time job will still allow me to do that. Gary and I both love reading, and right now we're reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover (thanks to Robin!). I have to say, it's my favorite book ever (you sense the sarcasm, right?). It's a great book and we're learning a lot of valuable things. I highly recommend reading it. I finished a book a while back called My Sister's Keeper. They made a movie out of it with Cameron Diaz. The story is amazing - we bought the movie and I can't wait to watch it now. Definitely a great read!