one year ago today....

I was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina... and it was HOT. And I was sick almost the entire summer, and even got strep throat. Dan brought home a box of things from his parents house the other day and in it was my DVD from basic training.... Really, there aren't pictures of a ton of the things we did there... but there are some.

PREFACE: nobody looks hot at boot camp... don't judge me. or any others. BCGs (the glasses) are terrible. i was hardly ever found wearing them. but carried them around in case i got yelled at for not. Captions listed below the picture. Also, there are a lot of pictures because it was from an entire summer...

this is Gunn. he was in my platoon. no photos of me repelling. this day was one of the most fun... even though i was running a nice fever.

this, out of alllll the things on victory tower (where repelling took place) was the hardest and scariest for me... sliding on your stomach on one single rope. the rope burn wasn't too bad either. i made it though...

we learned awesome first aid... it rocked.

AND we did pugil stick fighting... which was also tons of fun and i kicked butt at. don't mess with me or my man or i'll pugil you (how trashy does that sound?)

HEY! I picture of me looking OOOhhhhh so excited. We had a LOT of classes... this one we are learning about how to use our gas masks and other fun things about gassings. It was hard to stay awake in MANY classes because you got pretty much no sleep...ever. I am pretty sure I was allowed to sleep through the night without having to get up for some type of duty or to a drill sergeant yelling and making you do push ups... about once. And the last night there I probably could have slept... but we got our phones back and Dan and I talked allll night long, it was marvelous! Almost as marvelous as seeing him the next day!

land navigation class. land nav was really boring to learn about, but when they stick you in the middle of the forest and you have to find certain things and your way back out... it can sort of be fun.

ahhh... the wonderful gas chamber...
this was fun. it was EXTRA hot that day... and in that dark heated room... it was deadly hot. and as soon as you entered... your skin started burning. all day the drill sergeants were encouraging people to eat 2nds and 3rds and drink the blue kool aid so people would ralf afterwards... get ready for the grand finale.

This is Terrell... he was in my platoon and also went to the School of Music in Virginia with me! He plays trumpet in the active army and is a cool guy! GO TERRELL!!!
you are pretty much gasping for your life and can't see when you walk out of there...


AND...
here.... is me....

and Ornelas. I was sick... it was a great sinus cleanse. But back to Ornelas, she was awesome... one of the real girls there I could talk to, West was my first. We banded together when the girls hated me because I was bay leader for most of the time and I liked to follow rules... and she was shunned because she got the whole bay in trouble for falling asleep while she was supposed to be on fireguard... they all wanted to hurt her.

Here are some photos from afterwards when Dan visited and we were allowed to have cameras:

This is the bay where I lived for 9 weeks. The middle painted park is called the "kill zone" you could not step foot in that thing and we had to wax it every night and every sunday we had to wax it with multiple coats to keep is nice and shiny. if so much as a hair was found on that floor we were all busted and made to stay up all night long.

this is drill sergeant soto and me with my messed up red eyes that he was scared of on graduation day (my eyes were red the ENTIRE summer and when I got home it just went away).

here's drill sergeant heuitt... he was hilarious and had all sorts of funny stories, but he was the one who would smoke us for the longest amount of time.

and me and dan of course on family day. it was soooo magnificent to see him!
Then I was off to Virginia for the school of music at a Navy base for another 4 weeks. I really liked virginia... I wouldn't mind living there at all.

Chapman, me and Moore sitting in the hall before music theory (I think).

Me graduating from AIT (School of Music)... looking much better than at basic... that's for sure.

Dan was there that day... this was later on the same day on the beach. He came with my dad and step mom and we stayed in Virginia beach for a couple of days, it was wonderful... this is about 30 minutes or so before Dan proposed :) oh what an awesome day!