Friday, October 29, 2010

Missing in action

Hey there everyone, sorry Its been forever since my last post but I am still without my own personal laptop (hopefully resolved this weekend though!)  But I just wanted to stop in and say thank you sooooooo much for all the support while I was away in boot camp.  I am over at  my training sight still waiting for my school to start, I have been told to expect to stay here longer then originally expects so I guess that means more time to explore Illinois, Chicago and the surrounding area.  Hopefully I will have a much longer update later this week with pic's and everything.  Much Love to you all.  Happy Fall :)

Friday, October 1, 2010

Letter #3

Hello Everyone!  So we are getting close to the end of boot camp, just three/well actually 2 1/2 weeks of training left.  We just finished "hell week", which other than the fact that we were crazy busy wasn't that bad.  We actually did really well as a division.  We flagged for our drill inspection (marching) which means we earned the right to march without our RDC and sing cadence, which may sound like it's not that big of a deal but I had a hard time not breaking out into a big ass grin the whole time.  We also earned an additional phone call!  No tears this time!
So, next week we start our fire fighting/training and the gas chamber :)/ :( not quite sure how I feel about that part of it.  Then we have battle stations which is like fake ship disaster time and then that is pretty much it, smooth sailing from there... oh and the final PFA, but I am not worried.
So, I said I would talk about some of the characters we have here.  This is definitely a division  from all over the place, and though not everyone gets along we are starting to pull it together at least for drills and inspections...so lets see one of my favorite males (yes we call them males) is a guy from N. Carolina.  He has a slow southern drawl and calm personality that makes me feel like sitting on the front porch swing with a tall glass of sweet tea and watching the sun go down.
There are two sets of sisters, one easy to tell apart and the other near impossible.  One set is from Northern Idaho (yeah for the Spuds at Sea!)  and I actually will get to hang out with the eldest for the 7 months after boot camp because we are both AECF.  The younger one is headed south, maybe we will run down there when the snow and cold gets to be too much.  The second set of sisters are like one person, they make me smile.
We also have seven people unrelated with the same last name...
There are about 5 of us with the same job grouping as myself and probably 10-15 more that will be at the same A school location which is really cool.  We are all excited about having familiar faces.
A few of our males are nukes and they definitely live up to their reputation, not in a bad way, they actually crack me up.
Oh, my "brother" Yoeman, we'll call them C & C, what can I say about them, they crack me up. I actually feel bad for them sometimes having two headstrong "leader" type females to work with.  But they definitely come along for the ride and are great helping us all work together.  They are quiet, we are loud, they stay calm, we freak out.  It's a good balancing act.
OK, so time is running out and I will write more later.  Lots of love.  Thanks for the letters and prayers and support.

      Love,
 
            Erin

Letter #2

Hey there everyone!  Hope you are all doing great. I'm doing pretty good myself.  It's our fourth week of training (my 5th week here, they don't count the first week!) As it's officially called "Hell Week" and let me tell you, I would have to agree!  For the past two days, we have had 0400 wake-up calls (which means 0315 for me) We had a PT test at 0445AM on Monday, then followed by a 2 hour inspection during which time we get to stand at attention and not flinch or else.  Today we got to go to our first weapons training which was exciting minus all the yelling.  Tomorrow we get to shoot live guns.  Thursday we will take our graduation photos (yes already!), then we have our drill inspection (i.e. marching).  Friday we have our second test.  So needless to say we are going to be crazy busy :)  The best part is that after this week things should go by fast and the end of boot camp will come and I will have my cell phone, lap top and ipod back.  Man how I miss music!
Thank you so very very much for all the love and letters.  Nothing ends a day better than having your name called over and over again at mail call!  So we are starting to run out of time for letter writing, but next letter/update I will tell you all about the characters that surround me.  Until next time.  Much love.