happy halloween

so today is halloween and we’ve been in class all day long on a saturday!  des and i are dead tired but feel like we need to do something.  so…. we bought tickets to the Notre Dame vs. Washington State football game.  yep, neither one of those teams are from san antonio, tx however Notre Dame apparently has alot of recruits come from texas so they were having a home game at the Alamodome! so excited that we got tickets cause i was able to knock off another item off my bucket list 🙂 woo hoo!

field training

i wanted to give you an idea of what we will be doing in the next few weeks.  for the next three weeks we will be heading out on monday at 0400 to camp bullis (about 30 minutes) from Fort Sam Houston where we will sleep in tents with about 40 0ther people in cots.  here we will be doing field training such as: learning to shoot rifles (I have to qualify on M16 and M9), learn land navigation, obstacle course, ruck marches, gas chamber, etc.  we will come back on fridays around 1700 (5pm). thankfully we’ll have the weekends off to sleep and shower, but will be back at it again the next monday 🙂  

…. i’ll blog later about what goes on in the actual week, however here is a video that can give you an idea until i actually live it…

learning weapons

so i’ve come to the realization that i am horrible at posting on my blog.  i will try to get better.  the key word is try 🙂

…so monday we went out to the field and practiced getting familiariazed with the M16.  we learned how to disassemble and reassemble, positioning (prone, semi-prone, and knee), as well as targeting/accuracy.

…today we went into the EST 2000 which is a simulated shooting range and got the feel for a real gun without the shooting of real bullets.   my whole life i’ve been right handed, however, with shooting guns apparently i’m left eye dominated so today i played around with shooting both left and right handed to see what would feel more comfortable.  shooting with my right hand/right eye i only hit 13/40 targets HAHA so we’ll have to try with my left hand/left eye next time.  hopefully i’ll be able to qualify when we get out into the field next week.  well i’m exhausted and tomorrow is a full day (dental, blood drive, medical, eye doctor, fingerprints, class, lunch, class) starting at 0500.

seeing family

since I”m in San Antonio, Tx and have most weekends off i decided i should see my mom’s cousin Jennifer Blom and her three daughters: Morgan, Allie, and Alexis.  so after many phone calls and messages we finally were able to set up a date to meet after church for lunch and before i had a class at four. we ate at this cafe which i do not remember the name but all i know is that it was really good 🙂  after lunch we went to Outdoor World and hung out looking at all the stuffed dead animals and “fishing” for buckets off the boats for sale. the girls loved the fishing game; its crazy what will keep little kids entertained.  its cute to see all the girls and how they have completely different personalities but have the same set of genes.  although i was only able to spend a few hours with them, im hoping to set up another day where we can go to Sea World cause i know the girls love going. 

update to moving overseas

i was under the assumption that my assignment in overseas would be short as i would have the opportunity to take my specialty course after my 12 months, however OCONUS (overseas) assignments do not get this opportunity at that time; and all of us going to germany just found this out. due to the high cost of moving us overseas they dont move us back to the states for 4 months (time to do our specialty course) after only having moved us over there less than 10 months earlier.  therefore, what im trying to say is that i will be overseas in germany for 3 years, at which i will be able to do my four months specialty course before having “served” my time. 

this however works out best for me… being stationed in landstuhl, germany (where they send the wounded soldiers first), i have the chance of being deployed at my 12 month mark (only 6 months after having finished my 25.5 week internship) should i so choose to do so.   also this gives me the chance to apply to either airborne school or receive my EFMB (Expert Field Medical Badge).   to get more information about airborne school you can click the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Airborne_School; for more information on EFMB you can click the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_Field_Medical_Badge… i am also looking at the possiblity of flight nursing… who knows, i have alot of time to figure this all out and as to what i actually want to do while i’m in the army.  i’m getting excited about what’s coming up for the long run, however i have to first get through the next two months!!!!

officer basic course

in the next few months i will be blogging about my time at Officer Basic Course, recently changed to BOLC (Basic Officer Leadership Course) however, i wanted to let you know what we’ve been doing in the past few days.  when i dropped dad off at the airport i picked up a friend of mine from nursing school, Deserae, who found out last week that she received an open spot into the course.  because this was a day early we thought we would try our luck at getting into our rooms on base a night early…. YEAH they said our rooms were available and if we would like we could also room together!  thank the lord i wont have to spend two months with a stranger!!!!!  at this we found our “room” had two beds; a bathroom; a tiny kitchen area with a mini-fridge, microwave and cabinets for storage; and plenty of closet space, as well as cable tv and cable internet access… at this moment i’m glad im an officer and not enlisted (i admit we get spoiled–according to my friend Mike)  🙂 

so wed we only had to sign-in to the class since we had already checked into our room.

thursday we were up at 0415 to get weighed in to begin the “in-processing” process… basically welcome to the army, watch powerpoints ALL DAY LONG!  we had briefings on life insurance, beneficiaries, finance (the fun part cause we get paid as soon as they process that in the computer system), LOTS OF PAPERWORK, with many needed copies of orders and oaths, etc.  oh yeah, i did my actual Active Duty Oath on October 15, 2009.   we got out around 1800 had enough time to go home to change into workout clothes, eat real fast at the DFAC (dining facility) and then Des and I went running at the track.  we only lasted about 20 minutes at the track since we were exhausted, we both came home took showers and lights were out by 2030 (830 pm).

friday we were in formation at 0500 and did drill and ceremony (D and C) for about 2 hours. basically we learned how to salute, march, and different standing procedures (standing at attention, parade rest, at ease, etc.).  then it was off to breakfast.  oh, i forgot to say that they did a random roll call for “cold showers” which basically means it was a random urine analysis, so those that were picked (Des included) missed all the fun of D and C as well as breakfast and were released in just enough time to make it to CIF at 0730 where we received all of our field gear that we will need in the next four weeks.

…from cali to texas…

so we left around 9 am on saturday and arrived in san antonio, texas around 2 pm on monday.  yep that is 1351 miles in 2 1/2 days.  it went by pretty good… it was weird to continue past  the Blythe/Ehrenberg exit off the 10 (for those who don’t know that’s our exit for the river),  and the furthest I’ve ventured into Arizona.   in Arizona I had my last in’n’out burger, saw lots of nothing, and the first night we stayed in lordsburg, new mexico.  on Sunday we headed off after breakfast and within 100 miles we were in el paso, texas.  beknownst  to me, here Juarez, Mexico lies literally feet from the freeway.  as you can see in the picture the houses are literally on top of each other, CRAZY!  driving through texas seemed very long and i only had to drive through half of it J.  sunday night we stayed in Ozona, tx, had subway for dinner, skyped with mom and shane and then i headed off to the gym as dad watched baseball and football games.  dad got so lonely by himself while i was at the gym that he found the fitness room and decided to join me as I was watching army wives.  surprisingly he did the treadmill for about 20 minutes then asked if I was leaving soon J.  we skyped once again with mom and shane and I began to falter, so off to bed i went.  monday morning we took our time as we only had 260+ miles left till reaching our destination.  we headed out on the road around 930 and arrived in san antonio around 2pm.  we checked into our hotel and after dad finished up some work phone calls we decided to head down towards the riverwalk and the Alamo. here is some pictures from our adventures:  p.s. we had a really good dinner at The Republic of Texas right on the riverwalk .  it was amazing… a complete recommendation

The Alamo

 

The Riverwalk

 

 

 

 

…so here’s to my first night in San Antonio, Texas (what a wonderful way to start)     🙂

moving overseas

so the wait is over.   my orders finally came today… i’ll be in officer basic training october 14-december 18 in san antonio, tx…. then i report to landstuhl, germany jan 4th   :).  there i will be in my 12 month internship as a Medical-Surgical nurse (66H); after this I will go to my specialty course, either OB or Critical Care (haven’t yet decided) and this will then determine where i go from there…. the specialty courses are all 16 weeks long (OB is in Hawaii, CC is in either Washington DC, Texas, or Germany).    ahhhhhhh sooooo excited.  i could still use all your prayers, its greatly appreciated 🙂