Counting Down

Ten more days people!

AND I got to talk to my Love again tonight! The *thoughtful* AF gave him some extra time to chat because of Father's Day :o) And no, I'm not still bitter that he couldn't call me on Mother's Day ;o) But enough of that...he sounds great. Beast week wasn't that bad...apparently fun at times! Unless some strange desire to act up comes upon him or his flight, we will see him June 30th and he will graduate July 1st!

He's still a little sick, but he didn't sound it. Just a lingering chest cough that only bothers him at night. He didn't seem too bothered about it. He's getting pretty excited about seeing us and getting to Keesler. Apparently he'll be able to call us more regularly until we get down there...he says every night but I'm a smart Air Force Wife now so I'm not holding my breath! :o) Anything will be better than the handful of updates we've gotten during BMT!

So just his tests, some classes, and lots of practicing drill (I can't fill anyone in here cause I have no clue what that really is yet!) for graduation!

Lily and I will be driving out to Cape Cod Wednesday evening. I'm hoping that by traveling while she's usually sleeping she won't be a terrorist about it...so pray that she snoozes the whole way and that I DONT snooze! We'll get to spend some time with Aunt Cassie and cousin Zave, and of course "Grandfatha" and Grandma Aiduk! And then on Tuesday the 29th Gpa, Gma, LJ, and I are on our way to Texas! And after that the adventure really begins!

So Close

In less than a week LJ and I will be headed to Cape Cod and then in another less than a week we'll all be flying to SAN ANTONIO!!! :o)

I got a letter from Jesse today...quite a pleasant surprise! He wrote it Sunday, so it filled me in a little on how he was doing before Beast week started. A bunch of the guys have been sick, one even with pnemonia (who will have to graduate a week late because of it). Jess said he wasn't feeling good but was toughing it out instead of going to "sick call" because he knew if they thought it was bad they would keep him too long and he'd get recycled, too. So on the one hand, I'm proud of him for being such a tough guy...mostly cause I'm a sissy when it comes to being sick so I admire his determination. Especially since Beast is supposed to be so tough. On the other hand, I'm afraid he's really really sick but too stubborn to admit it and will cough up a lung on the battlefield and die. But hopefully it's not been that bad - I'm sure I'd have been notified! :o) And he also mentioned that if they do well this week they'll get a long weekend phone call. Still up and mostly down with the flight's ability to work well, so no promises on the call. But he sounds good otherwise.

Here's my belly. 16 weeks now, and the midwife says Peanut #2 is doing great. Due date is Nov 27.

And here's the Rawleigh-Aiduk sisters on a last sister date before Bethany heads off to camp on Sunday. We stayed the night with Beth's adopted college family and then hung out at the mall. Lily had her first Chinese buffet experience, which she greatly enjoyed.

And here's Miss Lily being a cutie and playing under my chair. Wierd kid.

Well that's all for now. I can't believe BMT is almost over! YAY!

Phone Call #3

Jesse called again this afternoon. We didn't get to talk long but he sounds like he's doing good. They're getting ready for "Beast Week" this week...check out the videos on the website if you're curious. (http://airforce.com/opportunities/enlisted/basic-training/) Apparently I'm not smart enough to make blogger's link insert work...so you'll just have to copy and paste the link on your own. I'm testing your dedication here! :o)

It's always good to hear from him even though there's nothing new to report. He says his flight's ability to work together is still hit or miss and sometimes they still get privileges taken away (translation: no phone call to wife last weekend). But he hasn't heard anything different about his graduation date...so the countdown till we see him is still 17 days as far as we know!

Reality Check

Here's Lily with my brand new military ID. We went on a little road trip to Williamsport, PA to get it yesterday. And as I walked into the Army Reserve Center and was greated by a uniformed soldier, I started to realize that I have a lot to get used to. Actually getting an ID with my name and picture on it made the reality of this adventure set in a little. This is serious! My husband is really in the Air Force!

I haven't heard from him yet, except for two letters that came with some paperwork I needed. I hope and pray that the lack of a phone call last weekend doesn't mean more bad news for his flight's ability to work together. They have a tough week coming up next week and they really need to be able to work together well...it's called Beast Week! The past week, and this week, he's done some crazy stuff like going through a tear gas chamber, doing a serious obstacle course, and practicing his hand to hand combat against fellow trainees. I can't wait to hear an update from him...hopefully soon!

I officially have all my shopping done for the graduation week, including dresses for Lily and myself, and the perfect shoes for me! (I've been hunting for a pair that was dressy enough for graduation but comfy enough to wear all week so I can pack light...and I had success!) I also colored my hair dark brown at Jesse's request. So I'm basically ready for San Antonio...just waiting to hear that he's definitely graduating July 1st! :o)

Phone Call #2

My soon-to-be-Airman called me again tonight! Good news good news. Plus it was a perfect day for him to call (nice timing God!) because I had a rough one. (Let's just say there was lots of pee and crankiness involved and I was really relieved when LJ's bedtime came!)

So we actually had a nice half hour conversation! God's answered our prayers in a couple ways. First, his flight has shaped up and seems to be getting threatened less. Second, the intensity of the mind games and such has lessened. And third, his MTI (military training instructor) is actually turning out to be pretty cool...this is something I've been praying for ever since he enlisted because we heard that your MTI has a huge effect on your basic experience. And me, being the sissy I am, was praying my tough guy husband could have it easy even though I know he can handle anything! Not that he has it easy :o) but he is thankful.

He's in charge of making sure all the guys in his flight study for and pass their final written exam. (Got the "job" because of his rockin ASVAB score) That made me a little nervous because I was thinking if they didn't do well then he might get punished...but it's not like that as far as he can tell. Plus, all the guys are pretty motivated to pass since they can't graduate otherwise.

It was so nice to hear his voice and to hear him sounding confindent and even excited. They're just about halfway now. He seems to be doing well, which put my mind at ease for sure. I've been a little nervous for him since our last conversation. It was also nice to just talk about some every day things...when should I get the car inspected and what he thought about the new cloth diapers I'm trying, stuff like that :o). So he's doing good and I'm soooooo glad!

Is it June 30th, yet?

Graduation

I got some mail from Lackland this week! And it contained a whole packet of info that made me very happy! It was the schedule for Jesse's graduation, which is a whole day earlier than I'd thought! Plus, there are ceremonies the day BEFORE his graduation that we get to attend on the base, and THEN we get to spend some time with him!

I'M SO EXCITED!

It looks like Mark, Toni, LJ, and I will leave for San Antonio on Tuesday. Then we'll be ready for the fun stuff on Wednesday. Events include the "Airman's Run" (which sounds funny to me...I guess we get to watch him run by in unit formation...do you think I'm allowed to bring a sign - JESSE ROCKS - ??), the Airman's Coin Ceremony (no clue on that one), and the Honor Graduate and Top Physical Readiness Ceremonies. Then comes my favorite part...base liberty for the rest of the day until 8pm! Base liberty means that he gets to hang out with us as long as we stay on base! YAY!!!

Thursday July 1st will be his actual graduation. I guess there will be a graduation parade (I hope they throw candy!) followed by my next favorite part...TOWN PASS until 8pm. This means that Jesse is free to come off base with us and go exploring in San Antonio! Double YAY!

Then he gets town passes for both Friday and Saturday from 9am to 8pm. I'm so floored about all this time we get to spend with him...I totally wasn't expecting it! And then Sunday he has base liberty all day but we'll have to leave him alone for most of the day because that's when we fly home.

So basically, only 5 more weeks till I see my best friend again. (Or 35 days if you want specifics!)

In other news, Jesse's into week 3 and it looks like the big things they work on this week are Self Aid/Buddy Care. Serious medical training to know how to take care of all kinds of wounds and injuries on their own. This is great news for me, since Jesse and I agreed as soon as I got pregnant with Lil that I would handle the barf and poop but wouldn't be cool with the blood. So not only is he stuck with injury duty, but he'll actually know what he's doing! :o)

That's all for now. I'm off to Pookie's to hopefully get lucky and find some maternity clothes that actually fit!

Finally!

So after learning Air Force Wife Lesson #1 (see previous post) and coming to terms with the fact that I had no idea when I was going to talk to Jesse again...HE CALLED! :o)

He called me last night around 10:30...and it was actually the perfect time because I had just pulled into the driveway after Care Group and so I was able to toss LJ to my family and have FIFTEEN uninterrupted minutes with my man!

Basically, he's doing fine. The physical stress isn't as bad as he expected, but the mental stress is actually worse. He says the mind games are tough sometimes because it's hard to tell what's a game and what's serious.

Pray for him because his flight (the group of guys he's with all day and night) doesn't work well together and doesn't seem to be able to accomplish their tasks well. For example, they often fail their dorm inspections...which gets them in trouble. It's because of things like this that they've been denied phone priviliges. And their TI is really hard on them. It seems like some of the guys just don't care what happens, which is probably really hard to take when you keep getting in trouble as a group because of that. So pray that they get it together and can work as a team. Jesse said that a threat was made against the flight that their graduation date was in jeopardy. I think that this was probably an empty threat, but you never know.

It was really awesome to hear from him. He's doing good and that was a huge relief. I brought him up to speed on what's been going on with us the past few days and he was telling me to keep the letters coming "as often as possible" :o)

So until next time, I'm breathing a little easier and am very thankful that he's making it through. Six more weeks. We can do this!

Adjusting Expectations

I learned two things this morning. One, they're letting Jesse use his cell phone to call me. (This is great because then he won't have to wait in line for the pay phones.) Two, they can be real jerks sometimes.

Like today when they needed Jess to have me mail some paperwork overnight. No problem. Except that you can't really count a ten second conversation with the husband you haven't heard from in almost two and a half weeks as "calling home". I got all excited and was totally bummed when I realized by the tone of voice that this was a business call and he wasn't allowed to talk. So he took care of the business, told me he loved me, and had to go.

I was kind of left feeling robbed. And annoyed. And super disappointed! I mean COME ON Air Force! I don't even know if he's okay! (Well that's exaggerating a bit because he sounded just fine on the phone, besides the whole rushed part. He sounded confident...not sad or bullied or disouraged or any of that...so I guess that's good news.)

Air Force Wife Lesson #1 - Deal with it darlin. Nobody cares. Take one for the team and quit your whinning. :o)

My husband's got a job to do and the AF isn't real worried about me right now. And I need to remember that the stuff we heard through the grapevine isn't always true (example - "he'll get to call once a week") so don't fuss when it turns out different than you expect.

I'm proud of Jesse and I'm still so glad we're doing this. But that doesn't mean I'm not counting down the days till graduation (42!!!) when basic will be OVER! :o)

Going Public

Surprise! I'm about 12 weeks now. Pretty proud of myself for being such a good secret keeper. And to all the people who know me really well and know I'm a terrible secret keeper...see! I'm growing...literally :o) It looks like #2 is due end of November/early December. LJ told me the other day she's really excited to be a big sister. Okay...that's a lie. But I'm really excited to have them close together like we'd wanted! Almost irish twins! :o) You know, I just wanted to make sure I stayed busy in Mississippi!

In other news, STILL haven't heard from Jesse! He's into week two now. He'll be learning how to take care of his M16 training weapon, defensive fighting, and more basic military classes. And more yelling. Probably. Again, I really have no idea how my Love is doing...which is hard. But only 46 more days. And hopefully someday in the next week they'll let him call me! I can't wait to hear his voice again. Pray for me...every so often it gets hard. But I'm doing really well. Lily keeps me busy. And Bethany's home now so I'm not alone during the day. I can do this!

But July 4th weekend can't come fast enough!

Mother's Day

Yesterday was wonderful. (The roses are from church...all the mommies got one). Even though Jesse's a million miles away, he still managed to make Mother's Day special for me. He'd planned ahead and had some gifts on the way before he left. I wasn't allowed to open them, or read the note he'd left for me, until Mother's Day. It was a killer to have to wait...but I did it :o) And it was worth it. His note was such an encouragement. And he got me two back up camera batteries for my camera, plus America's Test Kitchen's Family Baking Book. America's Test Kitchen is my favorite cookbook...it pretty much taught me how to cook! :o) And so I'm super excited about this baking cookbook. Although after drooling through page after page of amazing recipes, I'll have to work hard to make sure I don't gain 50 pounds! Luckily I have a house full of Rawleighs who have eagerly informed me they will help me eat the yummy goodness.

Jesse didn't call this weekend, which I was hoping for. But it was okay. This week is his first full week and he'll be doing lots of boring/hard things like more physical conditioning, more getting yelled at, and more learning the basics of military life. But he'll also be doing some fun things like getting issued his first weapon. I can't wait to hear how he's doing! I'm sure he's doing great. I miss him so much! :o)

It's Official

Just got off the phone with Jesse. He landed in San Antonio and placed one more call from his cell before they take over his life! :o) He sounds great...nervous excitement for sure. I didn't really know what to tell him besides "I love you so much" and "Go get em killer". Hopefully that suffices to get him through tonight...it'll probably be a long one.

If you're interested in knowing, the rest of this week is called "Zero Week". It's basically orientation. By the end of the week he'll have been assigned a Training Instructor (who will be kicking his butt for the next 8.5 weeks), a Flight (I'm new at this but I'm guessing that's his group...Josh correct me if I'm wrong!), have his head shaved, get his uniform(s), have all his paperwork processed, learn the basics of military life, and get yelled at...probably a lot.

He told me during his stop in Washington D.C. that he was put in charge of the group of guys going down from Syracuse! He didn't seem to think this was a big deal, but it meant that he was in charge of all the guys paperwork (important stuff like licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards!) and getting everyone where they needed to be. He wasn't real specific as to how that happened, but I'm praying it's the beginning of what will be God's clear hand of blessing on his Air Force career.

If you want more details about what Basic is like, check out the AF website. They even have videos that make it look super cool and fun :o) even though I'm sure it's not quite as great as it looks. Everything is cooler with background music, which I'm pretty sure they won't be having for Jesse. Unless you count yelling as background music.

Off He Goes into the Wild Blue Yonder

60 days till I see my best friend again.

Jesse called me a few hours ago to let me know he was safe in Syracuse. We had a great day yesterday at the going away party. We spent the evening together, sitting by the river, saying goodbye to friends, and going on a late night Friendly's date.

I wasn't even a basket-case when it came time for Jesse and I to say goodbye this morning. I helped him finish getting ready and drove him to Horseheads at noon. He was picking on me that I was "trying to get rid of him" because I was holding it together so well. He was saying, "what no tears?", because I was actually rather cheery! We prayed and he kissed both of his girls goodbye. I did get a little weepy when I saw him go inside and knew I wouldn't see him again for a long long time. But I made it through without a meltdown, which I'm sure is because of all the prayers we've been covered in!

He's off to Texas tomorrow afternoon! As for me, staying busy is the name of the game! :o)

Once Upon A Time...

...my husband asked me what I thought about him going into the Air Force. I believe my first response was "HECK NO".

That was Memorial Day '09. Jesse leaves for Basic Training this Monday. God has a sense of humor, that's for sure. Jess was unemployed and had just finished up another semester at the community college. He wanted a degree, needed a job, and didn't want to go into debt. That's when a friend recommended he think about the AF. I guess the rest is history! :o) We thought about it long and hard...prayed a lot and asked other people what they thought. In the end this seemed like a great way to get that that job and the degree,too!

Jesse got a perfect score on the ASVAB and was enlisted back in January. Then we found out he'd be shipping to Basic May 4th and training as a weather guy after that (we're still not quite sure what that means!).

So here we go! In just a few short days (sniff, sniff) I'll be saying goodbye to my best friend so he can go get his butt kicked at Boot Camp for eight and a half weeks. (Lily and I are living back with my parents...in my old room actually!) And after that, we're off to Biloxi, Mississippi in the middle of the summer!

And after that, who knows? :o)