Ranger Graduation

This ceremony brings to end the Ranger phase. James has been preparing for this graduation since his freshman year of college, me, on the other hand, has really only thought about this since March. But when July 23rd came it took over both of our worlds. James lived and breathed Ranger school- clearly, and my world was just consumed with my husband being gone. Sometimes it was irritating, sometimes sad, and sometimes my life seemed pretty normal.

But the week leading up to graduation was incredible! James got a 5hour pass on Wednesday, then a 10hour pass on Thursday, and then he actually got to come home on Friday. Having him home during those passes was kind of weird. There is definitely an adjustment that occurs...but having him home was everything that I had imagined. His stuff was everywhere, but we easily fell into our usual routine- praying before dinner, eating together, watching a movie, and telling stories of Ranger school or my life during Ranger school.

What was even more fun was collaborating with my mom, and mother-in-law to plan a party for our new ranger. It was an even better party because Aunt Wendy, Elizabeth, BaaBee, DanDan, and John Burgess were able to join us! Having all of the family here this past weekend was the biggest blessing in the world. James and I felt so supportive and loved.

Here are the pictures of the best day ever:

All of the graduating boys. There were 109 of them, and about 50 of them were first time go's!!

All of the family here to support us

 Pinning on his  Ranger tab!!

James and his sweet sister, so glad she was able to even come!

Party time! Mom made the sign :)

Is this Real Life?

Yep. I fell off the wagon. I was doing so well with the blog!! And then I left for Charlotte for 2 weeks...whoops. And I can't even get the pictures from the past 2 weeks off mom's camera...even more of a bummer. The last 2 weeks were crazy busy- seriously, I had morning walks with people, lunch dates, coffee dates, dinner dates planned ALL THE TIME. It was exhausting. And I gained like 12 pounds. Whoops.

The best part of the 2 weeks in North Carolina was that I got to travel around and see a TON of people. I was in Winston-Salem for a night and got see both Granddad's and Neal and Kathy and then got to spend some time in Durham/Raleigh/Wilson seeing a whole slew of people. AND I got to go to Chapel Hill...dangerous. I miss that place so much. Just walking around made me want to chain myself to a tree (to then be let go for this day when I get to see James). My Chapel Hill visits were also wonderful because I got to see Harrison Barnes and Tyler Zeller- so TALL!

But now I am back home. Preparing for James' couple hour pass tonight!! Woohoo!! I honestly can't believe that it has been 60 days since James has been home. And by home, I mean truly home- not the 8 hour pass and the couple phone conversations. They were great little perks, but he will be home on Friday. Sleeping in the bed. Eating food that I make. Watching our TV. Driving the car (so glad I don't have to do that anymore). I am trying to mentally prepared for our grocery bill this month...James told me he wanted to spend a hour to an hour and a half at the grocery when he got back- Winn-Dixie, WATCH OUT.

I almost don't even believe that today is the day... I guess I'll just have to wait till I see him walk out of that gate!

What's goin' on sweet thing?

I got the phone call last night. I had been INSEPARABLE from my phone for the last 2 days, making things like playing/running around with some of my friends kids slightly difficult, but hey- it works out. But he finally called. Unknown displayed on my caller ID. So of course I answer by saying, James?? And the first words out of his mouth..."What's going on sweet thing?" Which of course translated to I passed, and I am happy. We spent the next 12 minutes in complete bliss- actually talking! I got to tell him about my day and how much I missed him- especially since the night before I had another nightmare. (He always wakes me up when I have them to make sure, I'm okay- apparently I haven't grown out of the nightmare phase...its annoying)

So he passed. Next we are moving on to the Florida phase. He said that the first couple of days would be focused around learning and then they would move into their field time. I did hear, via the Destin Newspaper, that the guys get a tutorial in snakes...makes me want to curl up and die...but I guess it is a good thing if they are in the swamps to know what snakes are poisonous or not. And this year apparently there will be a BOA CONSTRICTOR. sick. Guess rumors will be confirmed when he gets back.

The boys, that are airborne qualified, were suppose to fly down and then jump into Florida. Which of course is just another jump to add to their tally, but in reality it is another opportunity for injury. I guess since it is the holiday weekend no one wanted to fly them down and supervise the jump, so they canceled it! AWESOME news! One less thing to worry about- now I'm just worried about the snakes.

He also told me that he had just finished eating the care package I had sent- full of chips, homemade cookies, homemade muffins, Nerds, gummy bears, fruit roll ups, Reese pieces, and Swedish Fish. He said he shared too- which was good, but I left a note in the top of the box requesting that he at least at one of cookies and muffins...since they were homemade :)


I know this post is a little all over the place, but I wanted to share with you the conversation that we had...and it was all over the place.

We have been so blessed these past 6 weeks, and I'm praying hard that these next 3 will fly by.

Letters.

Who knew that letters could make my heart flutter so. I mean, I'll just throw it out there that James has ALWAYS been good with words- and his big blue eyes don't help. I write him a lot. Usually once day. I need that communication with him even though I don't get letters every day from him. I figure that if he reads my random, everyday occurrences it will at least be a moment that he isn't consumed by Ranger School and maybe that will be a good enough rest for his mind. At the beginning though, I didn't write anything negative-besides the fact that I missed him. I know not to write boys about problems back at home...such as the A/C that we need to get fixed. It usually just makes him worry and irritated that he can't fix it. But recently I had been contemplating whether or not to write to him about things I was worried about. Last week, specifically on Wednesday, I decided that I would. It had been and unusual week were it seemed like EVERYONE was asking me about Italy. And I was irritated. Everyone thinks this is going to be a 3 year vacation and they don't realize all of the details and logistics that are going to have to go into this move that I can't even do right now...because most of the Army people won't talk to me because I'm not the active duty guy...Puh-lease. So I started getting nervous and anxious about moving. Then I got a letter (that is how I remember that I was worried about this on Wednesday. I remember when I get letters). But I got a letter that said, "I hope you are excited about our next adventure, because I sure am Love." That is when I decided to tell that I was nervous about it. Don't get me wrong, it helped calm me when I new he was excited,  and calling me love makes me feel better no matter what.

So even better than him telling me how excited he was about Italy in his last letter, was him RESPONDING to me in this letter! So a)I know he is getting mail, unlike last phase, and b)he is reading it and not just putting it in his jacket pocket!! This weeks letter said this,

"Don't be nervous about Italy for a moment. We will figure out everything together just like everything else in our life. Don't stress at all, just look towards our reunion with joy and have faith that God's plan will be revealed to us through our prayers."

He wrote that sleep deprived. I have trouble writing complete sentences when I'm tired. Embarrassing Anna.

My Man said not to worry, so worry I will not. Italy will be a great adventure and we will get over there even though it seems like there are too many hurdles to jump through.

I live for letters and have worn out the letters that I have already received.

Thank you Hurricane Irene.

Thanks to the hurricane taking over the east coast, I got a phone call from the Husband!! It started out as a panic attack, 100% sure that something serious had happened and I needed to get up to Dahlonega immediately. There is seriously no reason they should be calling, and if the automated voice on the collect call had been an actual real person I would have yelled at them to connect me QUICKER and that it was completely unnecessary to ask me to confirm TWICE. The first words out of my mouth were, "James? James! What's wrong?" Probably not the sweet, warm voice he had been expecting to hear. Whoops. Luckily he quickly informed me nothing was wrong.... I still didn't believe him and asked again just to make sure everything was okay :) It was. He just wanted to check in on the family because of the hurricane. Such nice Ranger Instructors he has.

So that is how I lost at least 5 years of my life.

Stop putting things on the stove.

I have had way too many close calls in the kitchen in the past two weeks. It all started with the mini kitchen fire. I was cooking some food for James' 8hr pass and put one of our kitchen towels on one of the hot burners. Who knows why I thought that would be a good idea, but the worst part is how long it too for me to figure out what was burning! The flames finally clued me in. Thank God that the faucet was running and the sink was empty (because that NEVER happens), so I quickly threw the towel in the sink. I can now put my whole fist through the hole that I burned. Whoops.

Then a couple of days later I put one of Fawn's grocery store bags- the reusable ones- on the stove. It was logical because I had just unloaded all of the vegetables onto the counter, so I just slide the bag over to the stove. Well later that day, I was making some oven dried tomatoes when once again I smelled the burning. So I go into the kitchen, look at the tomatoes- which looked fine, and realized that smoke was coming from the bag. No fire yet, but now there is a hole in Fawn's awesome reusable grocery bag.

To add to my mishaps in the kitchen... the oven dried tomatoes looked GREAT at one point. They smelled so good! But when I took them out of the oven the were still REALLY mushy- so they weren't quite done yet. So I left them in over night with the oven set at 100. (You are actually suppose to cook them over night, I was just trying to speed the process along) This is what I saw when I woke up:

I"m attempting to make these one more time. Then I'm done.

The Week of Anticipation.

So I stopped checking the mail box every day around Day13. It was turning me into a psycho person. I have seriously never checked the mail that many times. The problem was that there were several days that I could not remember if I had checked it or not, so I checked it twice. Absurd. So I just stopped checking everyday. Tuesday, day 16, I checked the mail and got 2 letters from James! I was so excited I literally couldn't contain myself.

Seriously, the two best words I had read in 2.5 weeks. The first letter he wrote after RAP week. He said he was exhausted and hungry. That he did not get any of his push-ups counted off, ran his 5 miler in 35min, and finished the Land Navigation with 1.5hrs left. Awesome. The second letter said that most of the time he felt like he was learning a lot, but at the same time it he wasn't because of the lack of sleep and food. Needless to say, I kept the letters with me and read them all time. He even asked me to go make sure I had a pair of boots for him at home and to fix one of the pairs of boots he had at home. There was a twist. He wanted a certain pair of shoes, and then he wanted the plastic toe and heel cups taken out and a different sole placed on. Demanding :) The trick was that the shoes usually took a couple of days to get fixed, so I definitely needed to buy them and drop them off by the end of that day...it was Tuesday...So I got the letter at 3:00 and was out the door at 3:30 to find the shoes. I went to Commando's-no go, Ranger Joe's- no go, Extreme Outfitters- no go, and Combat Foot Wear- no go. This was ridiculous. Luckily, I still had the one pair that I could get fixed for him, but couldn't find another pair.

After a crazy Tuesday, my anticipation grew. Would he pass? Would I find out before I went to pick him up at the gate? Is this 8 hour pass going to be wonderful? Awful? What if we didn't get everything done? What if he slept the whole time?

Thursday. I went to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House, found out that Fawn and Meredith both found out that their hubby's passed and my stomach is now constantly in knots. It was weird- while I was so excited for Fawn and Meredith I was so jealous. I feel like I am always the last one to know, to hear from him, etc...and this just added to it. And then of course came the thoughts that if they found out and I haven't then it must be bad news. Luckily, Fawn- being the amazing friend that she is- told me this, "We don't work on luck, we work on the Lord Almighty!" She was so encouraging. I started calling the staff duty officer, and ultimately ended up talking to 5 different people to only get half of an answer. I was still unsettled, but gave up talking to people on the phone. Apparently, my patient level drops when I talk to Army people.

Then...I decided to wash the car. Wanted it to look nice. And got water on my phone. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner. Not good. I immediately put my phone in a bag of rice and had it off. Only to find out later than night- circa 10pm- that my Boy had been trying to call me all day. The house phone rang at 10:26. I had just crawled in bed. My stomach dropped. I knew it would be from him. And the caller ID said...PAY PHONE!!!! SO glad he took a calling card and SO glad that his parents had saved our home number and could give it to him. His calling card of course only had a minute left on because he had been trying to call me all day and he let all of his buddies use. Typical. This time around, I am sending him 2 calling cards. One for me and one for his friends. Lesson's learned. And he told me he PASSED.  Praise the Lord!

8 hr pass coming up.

Don't break your legs.

His Sweet Face.

I got to see it! That is right, I got see his sweet face! Meredith's neighbor is a Ranger Instructor, and his wife told us that we could go watch the boys jump and that she always went to watch her husband jump. So Meredith, Fawn, and I took full advantage of the situation and decided to go. Let's just say that I was REALLY nervous- like thought I was going to throw up all morning type of nervous. Mainly because I didn't know if he got my letter telling him I would be there, or if it would distract him if I was there, or if he would get in trouble- I could just imagine the worst situations... But we still went, and I got to see him jump AND his face!!! Here is a video of the boys jumping. I don't know which one he is, but it is SO cool!! Alright...well having some issues uploading the video. I'll try again later. But here are some pictures of the day!!

Looking to see if we could see their faces...but we couldn't...

We moved outside to get a better look.

He is coming!!!

He WAVED!! (He was in the second window...my head is blocking the view. )

I have been in cloud 9 ever since :)