June 27th - July 1st

June 27th:
I can't believe this week is over! It has gone by so fast. I haven't been able to write you at all it's been so busy. We had to write the Soldier's Creed 50 times from Tuesday until today and it literally took all my free time! That and we had to clean our weapons every night after shooting because we have shot every day from Wednesday until today. So the Soldier's Creed says:
I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough. Trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment, and myself. I am an expert and I am a professional. I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United Sates of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I am an American soldier.

50 times!!

June 28th:
I have news that surprised me but it happened we are officially in white phase! We were told that we were not phasing but we had a ceremony last night saying we were phasing and all of us were surprised. But I should be calling soon! I hope it's today! During white phase we get 30 minutes every Sunday unless our drill sgts. feel like we should not get the privilege.

Like I was saying last night we started firing our weapons this week. It has been difficult. I have had fun but also very frustrated. We had to shoot on Wednesday and shoot a little target on paper from 25 meters away and we had to group 8 out of ten rounds in the little black silhouette target. The drill sgts would then make adjustments to us. We had to end up with the 8 shots in the middle of this target in order to zero our weapons and I really struggled. My weapon had to be adjusted a lot more than most others. So I didn't do very well. But on Thursday I ended up getting it just in time. I was very thankful. The next day my target was broken so I never saw how well I did. Then yesterday we shot moving targets at different distances and that's what we will do to qualify this Thursday. We have to hit 23 our of 40 targets and we have to do this to pass basic. Anyway I feel like I am always negative, I just need to practice. I am sure I will be good.

Thank you for my cards! I had completely forgotten that it was even Father's Day until I got to church and they said something. I don't mind missing it. I don't know if fathers need a day. Mothers deserve much more recognition and a special day than we do I think. Mothers do so much more than we do. But I felt bad not saying anything to my dad but I'm sure he understands.

I'm so sorry about missing you on the phone today. :( :( I was getting worried that something was wrong with the phones or something. But next Sunday I think we will get to call again. Everyone is pretty pumped up and trying really hard so we can get our phones again and for longer too. So if we can keep that up we should be talking this next Sunday, or maybe on the 4th! We get the entire day off and we even get to go to a concert! They are giving us Pizza Hut and the concert and I heard we get to watch movies too so who knows.

You asked if smoking was the same as the gas chamber and its just a term used for when we are given correctional training IE push ups, V-ups, leg touch and twist, eight count push ups, those sort of things. We got our prison haircuts again today it feels so much better. My hair was getting long. We are going to bed an hour early tonight because we have to wake up at 0400 to do an 8k road march which is around five miles with all our gear on and our weapons and then we will be at a computer range again to practice shooting at moving targets so we can qualify this upcoming Thursday. Pray for me that I do well on Thursday please!

It sounds like you and Audrey are going to be busy busy this month. I am glad, you guys should have lots of fun together. Hahah random question - do you think my face looks like Buzz Lightyear? A few people have said that from the beginning and its funny because you sent me the picture of us three at Audrey's birthday party dressed up and I am Buzz Lightyear. HAHH.

June 29th:
I got four letters from you tonight!!! Wahoo! We didn't get any mail on Friday because of something. I am not sure what and then we don't get any on Saturday. I am glad that you guys had so much fun jet skiing! I am shocked that Audrey went! I loved Audrey's hand prints for Father's Day! I am hanging it up in my locker along with my pictures. So we got to practice more shooting again with a computer and I did a lot better and it made me feel much better. I hope we practice every day until we qualify on Thursday. But I already feel much better and I feel like I will do okay. So that is great news! We did our 85 or 5 mile march this morning. We woke up at 0400 and started marching by 0500. We took like two hours to finish so it was pretty easy. I like doing them they are fun. You should have seen the lightning this morning! It was amazing! It was literally flashing every 1-3 seconds it was so cool. It was beautiful. It was going off so much that I thought it was artillery going off. I have meant to say that this base is all artillery besides basic so all day long we hear huge explosions in the distance and we have even seen them sometimes. So our platoon is actually probably the best platoon right now, it has been the biggest shift. People are really starting to come together it has been great.

June 30th:
Our second PT test is tomorrow they switched it from Friday until Today. I know I can pass I am just working on getting more points. The other day I did 57 sit ups in two minutes so that was an improvement by 13 so that is great! Push  ups I am shooting for 13 more as well so cheer me on! I keep thinking over and over about being stationed in Washington. I don't know if its just wishful thinking or just because of Oregon or what but I just really want to be back up there.

July 1st:
Guess what?! It is July! Which means that I get to see you NEXT month! Yay yay yay! It's only a few more days and it will be a month until I see you! We can do it. And AIT will be much better. I ran my two mile in 13:20! I did 41 push ups and 51 sit ups so I passed again and I improved a tiny bit on everything. Did I tell you what we get to do on the 4th? We are supposedly having a concert and pizza and movies! I am pretty sure I wrote that. We just got back from the range, I qualified! I keep worrying that I wont pass things and then I do fine. I need to be more confident in my ability and then just keep getting better and better. So to qualify you have to get 23/40 and I got 29 and tomorrow we have a chance to do it again and I am shooting for 36 which is expert. I would get a badge on my uniform if I get that and people respect you if you have patches and stuff on your uniform. Today was rough after I finished shooting. Our platoon was arguing about the dumbest things while we were trying to practice our marching. I never answered your question about the age of my platoon. At least half maybe 3/4 of our platoon is still in high school so they are 17 and yes they are freaking immature! Some of them continue to do things like talk in formation or turn around during formation. Or they leave their weapon on semi instead of safe! We had to sit in the position outside in our full uniforms in the burning sand for over twenty minutes straight like 5-10 minutes before. To be honest we have never been smoked as long as I thought we would. But Fort Sill is supposedly easier too. I usually don't say that much in our big group to our whole platoon and I rarely swear but today I was so irritated I got in front of everyone and screamed for them to shut the hell up and I kept going. But whenever I do that my group of friends are like what is going on you okay? Hahaha

Haha so you know the Soup Nazi episode? How they all step up and say what they want and then slide down to the register and can't talk or anything? I think of that every time we eat at the chow hall. Hahahah I always mean to tell you but forget. We do exactly that. We get watched and say only what we want, talking is not allowed unless for that reason or to say thank you sir/m'am. Our steps have to be 15 inches and our heels must always touch unless one foot is moving. HAHAH I thought you would appreciate that.

OH Big Brother! or BIIIIIIIIIIIIG BROTHER! Hahah Is it good?! Who do you like? Don't give too many huge details but we are watching it once I get home together! And of course next season we will watch it together for sure! Have they revealed any big twists yet?

So we have a PG or platoon guide now and an APG which is his assistant and 4 squad leaders who are each in charge of about 12 people. So we do a lot more on our own now under the direction of the PG or APG. I really like the PG. He is doing a good job and he is the one calling cadences and marching us now. We are starting to get more free time and stuff which is great!

Happy 50th Birthday Mom!

Happy Happy Birthday to my incredible, beautiful, magnificent Mom!

The General, The Carol, and Trusty Tour Guide.

The Croquet cheating, Kohl's Addicted, Dancing Queen.

The Noxzema smelling, Scarf wearing Pot Stirrer.

The VP and A+ student.

The Amazing Race Producer and #1 Stinker Pot. 

Like a lot of bratty teenagers, I could say that Carol and I didn't see "eye to eye" growing up. Now that I am a mother myself, I have been blown away by the woman who raised me.

For starters, she is a party animal! You want to go on an adventure - call her! You have a movie, restaurant, roller coaster that you need to try - she'll be the first to volunteer. She has always made life and every occasion so much fun. She believes in making every day fun and new. 

Next she is a nerd-alert to the extreme. Although it's been 30+ years, she recalls fondly and OFTEN her time in the Lehi marching band. If you are lucky, she might just re-inact some drills for you. I always heard that she was a good student in high school, but wasn't prepared for the ball of determination that came as she started school in her 40's. After years of being out of the game, she started classes to go after her life long dream of being an architect. I can't tell you the hours, sweat, and tears she has put into EVERY semester since then. I don't know many people who could go to college after so much time and literally kick its trash. 

My mom was always a silent example of faith growing up. Maybe not silent, but I didn't notice/care growing up. But as the years have passed I can't believe what a woman of faith she is. Every 1-2 weeks you can find her at the temple. Trying to get peace, guidance, and too often help for her rotten kids. The last 4 years have been full of changes, and all brought on because she had received direction and followed without questioning. She would come to us with news or new ideas and in my head I would scream What! That's crazy! Let's think this through. But when she gets a prompting, she tries her darnedest to follow it no matter where it takes her.

One of the things that upset me the most growing up, is that my mom would never just "take our word for it" when we were telling her about a person. It was so frustrating as a bratty kid, but my mom has always never taken anyone elses opinions or judgements in about another person. She gets to know them and genuinely is their friend. She is also the first one to go up and introduce herself, and works very hard to retain her relationships with friends and family.

She is the "Level Head" and the "Problem Fixer Upper". Most of us kids are Love's, meaning dramatic and emotional to the 100th degree. When you have a crisis, she is the one to turn to. Time and time again she will talk you through things and help you find a solution. But she also doesn't sugar coat, she is direct and brings you out of your bad place. Money, personal, health, car, any problem you have - she will listen and help you develop a game plan on how to fix it. 

I could go on and on about this mother of mine, but she hates the spotlight on her so we'll end it here. Let me just say, I am so grateful that you are my Mommy. You have always been so selfless and patient with me. You have made me a planner, a TAD OCD (we'll mostly blame that on Grandma), and a celebrator. You have taught me the importance of books and the gospel. You have always been the one to do everything with - watch weird funky movies, go on a walk, or go to Kohls for new digs. You have showed us classic and good movies and music (Dan in Real Life not included), and let us know you're never too cool to dance and sing in public. Thank you for never-ending talks, your example, and most of all your love.

How did I ever get lucky enough to have you as MY Mom?

June 18th & 21st

June 18th:
Today is Wednesday and we have a lot going on this week! Today we have our land nav test. So we have six people in a group and they just drop us off with 5 points we have to plot and then walk to find five oints. We have like seven hours to get it done. We have to get them all right in order to graduate and to move on from red phase. Then tomorrow we are going to the gas chamber and we have to be there like five minutes. And then on Friday we have a test on all our red phase stuff. We won't move on from red phase. So we are busy busy. They even let us sleep from 9-6 last night! I think we might be doing our 8k march this week too. Can you believe we are more than halfway through June?!

Did I tell you in reception we got our photos taken in our uniform. I ordered some so when I graduate you should be able to take them home. So we did an obstacle course yesterday and I know there was some pictures taken of me so you should look on the Facebook page and see if I'm on there! I found out about the limited hand holding and PDA on graduation the day I got your letter talking about it. HAHAHAI haven't been told all the rules yet but I'm sure they will tell us closer to graduation.That whole last week is all practicing and going over graduation so we will pretty much be done with most of our training. So we got our weapons last Friday. It doesn't feel real still hahah. We have a red metal thing on our barrel that blocks anything from coming out. We have been practicing taking them apart and putting them back together. Mine is very difficult to take apart. One of the pins is really hard to get out and that takes the barrel and the .... apart.

June 21st:
How are you? I am doing pretty good. I haven't written for a while because I had to prepare a talk for today and we had a phase test on Friday. We don't know how we did yet but it's based on the platoon's score averaged out so that makes me nervous but we'll be positive. We are not moving out of red phase anyway. Our drill sergeant kept a group in red phase for six weeks!

I just got back from church! It was busy. I helped pass the sacrament and then gave my talk and then I helped teach the plan of Salvation to two people who are getting baptized in a few weeks!

We are almost ready for bed. It has been a good day. We have had a lot of time to clean and organize. Not personal time but cleaning time. That is pretty much all we do all day Sunday. It's nice because we all talk.The conversations were a little interesting today hahaha. I got so sunburned today. We pulled weeds for three hours today. I didn't even think about putting my sunscreen on today until I was already a lobster hahaha. We are getting prison haircuts or were supposed to today but will get them next week I guess. My hair is getting so long. This next week we are going to start shooting our weapons! This week should be fun. Tomorrow we start using a simulator so we can learn how to do it right before we waste a ton of rounds. Our one drill sergeant was gone all week and I was so glad she came back because she is the toughest drill sergeant in our whole battery but she helps us stay in line and it makes things better. Our platoon is slowly getting better at being quiet.

Did I tell you about the gas chamber? Oh my goodness it was terrible! We went in and had our masks on and started doing push ups and stuff like that and the mask is already tight and makes you feel a little claustrophobic. But then you move into the hot side where there is a higher concentration of gs and take off your mask for 3 seconds with your eyes closed and holding your breath and then put your mask back on and seal the make and start breathing again for 15 seconds and scream the soldiers creed and none of us made it past the second line before coughing and dying. It feels like you are drowning and you can't open your eyes for like 5 minutes for more than a few seconds. It hurts so bad. But I am glad I did it, It was a good experience. Oh and it makes your skin burn like the worst sunburn you have ever had.