Success!

The wedding was a success!!! Drew made it to the rehearsal dinner and the wedding!! We picked him up from the airport early Friday morning so he was able to enjoy everything with us! It was just the best. The wedding was absolutely perfect and beautiful. And it was even more perfect that Drew was there. My Dad said it best when he raised his glass and said here's to being 100%. My family would not have been whole if Drew was not there but he was! :) I have included pictures for you to see. Everything came together to make for an unforgettable weekend. All the aunts, uncles, cousins and friends were so excited to see him too. Thank you for all of your love and support.

Drew is now back at Ft. Benning and excited for jump week. This week he will make five jumps out of the plane to earn his wings. I plan to attend the graduation on Friday if it does not get pushed back. I will be able to pin Drew's wings on him which will be neat. I will be sure to take pictures. Then Drew will be off to the Ranger Indoctrination Program. (RIP) which is basically ranger tryouts. RIP will be four weeks and after that, if Drew is selected, we will be getting our duty station. We cannot wait!!!! Once we get our duty station we will be moving and living together full time, not just weekends. And we cannot wait to see our dogs again. He is moving right along in his training and luckily it is going by so quickly. I'll let you know how the jumps go! When we were boarding the plane to head home from the wedding Drew commented that the next airplane he gets on he will be jumping out of. That's a funny thought but a true one! :)

Drew had not seen his brother Pete and his sister-in-law Ashley since January. It was so fun that Drew could be at the wedding to see them. His parents were there too so everyone was able to get time with Drew. :)

Just married! This is the happy couple right after they boarded the bus after the ceremony. I know I keep saying this but we were sooooooo happy Drew was there!!My Dad, along with everyone else, was thrilled to have both son-in-laws there. This was from the rehearsal dinner night. That was such a neat night too that we were so glad Drew made it to both events.

Tower Week

Drew has completed ground week and is on to tower week. Airborne School calls this coming week tower week but I call it wedding week!!! We are more excited than ever that Drew will be coming to the wedding!! And better yet- he might even be at the rehearsal!!!! Yes, you heard right! Drew just might be at the rehearsal too. It looks like they have Friday off from training which enables him to fly out Friday morning. We'll see! At this point we are thrilled he will be at the ceremony and reception...but the rehearsal!?!? Talk about being blessed or just down right lucky!! We'll take it either way!!
But back to Drew's training- this week is deemed tower week. These are the towers I showed the pictures of a couple of weeks ago. But with the shorter training week, they may not jump off the towers at all. They may stick to the 35 foot towers and skip the 250ft ones all together. Don't worry though. This is fairly normal to skip this part. Kyle, our good friend and Drew's old roommate, was unable to do the towers because it rained all week. No worries. They just go straight to jumping out of planes! :) Drew said it is neat over by airborne because all of a sudden they will see a plane overhead and then guys are landing all around them. They are getting very excited to jump and are getting even more excited as they move closer and closer.
I fly out on Wednesday morning to head to Kansas City and Drew will hopefully join me on Friday. A standing joke with airborne is that they jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I asked Drew why are we paying full price for a plane ticket when he could just tell his training plane to fly over to KC and he'll jump out. I guess there's a time and a place to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. :) Like next week for Drew. Here's to a great wedding/tower week!

Airborne Starts Tomorrow

Drew starts airborne tomorrow! Drew is excited to get going. He has been in hold over this week doing simple details. Details are just what they call odd jobs they can use soldiers to do while they are waiting to start a school. For example, Drew was up painting a hallway until 3am because a higher up was coming the next day. But the time has finally come to get going. And, although the details are boring for Drew, we are excited that he was held over for a week because....I just booked his plane ticket to the wedding!!!! (For those of you who don't know- my sister's wedding!) If he would have started last Monday he would have been graduating the wedding weekend and heading to RIP (Ranger tryouts). But he isn't! The weekend of Sarah and Wade's wedding will just be another weekend in airborne and he has weekends off. So keep your fingers crossed for the next two weeks please! It would be absolutely perfect if he could be at the wedding!!
Also, Drew's intentions to be an Airborne Ranger were confirmed this week when a representative from the Ranger liason showed up. Drew said the guy had everyone's attention as he strolled up to the group. Many guys have already dropped their RIP contract and are stopping after airborne. Drew said he took one look at the Ranger and knew that is what he wanted to do. I am so proud of him!
This weekend we enjoyed another great weekend in Atlanta. It is so nice to be able to see each other every weekend. We are enjoying the time together. I don't know that we will ever take another Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, Friday night... any time at all for granted. This Army experience, at the very least, has taught us to appreciate the little things in life. We appreciate every minute we have together!
This week will be a training week in Airborne. No jumps yet! But I will keep you posted.

Family Day and Graduation

It's official! Drew is now an American Soldier! We have had the best time in the past 4 days. Jeannie, Bill, and my Dad joined me in Atlanta on Wednesday evening. We walked to a couple of bars around town and I got the seal of approval for the condo from the parents. We all then headed to Ft. Benning on Thursday morning for Drew's Turning Blue Ceremony. After that Drew was all ours for the day! We went out to lunch and then sat by the pool all afternoon and evening. He had to be back that evening at 8 but we were right back the next morning for his graduation ceremony. It was so neat! Drew was the first group to graduate from the new infantry museum. We didn't know what to expect but were all impressed! From the music to the formations to the band that played... it was awesome. It is such a flood of emotions as you see this strong group of men (no women in infantry) who have volunteered to defend our country. And to have your husband or son as one of those men is even more special. It is something the four of us will never forget. From there the parents went on their way and Drew and I had our first real weekend together in almost 4 months. It was so nice to be able to hang out together. We were even excited to go to the grocery store together. You know you are married to a soldier when you are out to dinner and the waiter repeats the order to ensure he has it right and your husband says "Roger." As soon as he said that we just both started laughing because it has become second nature. But on a serious note, we could not be happier. We are so happy I moved and can now spend weekends together. We cannot wait for what lies ahead. This is just the beginning. :) Drew will now be in hold over for a couple of days at Benning and plans to start airborne on Thursday. But he will be right back here next weekend! So fun!

This is the park that we live right next to. We had walked to dinner at a restaurant that is right on the park. Our condo is among those buildings in the background.

This is after his Turning Blue ceremony on Thursday. He earned that blue cord on his right shoulder which I put on him as part of the ceremony. Drew wasn't supposed to talk to me or hug me during the ceremony but I kissed him anyway! :) That was the first time I saw him.

Drew will practice jumping off of these towers in the coming weeks at airborne before he does his five jumps out of an airplane. These towers are 250 ft.

Here's a glimpse of the ceremony. There is so much tradition in everything the infantry does which makes ceremonies that much more special. The field they are standing on was made from the dirt of battlefields all over the world.

Near the end of the ceremony each company marched their way around the field while the band played. We were able to spot Drew. He is in the fifth row from the front on the far right. See him?