Videos

Fill Day

Today, Jordan's company got their new class of soldiers, and I got to go out and watch what goes on. Today is not a good day for them. The minute they stepped off the bus they were getting yelled at. The Drill Sergeants are the ones that do all of the yelling, and they are the ones that wear the big hats that have the bill going all the way around. I'm not sure what they call them (there is an acronym for everything in the Army so I'm sure it is named some acronym).

The first two pictures are of this poor kid who walked on the painted concrete you can see there in the picture. They are not supposed to do this so that drill sergeant picked him up and carried him off of the concrete. You can see Jordan there in the first picture. He is the one in the bottom left. The 3rd picture is of another kid getting yelled at by 4 Drill Sergeants at once, they are surrounding him. And then that is Jordan there to the left again, and the 1st Sergeant in the black beret. Wouldn't you love to know what that kid was thinking right then?! It kind of looks like Jordan might be laughing there. The second to last picture is when they have to run one at a time up that sidewalk from the field below. Jordan says they usually have a few that are so nervous they just eat it on the concrete but no such luck today! The last picture right here is the right after they had arrived and got off the buses. They had to hold thier bags up in the air for quite a while. And the poor kid you can see there has a red piece of luggage that has wheels on it. Not a good idea. It was a big target for the Drill Sergeants. I heard what they yelled to him about it but I will not repeat it here!

I took a few videos too. I will see if I can figure out how to put them in here.

Happy Birthday

HaPpY bIrThDaY tO yOu JoRdAn!!!

Jordan's Wedding Ring

Jordan thought he had lost his wedding ring over the summer, but he found it a few weeks ago! It was way down deep in the pocket they are supposed to put their ID cards in their ACUs.

He was so happy!

Status

I have not posted in a while so I thought I would briefly explain what has been going on around here lately as far as Jordan's career. We are still scheduled to go to Colorado Springs. We are probably going to move one of the last days of February. yay!!! It's so soon, which we are really pumped about!
The last few days have been kind of stressful for us, and we have certainly experienced an array of emotions! Things just keep changing! Jordan has another Dr. appointment at West Point February 11. At this appointment the doctor and Jordan will discuss what they think is best for Jordan and his knee career-wise. The doctor will probably put him on a physical profile. There are different levels of these, P1-p4. P1 is the least severe as in you will be back to full strength soon. P4 is you are really injured and are soon to be discharged from the Army. The doctor can also write specific limitations for an individual. This all being said, the question of Jordan deploying this summer is in the hands of the doctor and those in charge at Fort. Carson (the post we are going to in Colorado Springs). He could still deploy but would have a less dangerous job that doesn't require him to be out on his knee a lot (he is not going to be a platoon leader now, which is what the next step in the infantry would've been for him), or he could stay behing in CO and not deploy. Now please remember nothing has gone according to plan for us since we have been here so this could all change at the drop of the hat! I will keep y'all posted though!

No Ranger School After All

Jordan had to med-drop from the Pre-Ranger Course yesterday. He started feeling the same pain he had before his surgery on the 1st day and it kept getting worse over the next 3 days. He has come to the conclusion that he can do normal physically demanding things but not extremely physically demanding things like Ranger School. Jordan said out of a 24 hour period they were off of their feet (which included sleep) for only 2-5 hours. He knee was hurting a lot yesterday, especially last night. He took 2 pain killers left over from his surgery and he was still up for hours trying to get to sleep. Hopefully today it will get better. He is still sleeping for now.


When we got home yesterday about 11:00 am after leaving the school he pigged out like I've never seen! This is what he inhaled (and I mean inhaled! He sucked it all down like he hadn't eaten in weeks!):

• glass of milk


• cup of coffee


• Can of Dr. Pepper


• 4 Chocolate Chip Oatmeal muffins


• 2 pieces of pizza
• Tortilla chips


• 3 scrambled eggs


• 2 sausage patties


• 2 biscuits

Anyways, we think we will get to move to Colorado Springs earlier now so that's exciting. Jordan will still be able to do everything he needs to do physically in Colorado so he will start work when we get there, and then they are scheduled to deploy this summer sometime.

It rained here a few days ago and there is red clay at Ft. Benning. I just threw them away!

The Woodlands

Here are some pictures from the tail-end of our Christmas leave in The Woodlands.

Our Visit With Angela

Up until my sophomore year of high school we lived next door to Angela. She is 10 years older than me and she adores our family. They moved to Temple a few years ago so Jordan has never had the chance to meet her, and Angela has been dying to meet Jordan! And of course Major too. She calls once every week or two to say hello. They are a really neat family and we love Angela to pieces. So over Christmas break Jordan and I drove down to Temple to visit with them.

Pre Ranger School

I dropped Jordan off today at Pre Ranger School. This is copied off the website so you can get a better idea of what it is:
The Pre-Ranger Course consists of 14 days of training. The first week is designed to mirror the first week of Ranger School's (Benning) phase. The second week is designed to Coach, Teach, and Mentor students during the patrol phase of the course. The purpose of the Pre-Ranger Course (PRC) is to prepare Soldiers to succeed at the US Army Ranger School. Pre-Ranger accomplishes this by assessing the Soldiers' physical and mental capabilities, training the Soldiers on Troop Leading Procedures, Combat Orders and Reconnaissance/Combat patrols to the same standards conducted at the US Army Ranger School. Pre-Ranger is designed to verify that all medical/dental and administrative paperwork is complete for Ranger School attendance, and fix any deficiency that the Soldier may have. Students will be required to pass the minimum Ranger Physical Fitness Test of 49 push-ups, 59 sit-ups and 5 mile (release) run in 40:00 minutes or less. In addition to the RPFT, students will be evaluated at the Combat Water Survival Test, Land Navigation, Road March, Ranger Stakes, Obstacle Course, Patrols, and Peer Evaluations.
In 14 days, he gets to come home for about 1 1/2 days and then he is off to Ranger School. Here are some pictures of everything laid out that he had to take-it's mostly small, strange things to a civilian! There is also a picture of him today with his duffel bags right before we left and a picture of him a few days ago when he got his hair cut really short. The picture doesn't do justice to how funny he looks with an almost-bald head!

Mexico!

My parents took us to an all-inclusive resort over Christmas. It was an amazing resort and we had a ball! A slideshow of pictures is at the top of the page.

Cold Weather

We got back from our Christmas leave last Wednesday night and our water wasn't working. We thought the pipes had frozen but the next day we found out that a pipe had busted because of the cold while we were gone. I guess someone called the city and so they turned our water off. We didn't have water for about two days! It was a very long two days! The pictures here are where the water that spewed out froze over.