The kids are home for Christmas

kinnem

kinnem

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I know everyone is looking to have their family with them at Christmas, whether their children are Active Duty, Cadets or Midshipmen at an academy or ROTC. Anyway, I thought I'd create this thread for people to mention how their kids are doing as they are able to have those "longer" conversations they normally don't get to have.

My son just arrived tonight from USMC TBS. He's loving every minute of it. The biggest thing he seemed excited about was FEX 2 and the events there. The weather sucked and they were rained on for 3 days. He never got to dig a proper hole but only had a trench which was open to the sky during the day, so they basically slept in the mud. As usual he embraced the suck and had fun with it anyway. He also said that he got lucky and and Colonel Wortman (the commanding officer of TBS) was his evaluator on the day he was Platoon Commander for the FEX. The kid thought that he came out pretty well even though his navigator got the platoon lost and half of them were casualties, including his Platoon Sgt. Col. Wortman said he had a pretty good head, didn't lose his cool and did all the right things. The key was completing the mission. He also walked over to DS to enjoy their MREs together in the field. They had a really good conversation.

I'm so happy DS seems to be loving every minute of it, especially the explosions and stuff!! :D

Hope everyone has as merry a holiday season as I know we're about to have!!!
 
So jealous of you.

This year we will not see our DS1, just not in the cards until next Oct.. It will be skype for Xmas Eve at midnight or xmas day to watch everyone open presents! Haven't narrowed that down yet.
~ Family tradition in our house is....you can open one present at midnight, so choose wisely and the rest is left for xmas a.m.

LMAO about the weather issue. Yes, this past week we had fog and rain, but trust me Quantico was shooting off artillery early this week! The house was booming from the noise. I hate when they do this because if weather is good, it is non-stop all day. If I am in my house, I will have a headache...the boom comes 1st, and than the house/windows rattle, in essence it is double the noise, and it can happen every 10-15 minutes for hours. We live @20 miles away by car, maybe 5 by the way a crow flies.
~ The other funny thing with Quantico, and I don't know what program it is, but they drop them in the woods and tell them to find their way home. However, that straddles a road where it is a shortcut to another road for drivers. You will come around a curve and see someone with a map in uniform walking the road, a few seconds/minutes later you see another and then another. They pop out onto this road from the woods and pop back into the woods again somewhere later on.
~~ I have yet to see their exact exit or entrance points, but I know to drive slowly around a specific stretch because they are like deers in this area...see one and you are sure to see more.

Enjoy your xmas. May we find peace on earth so that our spouses/children only train aka pretend fighting and not the real thing!
 
Got the last one at the airport at 2am....an hour ago. Yeah. She's glad to be home for a few weeks. We held off getting the tree til she came home.

I can't say she enjoyed the last four weeks getting wisdom teeth out, final exams for medical school, or completing training at Ft Irwin.
 
Pima, it's land navigation. Essentially they start back at TBS and are given 8 points (for the longer course) to plot on their map and find them. If it's the longer course they then bus them up to the training area and they have X amount of hours to find random red boxes in the woods. They have designated drop off, pick up and even boundaries for the event. But it never fails that Lts get lost even though the boundaries are pretty hard to miss. They do lots of practice and eventually have a test for score. Not sure how it's done now, but if you failed in practice you spent your Saturday repeating it. So it's now an event you want fail! Land Nav is much easier after all the leaves fall! It was my favorite TBS event as you essentially got to spend 8 hours walking around the woods and not allowed to talk to anyone. I am an introvert so living with 3 room mates or in a foxhole with another human for days on end sucked for me... I enjoyed the solitude of land nav.
 
DS arrives home later this afternoon after a long week of TEEs, and he's bringing his bagpipes and a head full of staples (really 5) (after doing something only a 19 y/o male might do). :confused: I finally got to watch him play the pipes in his full kilt at Army/Navy. That was great! Now the neighbors will get to enjoy his music for the next two weeks since the instrument is just too loud to play in the house (and I have a timid cat). Two weeks will fly by fast, but I'm hoping he can relax and unwind before starting up again in January.

Merry Christmas to all -- wishing everyone a safe and joyous visit with your sons and daughters, friends and family.
 
Great post Kinnem!
AROTC MS1 son, oldest of 4, is home and still growing over 6’. With regular PT and the battalion testosterone still pumping he wants to wrestle me all the time. I know it is pay back so I have learned to play dead hoping he will just leave me alone. One of us will get hurt and I know it will be me. As I am no fun he and his 16 year old brother, move furniture and regularly square off, sending their mother into orbit. 11 year old doesn’t want to be left out so he jumps in when one of them is down, no idiot that one. The 14 year old girl screams at them all, kicks them when she can, and tells them they are animals. All is normal again, chaos reigns, Merry Christmas to everyone!
 
VelveteenCadet's call woke us up early this AM to say he's done with TEEs and he's on cloud nine getting ready to come tomorrow night. I'm counting the minutes until I can lunge at him at the airport for that first hug. I may not let him go,

Merry Christmas to all of us and our very special kids. Big hugs to those whose cadets/mids/officers/enlisted can't be home for the holidays.
 
Pima said:
So jealous of you.

This year we will not see our DS1, just not in the cards until next Oct.. It will be skype for Xmas Eve at midnight or xmas day to watch everyone open presents! Haven't narrowed that down yet.
~ Family tradition in our house is....you can open one present at midnight, so choose wisely and the rest is left for xmas a.m.

LMAO about the weather issue. Yes, this past week we had fog and rain, but trust me Quantico was shooting off artillery early this week! The house was booming from the noise. I hate when they do this because if weather is good, it is non-stop all day. If I am in my house, I will have a headache...the boom comes 1st, and than the house/windows rattle, in essence it is double the noise, and it can happen every 10-15 minutes for hours. We live @20 miles away by car, maybe 5 by the way a crow flies.
~ The other funny thing with Quantico, and I don't know what program it is, but they drop them in the woods and tell them to find their way home. However, that straddles a road where it is a shortcut to another road for drivers. You will come around a curve and see someone with a map in uniform walking the road, a few seconds/minutes later you see another and then another. They pop out onto this road from the woods and pop back into the woods again somewhere later on.
~~ I have yet to see their exact exit or entrance points, but I know to drive slowly around a specific stretch because they are like deers in this area...see one and you are sure to see more.

Enjoy your xmas. May we find peace on earth so that our spouses/children only train aka pretend fighting and not the real thing!
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Sorry DS1 can't be with you this year. My son confirms he was one of the guys loading the artillery this past week. :D Merry Christmas!
 
Happy holidays to you all. Sadly, this will be our second Christmas without our AD, DD as she is in England. DS is an MS III and will be home next week. Littlest DD got home this week. Safe travels to you and your families.
 
Yesterday my DS facetimed us from a ski resort in Japan. It looked nice! He plans to spend Christmas day eating lots of sushi in Iwakuni, Japan. ;)

He's not much for Christmas shopping, so my E-3 is mailing us $1500 to help pay for plane tickets to Japan in the spring. What a gift!
Meanwhile, the DD is working Plans A, B, C and whatever... hope she's taking notes on her brother's generosity. :groupwave:

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas too!
 
Picked up DS at the airport last night. DW was cooking Xmas candy and DD was not feeling well so I went solo. How great that turned out! As we drove the hour back home talking non-stop and laughing it occurred to me that we really didn't talk over Tgiving. He was with his friends and GF most of it, so the time just came and went. What great stories he had of school, pranks, and the A/N game. I had no idea about the craziness that goes on in King Hall and Bancroft before the SA games. Some of the stuff he and the other Plebes were involved in and witnessed was just priceless. We talked about possible majors (he is already changing his mind from what he thought he wanted) and possible jobs after commissioning as he is opening his mind to more options. Obviously it's still early in the journey, but he speaks so maturely and informed when telling me about some of the different communities. I think the change has begun.......however small. Happy holidays everyone.
 
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We are picking our Plebe up at the airport early this afternoon. I'm so excited! He hasn't been home since June. He's not a big communicator by phone...except for when he has put us on speaker one while ironing and folding clothes. I am so looking forward to some long conversations.

We have an exchange student (girl) from Germany living with us this year, so I hope they get used to each other quickly. They have never met yet. His real sister has missed him so much! She can't wait to see him. I'm thinking our dog, Roscoe, is going to go crazy when he sees him. The girls just don't play with him the same way as his boy does.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!
 
I'm a bit later on this thread. DS (Rat @ VMI) came home the 16th. He is enjoying his downtime and we are enjoying having him home. He loves VMI, did well his first semester (could have made deans list if he had not turned a paper in late, hopefully a lesson learned ) but considering his full load of classes, first time really away from home, extracurriculars and the Ratline we are happy.

We have enjoyed stories of him and his Brother Rats and could not be more happy that he is so happy and doing well.
 
Late here as well.

Our Christmas was a bit unusual. Younger son had to report to Ft Rucket Dec. 17 so he left on the 21st for the drive from Seattle to Alabama, I went along to share the driving. He and I spent Christmas Eve on the San Antonio River Walk and Christmas day on Bourbon St. In New Orleans, had a blast.

Older son came home from Hawaii the week before we left, had an early family Christmas. Wife flew to Hawaii thr day after we left for a week to tag along wirh her brother, older son was able to get 4 days off and fly to the big island to spend Christmas.

We were spread all over the country but had a great Christmas anyway.

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.
 
I am enjoying having my DS home for the holidays. Going way too fast. Of course, having him "home" means seeing him in the mornings, maybe catching glimpses of him off and on during the day. He is all about hanging out with his buddies. I wish I could see him more, but he is an only child who is very social so I have to let him go. His friends are all good people, though so I am thankful for that. And he seems so much more mature even this year compared to last Christmas. The ROTC has helped him grow into a young man that his parents can be proud of. He is so polite to strangers and, while I can't say he has lost that sense of self that I believe most only-children have, he is thoughtful in ways I never quite expected. As the new year approaches, his last semester in college, and as his commissioning approaches, I am very thankful to the ROTC, and to the people on this forum who have been so very helpful as my family has made this journey. I hope you all have a very good new year!
 
Hi Sampia,

Just wanted to say that your post was poignant has hell and made my eyes well up like I'd just watched "The Notebook" for the first time or something.

In general, it's a combination of heaven and hell watching our young ones grow from first grade soccer games and dance lessons to becoming actual grown up men and women.

But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
 
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