July 2

It's taken me a REALLY long time to get around to posting these blogs. I think it's taken me this long to wrap my head around what went on. How special it was.

Leyna and I flew out of Atlanta at 2:00 our time and arrived in Chicago about 3:00 their time. The flight was uneventful (and there were's TOO many screaming babies!!). We waited FOREVER to pick up our rental car -- which, by the way, had THE most obnoxious seat-belt-reminder dinger ever made! But apparently we hit Chicago traffic JUST RIGHT and made it from O'Hare to Great Lakes in less than 45 minutes. Every time I tell that story, someone acts like I've set a land-speed record.

We checked in to the Navy Lodge and found our room. It's about the most confusing building on the planet. There are a bunch of different halls and the rooms aren't numbered sequentially -- exactly. Anyway, our room was damp and musty. It was clean but it just felt sorta wet all the time. Over the course of the next 5 days, we tried turning the air conditioner on, turing the air conditioner off, turning the heat on, turning the heat off, opening the window, closing the window and every combination of those things that you could think of. Nothing worked. So we just wore flip flops and didn't walk on the carpet.

We decided to go explore the Navy Lodge and found the FUNNIEST thing I've ever seen: a beer and alcohol VENDING MACHINE!! What a GREAT idea...I wish I had thought of that!! The choices left a little to be desired: Budweiser, Canadian Club whisky and Smirnov vodka. As we're standing there looking at this thing, in walks this tiny little person with her hair up in a towel. IT'S NICOLE!!! I have waited 6 long weeks to meet her in person. It was like a long-lost friend. We both tried to talk at the same time and half the time we were saying the same thing!

Our PIR group was supposed to meet at Flannigan's for dinner so Leyna and I went back to the room to get ready. There's a knock on the door and IT'S PAM. Pam, who got me through the first few weeks of boot camp. My sister in psychoses!! The only person who was as crazy as I was/am!! Again, a long-lost friend.

Dinner at Flannigan's was great. If I try to name all the moms (and dads and grandmas and grandpas and sisters and brothers) who were there, I'll leave someone out and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings!! We talked and laughed and talked and laughed and talked and laughed. The party broke up fairly early because everyone was exhausted and we all had to be up early for PIR the next morning. But we had SO much fun.

A good day that was the start of a GREAT weekend.