A New Chapter Begins...

As many of you know, Louis just began basic training for the National Guard. After lots of research and thoughtful consideration, we thought this would be the best decision for Louis and and for our family. As you can imagine, this decision made me feel proud, anxious, excited, worried, sad, and relieved all at the same time! Whew!

Louis is currently at Army basic training in South Carolina. He just started his second week. During this training, communication is pretty limited. I've talked to him once so far, and am eagerly awaiting his letter home which will provide his mailing address and graduation information. After the 9 weeks of basic, Ruby and I will be traveling to SC to attend his graduation and hopefully get some much needed time together! Yay!

After basic, Louis will then go to Virginia for Advanced Individual Training (AIT), part 1. He will be there for 11 weeks. As he progresses, he will get more priviledges, which generally means more communication home (yay!) and more time away from base. This means we might be able to visit during his time there, if we're lucky! We can also attend graduation once he has completed. Once he successfully completes this AIT he should be returning home to San Diego! Hooray! At this point, we don't yet know for how long, but they estimated a couple of months, which would be awesome.

Next up, Louis will be heading to Arizona to do AIT, part 2. This training will be 27-28 weeks long! Yikes! We didn't know this when he signed up, and it's probably better that we didn't. I'm not sure I could have done it... But it is what it is now. Ultimately, Louis will be working on UAVs:

and attached to a military intelligence unit. Apparently this requires a lot of training, fair enough =).

So for those of you who are doing the math, thats a total of 48 weeks of training away from home, not including the processing time and time off etc. Louis has made a huge sacrifice to do something great for his country and his family! And while it will be a long hard road, I know that the benefits for our future are worth it. I will certainly do everything in my power to make the most of it, and make this a positive experience for my husband, my baby girl, and myself.

Thanks to everyone for your ongoing support as we've made this transition. Your letters, phone calls, messages, posts etc have really been heart warming. While I'm missing my husband like crazy (already!) it's always nice to be reminded about how many people are out there rooting for us, and that no matter how lonely I might feel, I am never alone.