OH MAN!!!! Did I need this trip! I have to admit, that though I am an old hand now at deployments, and TDY's, that being an Enlisted Soldier's wife is so much harder than it was as an officer's wife. I love learning and having all of these new experiences but man, being separated as newlyweds for this last 8 weeks has been FAR harder than I expected it to be! During a TDY (temporary duty station) or deployment I would normally get weekly if not every few days phone calls, and almost daily emails and instant messaging/web camera face time, after the initial few weeks when they set everything up. During Matt's BCT portion of his OSUT however I got in total 8 phone calls, 3 were all business, "I'm here I'm safe goodbye" or "our new bank information is..." 30 second to 2 minute calls, then at the end a few 3 -5 minute calls telling me when graduation was and so on, absolutely NO computer time, and living off of letters. Which was all expected however much harder to endure than I thought..lol. I live for his letters! So this trip to reunite with him for 3 days was all that was keeping me really going.
It was way too expensive to take myself and the boys so I left them with Jon, and flew out at 5 am Thursday, and good thing I left a day early because this trip has been Murphy's Law left, right and center! LORDY! The flight was over weight, we took off, and landed right away, unloaded some luggage and a few passengers and took back off, an hour and 45 min flight turned into an almost 5 hour flight, we ended up circling over Houston for an hour due to fog, ran low on fuel, got diverted, sat at a poe dunk airport for hours, until we got the go ahead to land in Houston, missed 2 connecting flights, had a 4 hour lay over before my last flight, got in and there was major car rental drama which almost reverted me to tears, and I was saved from and $80.00 cab fare by my awesome sister in law and Mother in law! PHEW they had driven up from FL and were only an hour or so from the airport, so they took me to my hotel! The next day they picked me up and we went to Fort Knox, (where we took a picture that is evidently illegal because it's too close to the gate operations at Knox, even though we didn't get the gate procedures in the picture...opps naughty us) then we stood for forever in the waiting area of the theater while the Soldier's did a run through. We were finally seated and it was torture! Seeing all those Soldier's, it was a like a sea of them and you wanted to scream out your Soldier's name and hope he turned so you could see him. It killed me sitting there waiting to see him, waiting for him to be released. Mom and Brittany walked down and were snapping pictures looking for him. If you can see he was in the 3rd row in about the middle of the picture. They had a really cool program where they did skits on the difference between what a Private at basic training WISHES wake up call was like and what it REALLY is like, hilarious! Then they did a drill and showed us how a Cav unit clears a building. And then they had them all stand up and get to put on their beret's for the 1st time as Soldier's, not just recruits. They marched out and we had to follow as they marched them to their barracks (OMG I soo was rethinking my hooker heels at this point...ouch!) and then they were released to be signed out by a family member. Matt almost got yelled at because we didn't realize it was our turn to sign out, we were too busy....reuniting..lol. Matt gave us a tour of their spotless barracks and his locker and gear and then we headed out. It was Brittany's birthday and she was such a good sport to share her day with Matthew. We went to cracker barrel and then all hung out in our hotel room while we tried to find a rental car. During the weekend we got to go to the Civil War museum and other War museums, got to see a civil war battle reenacted which was fun, and got to take a carriage ride, the rest of the weekend was taken up with running back and forth between hotels, personal time and going out to eat, where we were lucky enough to get to take out Cory who so kindly has visited Matt 2x at basic and took that picture for me! He was soooooo nice, now I see why my Gf really fell for him. Total sweetheart and I'm so lucky to know someone like him is there keeping an eye out on my gorgeous husband! We had a wonderful weekend with Mom, Gramma, Brittany, Amber and her nudger, and we were all sad to have to go. Sunday afternoon Matt decided that leaving the hotel 2 hours early was prudent so we did and a good thing too, by the time we got on post and he signed in they told him he had to be in formation in 15 minutes, and in that 15 minutes he had to get a hair cut and get anything from the PX he was going to need for the next two weeks, WOW did he sprint! After a lovely 30 second hair cut he was back, and we were saying our good byes.......so sad..lol. I was sooooo mad at myself, I forgot to get the SD card back out of the laptop and put it back in our camera, so I didn't get any good bye pictures, and I wasn't able to film them getting smoked. Which was HILARIOUS!!!!!! The drill Sgt's were walking down taking roll and seeing who was late and asking if any of them "Now which of you Moron's brought things back to my barracks that were not issued to you??!?!?!?!" lol
several raised their hands, one dork brought back his cell phone, another pictures of his wife to which the sgt asked " are they naked pvt?" "No? well then I don't care now do I" lol and moved on, another soldier brought back a laptop , and the Drill Sgt's face was FREAKING hilarious!! omg! " A laptop!!! an F-ing LAPTOP!!! what were you thinking Pvt!!! He brought back a lllaaaapppptttoooppp.....WTF Pvt!!" We were all rolling. As soon as they finished that the 4 different Platoons were smoked, doing drill after drill after drill and it was so cool to see them working out in sync! I am still kicking myself that I don't have that on video but you can be sure if anyone else there video taped it I'll get a copy and post it. It was priceless. After being smoked they were told they had x amount of minutes to get inside and do something so they all booked past us and Matt blew me a kiss and ran on by....sigh..lol Only 7 more weeks! I can do this~!lol Man I missed him, and baby since I'll be mailing you this blog, I love you, I love you,, I love you, I love you, so so so much and I can't wait to see you!!!
The flight home was a WHOLE nother story I was on time and things were running smoothly on the 1st flight to O'Hare, then we took off and were doing great, even landed a bit early but another plane landed with an emergency, someone had a heart attack and so their plane took out spot and we waited forever, so I missed my connection, luckily they got me on the next one but once we landed, late again, I had to book it through the maze of death that is the Denver Airport, it was 4 escalators down, 2 back up in another hall, a train ride, 2 escalators back up, 5 walking escalators, a stair case, and one hell of a long walk down the hall to my gate and that was just from the C gates to the B gates! omg..lol I barely made it as they were paging "passenger Rachael Morris, last call..." PHEW. I got in late, and went to luggage claim....waited.......waited......waited.....wtf man where is my bag......wait ...wait...wait....carosel stops..... no bag......ugh..so off to United's luggage claims, where it seems another woman took my bag by mistake ...really?? how. come on....it was WAY bigger than hers, WAY heavier...and HAD RACHAEL MORRIS all over it....durrrrrrr. So I had to sit outside contemplating how to get home since my house keys and car keys were in that bag along with our laptops, dig cameras and all the love letters I had written to Matt thus far which he sent home with me as well as all our birth certificates and vital information since Matt had needed to have all that junk with him when he got there. I was FREAKING out, until I remembered I had a spare key I had shoved in my purse....just in case, and that my dog sitter at home would have my other house key....phew. So I headed home without a bag. Fortunately United called only 2 hours later and the bag had been returned and they would deliver it by midnight. YAY !!! what a load off my mind. So all in all the trip was WELL worth it, long and exhausting but FAR too short! Man do I miss him but we have started out count down all over again and this time it's only a month and a half so this is do-able! Ok well that's it, if you're still reading sorry I am so long winded...hahahaha.
It was way too expensive to take myself and the boys so I left them with Jon, and flew out at 5 am Thursday, and good thing I left a day early because this trip has been Murphy's Law left, right and center! LORDY! The flight was over weight, we took off, and landed right away, unloaded some luggage and a few passengers and took back off, an hour and 45 min flight turned into an almost 5 hour flight, we ended up circling over Houston for an hour due to fog, ran low on fuel, got diverted, sat at a poe dunk airport for hours, until we got the go ahead to land in Houston, missed 2 connecting flights, had a 4 hour lay over before my last flight, got in and there was major car rental drama which almost reverted me to tears, and I was saved from and $80.00 cab fare by my awesome sister in law and Mother in law! PHEW they had driven up from FL and were only an hour or so from the airport, so they took me to my hotel! The next day they picked me up and we went to Fort Knox, (where we took a picture that is evidently illegal because it's too close to the gate operations at Knox, even though we didn't get the gate procedures in the picture...opps naughty us) then we stood for forever in the waiting area of the theater while the Soldier's did a run through. We were finally seated and it was torture! Seeing all those Soldier's, it was a like a sea of them and you wanted to scream out your Soldier's name and hope he turned so you could see him. It killed me sitting there waiting to see him, waiting for him to be released. Mom and Brittany walked down and were snapping pictures looking for him. If you can see he was in the 3rd row in about the middle of the picture. They had a really cool program where they did skits on the difference between what a Private at basic training WISHES wake up call was like and what it REALLY is like, hilarious! Then they did a drill and showed us how a Cav unit clears a building. And then they had them all stand up and get to put on their beret's for the 1st time as Soldier's, not just recruits. They marched out and we had to follow as they marched them to their barracks (OMG I soo was rethinking my hooker heels at this point...ouch!) and then they were released to be signed out by a family member. Matt almost got yelled at because we didn't realize it was our turn to sign out, we were too busy....reuniting..lol. Matt gave us a tour of their spotless barracks and his locker and gear and then we headed out. It was Brittany's birthday and she was such a good sport to share her day with Matthew. We went to cracker barrel and then all hung out in our hotel room while we tried to find a rental car. During the weekend we got to go to the Civil War museum and other War museums, got to see a civil war battle reenacted which was fun, and got to take a carriage ride, the rest of the weekend was taken up with running back and forth between hotels, personal time and going out to eat, where we were lucky enough to get to take out Cory who so kindly has visited Matt 2x at basic and took that picture for me! He was soooooo nice, now I see why my Gf really fell for him. Total sweetheart and I'm so lucky to know someone like him is there keeping an eye out on my gorgeous husband! We had a wonderful weekend with Mom, Gramma, Brittany, Amber and her nudger, and we were all sad to have to go. Sunday afternoon Matt decided that leaving the hotel 2 hours early was prudent so we did and a good thing too, by the time we got on post and he signed in they told him he had to be in formation in 15 minutes, and in that 15 minutes he had to get a hair cut and get anything from the PX he was going to need for the next two weeks, WOW did he sprint! After a lovely 30 second hair cut he was back, and we were saying our good byes.......so sad..lol. I was sooooo mad at myself, I forgot to get the SD card back out of the laptop and put it back in our camera, so I didn't get any good bye pictures, and I wasn't able to film them getting smoked. Which was HILARIOUS!!!!!! The drill Sgt's were walking down taking roll and seeing who was late and asking if any of them "Now which of you Moron's brought things back to my barracks that were not issued to you??!?!?!?!" lol
several raised their hands, one dork brought back his cell phone, another pictures of his wife to which the sgt asked " are they naked pvt?" "No? well then I don't care now do I" lol and moved on, another soldier brought back a laptop , and the Drill Sgt's face was FREAKING hilarious!! omg! " A laptop!!! an F-ing LAPTOP!!! what were you thinking Pvt!!! He brought back a lllaaaapppptttoooppp.....WTF Pvt!!" We were all rolling. As soon as they finished that the 4 different Platoons were smoked, doing drill after drill after drill and it was so cool to see them working out in sync! I am still kicking myself that I don't have that on video but you can be sure if anyone else there video taped it I'll get a copy and post it. It was priceless. After being smoked they were told they had x amount of minutes to get inside and do something so they all booked past us and Matt blew me a kiss and ran on by....sigh..lol Only 7 more weeks! I can do this~!lol Man I missed him, and baby since I'll be mailing you this blog, I love you, I love you,, I love you, I love you, so so so much and I can't wait to see you!!!
The flight home was a WHOLE nother story I was on time and things were running smoothly on the 1st flight to O'Hare, then we took off and were doing great, even landed a bit early but another plane landed with an emergency, someone had a heart attack and so their plane took out spot and we waited forever, so I missed my connection, luckily they got me on the next one but once we landed, late again, I had to book it through the maze of death that is the Denver Airport, it was 4 escalators down, 2 back up in another hall, a train ride, 2 escalators back up, 5 walking escalators, a stair case, and one hell of a long walk down the hall to my gate and that was just from the C gates to the B gates! omg..lol I barely made it as they were paging "passenger Rachael Morris, last call..." PHEW. I got in late, and went to luggage claim....waited.......waited......waited.....wtf man where is my bag......wait ...wait...wait....carosel stops..... no bag......ugh..so off to United's luggage claims, where it seems another woman took my bag by mistake ...really?? how. come on....it was WAY bigger than hers, WAY heavier...and HAD RACHAEL MORRIS all over it....durrrrrrr. So I had to sit outside contemplating how to get home since my house keys and car keys were in that bag along with our laptops, dig cameras and all the love letters I had written to Matt thus far which he sent home with me as well as all our birth certificates and vital information since Matt had needed to have all that junk with him when he got there. I was FREAKING out, until I remembered I had a spare key I had shoved in my purse....just in case, and that my dog sitter at home would have my other house key....phew. So I headed home without a bag. Fortunately United called only 2 hours later and the bag had been returned and they would deliver it by midnight. YAY !!! what a load off my mind. So all in all the trip was WELL worth it, long and exhausting but FAR too short! Man do I miss him but we have started out count down all over again and this time it's only a month and a half so this is do-able! Ok well that's it, if you're still reading sorry I am so long winded...hahahaha.
