9 More Days!!!

Yes, today is the first single-digit day in the countdown to the day I get to see him again. We talked for about an hour on Sunday and he had some awesome stories to tell! The platoon did a 15K ruck march to the Forward Operating Base (FOB) and stayed there for a couple days. They got to apply the things they have learned to a role play type thing. My favorite story was the one Shaun told about being a bad guy, apparently he really enjoyed that ;). He and one of his battle buddies were sitting in the back of a truck headed toward one of the road blocks of the enemy (our soldiers). Shaun had a bomb and his partner had a pistol. Shaun quickly hid his bomb in an ice cooler underneath a couple bags of ice. The pistol was put in the man's back pocket and they were searched. The soldier who searched Shaun had him remove one bag of ice as the cooler was searched but not the other so the bomb remained in the vehicle. Somehow they missed the pistol in the guy's back pocket as well (scary huh?). Well just as too groups walked by the truck, Shaun blew them all up. Shortly after his battle buddy whipped out his pistol and shot a whole bunch of people. Shaun was captured and put in jail but the guards weren't paying attention so he just ran away. When he returns you need to ask him to tell the story. He had me laughing the whole time. I hope the soldiers are learning their lessons because we don't want the bad guys to win in real life. :) Shaun seems to be doing very well. There are just a couple more days of training this week. At the moment he's out in the field once again. But they will shortly be done and the next couple of days will just be devoted to returning their equipment and things. Then there's just waiting until family day and graduation. I'm glad I can stay busy instead of having to do nothing and just wait for the day I can see him. He said it'll be pretty hard but he has made a lot of friends so I'm sure he'll continue to have fun up until the end.

Our Sunday Conversation

I got to talk to Shaun for an hour Sunday. He is now in the blue phase, the highest one they are in during basic training. He was pretty excited about that. He got to shoot about five different types of machine guns this last week. One was his dream gun, the one he's been waiting to shoot for a long time. It's called the Saw. :) He loved it! It made me really happy to hear him talk about it too. I know we must have talked about quite a bit since we talked for an hour but I seriously can't remember much. Most of the time we just talked about some changes we need to make when he gets back. We have decided he's going to keep doing ROTC for sure because that way he won't have to be out there with the men that end up getting shot. His office job will be more boring but he'll get to do financial stuff like he's going to school for. He'll have to be in the national guard for a couple more years but he'll be safe. I would much rather have him be safe, than out of the guard faster. He seems to be doing really well. Besides missing family he's happy and healthy now. The rash he had isn't a problem anymore thank goodness. Our trip to Oklahoma is approaching fast and I can't wait! The only thing I'm worried about is saying goodbye to him again. The first time was hard but I didn't know what to expect. Now that I've been through it already and I know how much I'll miss him it'll be harder. But it is three weeks less than basic training so we'll survive. It sounds like it's going to be a lot easier though. Some men have internet access and cell phones all the time. Shaun will be living in a little apartment-like place with one roommate instead of the barracks with 60 men. He's pretty excited about that. ;) I'll be pretty busy throughout August and school starts the 24th so I should be able to get through it a little better than this time. i do so much better with a routine. I'll be starting a new job and a new program at school so hopefully my mind will be on those things more rather than how much I miss him. We are so blessed! Things have gone really well and time has gone by fairly quickly.

Weekend of the Fourth

I have been slacking on my blog updates. I'm now done with summer school so I don't spend time in the school computer labs anymore. Time is flying by and I love it!!! Shaun scored "sharpshooter" for his marksmenship. Third is marksmen, second is sharpshooter, and first is expert. Shaun was a high sharpshooter. He scored 34 out of 40 targets. He placed fourth in his platoon. He was very proud of himself because they say the range he shot at is the hardest at Fort Sill, possibly one of the hardest in our nation. :) I'm really proud of him. He loves shooting! He is enjoying all the obstacle courses they have them do. They look and sound really hard but he says he likes doing them. "At least it's something to do" he told me. He's been getting frustrated because it's always "hurry up and wait" in the army. He says they'll march out to the range, stand there for a couple hours in the 100 degree weather, have 15 minutes of training, and then stand there for a couple more hours. When I told my dad that he said, "No wonder it takes ten weeks to complete the training!" I agree. :) Shaun said he'd much rather work really hard for a short amount of time than only have a few minutes of training a day. He's made a few friends and has a lot of fun with them. They tease him at church about looking at pictures of me. Yesterday he received a package that included the Oreos his sister Megan sent him. He bribed one of his non-member friends to come to church by telling him he'd share the Oreos with him. What a way to be a missionary. ;) Shaun has a heat rash that's getting pretty bad. It's irritating him and there's really nothing he can do about it since they have to be in the boiling hot weather all the time. So my family and his family fasted and prayed for him yesterday. Hopefully he'll be better soon. They did find out what was wrong with him finally. He kept getting more and more sick. He went in to sick call and at first they gave him allergy medicine. He took it even though he knew he didn't have allergies. It didn't work, so he went in again and they said he had strep throat. So they gave him pain killers and a penicillin (sp?) shot. He did have strep throat but he kept getting even sicker so he went in once more. Then they finally found out he had a lung infection. He had to stay in quarters for a couple days but he said the antibiotic they gave him did wonders. Now all he has to do is get rid of that heat rash and he'll be wonderful. I'm taking two months off from the daycare because they didn't really need me there for the summer. I'm in Utah being a nanny for my aunt once more. The count down is now at 24 days and I'm already getting so excited! I loved this 4th of July because Shaun got a day off and got to talk to me for two and a half hours. It was awesome! And then he told me he probably wouldn't get to talk to me on Sunday because of his chance to talk on Saturday but he got to call. We talked for another hour. He is doing really well. He has already reached the half way mark so he's starting to get tired of it but he promised me he'd stick to it and stay positive. He's doing really well with building up his spiritual side. He reads the Book of Mormon three times a day, he just finished it so he's starting the Pearl of Great Price. He's been a terrific example to those there and he's working on being a missionary. He has also been able to avoid swearing. That's a huge challenge being in an envirornment like that where almost everyone uses three swearwords in each sentence. I'm extremely proud of him. Things are going very well. He has now lost a total of 27 lbs! Boy am I excited to see him! ;)