...and heeere's Danno!

Ah yes, and here's Danno on the range (photo taken by the husband of a new friend I hung out with at the mall today). He hasn't even seen this picture yet. As you can see he got issued glasses. They call them BCGs..."Birth Control Glasses!" cuz they are sure going to keep the ladies away! haha! Amidst all the strict rules within the Marine Corps, there's so many funny things as well. Hey, if it helps him shoot on target, I'm all for it! They may look goofy, but whoever is behind those BCGs is being trained to kill.

On Target

(I'm borrowing this photo from our friend of a different platoon)

Its Rifle Range training for the next couple weeks for Danno. I keep thinking...man, he's getting paid to play in the dirt and shoot guns...how awesome is that?! To warm up, at least with handguns, we did some shooting over the weekend at a local indoor range. I went from observer to shooter at no extra cost thanks to the Filipino worker =D I did very well, they say most girls do, but what matters most is that Dan does well in the field and passes all the qualifications to keep moving forward. Please keep him in your prayers for his safety and performance!

It feels like things are picking up now. We're getting the house settled in a bit...still need to finish arranging boxes, buy a couch (figure out how to fit a couch!), cozy up the place. They had a Spouses Orientation last week when all us platoon spouses joined our Marines at school and sat through informative sessions about the upcoming year, and most importantly we got to connect with each other. They had a small fair of different organizations for us to explore. There's an Officer's Wives Club which may be something I'll look into, and also Officer Christian Fellowship which holds weekend small groups for married couples which we hope will be a great fit for us (haven't started meeting yet).

We're a community of about 45 spouses. I'm trying to stay involved with the group emails and be of help as much as possible. I've been keeping in touch with a few gals and already began running into familiar faces the next day running errands on base. Yesterday I even hung out at one girl's place who didn't attend the orientation, yet her husband had passed me her info. It was the first time we met, she happens to be Filipino, and just began working as a nurse out here (not surprised! hehe). Her husband is in Dan's platoon, and they live just down the street from us. It's great for us to be so near, and helpful that the guys they can carpool. This week I have plans to meet up with another wife/mother of 2 adorable kids who invited me to hang out..so that will be a new one for me!

It's interesting, out here you jump right in and gain instant friendships. You either haven't met before, or at most have introduced yourselves, and the next thing you know you are in their house, at the mall, having lunch with them... In the Marine Corps there's no hesitation to take care of your own.

You’re Fortunate to be Cruisin’ in CA

So I’m at home and I hear the low rumbles and “boom!...boom!” every so often (one time even strong enough to rattle the windows) and I realize ah yes, it must the soldiers out in the field. We definitely got a place close to base! We’re located off a small highway that cuts through its center, so we can access the base on either direction. Though we’re only about 5 miles to Camp Barrett, where TBS is located, there are no straight roads and the speed limits on base are suuuper slow, which means it can take up to 30 minutes to drive just a few miles. Compared to driving back home in CA, we’re not used to maintaining these whopping speeds of 15mph! (That’s right, 15 mph!! Try it one day, its reaaally slow!) And beware, the MP (Military Police) are so strict on bases, you will get a ticket for the littlest things.

In general, it’s a challenge driving out here because…

1) It’s so dark. Hardly any street lights along the roads (especially on base). Reflectors on the outer edges of the road are scarce to none. I’m bound to hit an animal if it were ever to bolt out from the dark forest.

2) Clear, logical signage do not seem to be popular out here…may it be lack of arrows, bad location, or none whatsoever. For instance, you’ll come across large intersections where they just use those dinky corner street signs that we usually only see in neighborhoods. Err…how is that helpful?! Plus it doesn’t help that markings or arrows on the roads have not been re-painted for ages…so you’ll be driving in a lane and surprise!...it’s now a left turn lane. Freeway signs are confusing too.

3) The roads aren’t maintained very well. Crazy pot-holes everywhere…even on the freeways. (my lowered truck would not do well out here, good thing we left it back home)

4) It doesn’t help that our GPS is often confused since road/freeway/bridge construction is always in progress. “Recalculating…” is our GPS’s favorite word!

5) It rains so suddenly here while the weather is hot, so the streets are always “steaming” when rain hits the ground. It looked pretty cool first times I saw it, but it’s not fun when it creates foggy conditions any time of day.

You should have seen us driving the first week here. I don’t think I’ve driven with my face so close to the windshield since I was 15 years old first learning to drive. We're keeping within the law as best as possible, so we're driving like old people keeping the 55/60/65mph speed limits on the freeways, but hey, we don't want to risk getting ticketed out of our home State. So, we definitely love that our location minimizes having to drive as much and we definitely miss cruising California! (not to mention you get to drive with your windows down and enjoy nice breezes..here its so humid, it's A/C all the time!)

Enjoy it Californians!

Message From Dan

I’ve been pretty busy with training. There isn’t a lot to really talk about, since the first two weeks have been mostly administrative. I passed the initial PFT and am now officially training. I am supposed to graduate in December (God willing). The training is very difficult but having Loralee here has been great. I’ve met some amazing Marines and made a few friends.

One friend whom I go to church with is a strong Christian and an awesome guy. Loralee and I have hung out with him several times and got to watch a couple movies. We saw Kung Fu Panda which was surprisingly funny and The Incredible Hulk which was incredibly bad.

Church: For the past couple weeks we’ve been attending a local Calvary Chapel in the area. It’s very cozy and a stark contrast from the mega church at Saddleback. This week’s message was from Pastor Justin Alfred, a fellow Californian, has a teaching ministry "Word in Life" ministries, and can be often heard on the radio.

The actual service was the most interactive one I’ve ever been to. He had my friend actually stand up and punch him in the stomach to explain the importance of building an iron shield stomach. He did this in order to emphasize the importance of being rooted in the word and having the ability to shield yourself from the ways of the wicked.

During one point the pastor told us the story about his daughter’s murder. If you have a minute you can read it on your own time. But to sum it up, he was able to forgive his daughter’s murderer through the grace of God. He said, his faith helped him realize that whatever his anger toward the murderer would have led him to do would have been incomplete. He prayed for God's perfect and complete mercy, but also his justice. He further explained that he must forgive his daughter’s murderer because God had forgiven him and he will not let anger rule his life.

Links:

Justin Alfreds website

News articles about his daughter:
The Californian
Press-Enterprise

Thats all for now. Time to get ready for tomorrow...

PS: Happy Fathers Day – Dad thank you for all the sagely advice you have given me and all your unconditional love and support. I miss you and mom and hope to see you both once we finish our time here.

www.loraleedan.com

FYI, you may now ditch our blogspot web address and access this blog via our website / our website is now this blog.
(either address will work, it just depends how much you want to type in the address bar)

Let the Organizing Begin...

Yay we have all our stuff! Yesterday 2 mover guys came. Fortunately it all went smoothly. They managed to unload, unpack, and assemble everything in 6 hours. Lucky for them we didn't have much furniture or things to assemble. The most challenging piece was my drawing table that was unnecessarily disassembled into a billion parts. Overall it was a simple job for them.

As they unloaded each crate onto the street, I stood by with lists of the inventory and had to check off every single box that came through. The packers had labeled all boxes and parts with a designated number. Once all items are checked off, they moved it all inside to wherever I told them to put it. That was a challenge though because some box descriptions were vague or didnt include the room it came from (for instance.. "Small boxes" hmmm.) I'll monitor their labeling system next time!

Once all 6,700+lbs of stuff were unloaded off the truck, we got out of the 100+ degree weather and to the wonderful A/C for the unpacking. It was like Christmas watching them unwrapping all the paper...opening boxes...and wondering what's inside?! As they unloaded each box, I put things away as best as possible... somewhere... anywhere... basically the nearest empty spot! It helped that we had pre-packed a lot of the stuff, though we did come across boxes of random loose items which were a bit of a pain. I couldn't be both upstairs and downstairs, and one dude was unloading all the kitchen stuff. Our kitchen is so much smaller, they just had to place things anywhere there's room. So we have a nice variety of kitchen items all over the place...laundry room, living room, bathroom. And without a garage now and only a small storage closet outside, that stuff overflowed into our living room as well.

After dropping Dan off to school this morning, it was the first time I went back to sleep for so long (2pm!). Woah there went my day. I guess I was more tired from yesterday than I thought. Though it's been nice to throw things anywhere and it not be out of place, I vow to be more productive beginning tomorrow. hehe. Plus I'm anxious to use my kitchen and start cooking again! So now my fun begins...to remove all the tape labels, inspect the condition of everything, and find the right place for it all!

Home Sweet (Virginia) Home

God blessed us with a good find.

We got the keys last Saturday. It's close to base, and we’re at the end of the neighborhood, so it’s very quiet and peaceful here. We already chatted with one neighbor beside us, a nice couple with an 8 yr old and a 10 mo yr old…being the end unit, they’re happy to finally have neighbors! We’re also across from the HOA president (so I’m sure everyone behaves on this end), some military people, tons more military people in a nearby apartment complex, and even a senior home complex. Not a bad variety of neighbors...we expect it to stay pleasant. Plus, we’re covered in case of emergencies…just across the highway is a fire station and we’re only 6 miles away from my Uncle Benji in Dumfries.

Anyways, here's a little tour of our new place. We love it because of how clean it was compared to all the other places we viewed. New paint, carpet and appliances. The fact that the owner of this townhome is also a realtor, I'm sure contributes to its great move-in condition.

Kitchen
There's laundry on the left, and to the right of the fridge is a bathroom.

Front entrance / Living room

The other half of the living room
A peek at the backyard with a nice view of the lush forests. Yay a place to put our grill!
Up the stairs we go....
Bedroom
Out the bedroom......thru the shared bath......to the Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom...good closet space.
The vaulted ceilings and gray paint make it feel just like our room in Irvine!
Danno's testing out the carpet...with his eyes closed.

I’ll be spending most of my time at home trying to condense all the things from our 3-bedroom home in Irvine, to this 2-bedroom town home. You're probably wondering where's all our stuff?…turns out the monster Mayflower arrived early (last week!) which meant it’s all sitting in storage and not scheduled to be moved in until June 9. Nesting will have to wait. But no worries…we now have the time to prepare some more and plan out where all the furniture should be re-assembled and where all the 92 boxes should be unpacked before they come!

In the meantime, my Auntie Esther in Maryland gave us some supplies to survive. They are soo awesome! We’ll end with a pic of their family, and us with our 2 cousins Monica and Angela. We attended church with them last Sunday, and it happened to be a service when the two gals sang solos in a musical play. We’re glad we got to watch them perform!

"Zero-Dark-Thirty"

We both wake up at “zero-dark-thirty” (in otherwords, Marines get up so early in the morning its still dark outside!) Out here since there’s barely any street lights, you can see tons of stars in the sky. Nice! Although going back to sleep would be nicer =)

Lately I get him to base by 0500 (that’s 2am in Cali). The first time I had to take him to class, I got the same kind of “sleep” he can probably expect this entire school term…where it never quite feels like any sleep at all when your mind is so anxious to wake up so early! But I think we’re just starting to get adjusted to the time difference now, though I still forget when I call people in CA.

What Danno can’t get adjusted to is a set schedule, because at TBS there isn’t one. He’s been starting at 0515 and I pick him up at 1700…or tonight it could be 2100…other some nights he might just need to stay there. One thing is for sure for the both of us…waking up at “zero-dark-thirty!”