Base Liberty means a phone call home!

Chris had told me in one of his previous letters that he might be able to call me today... so of course I am on break and in the bathroom when he calls... So I answer the phone and I wonder what Diana was thinking of me because she was in the bathroom too... oh well... this is important. Who cares what she thinks...

So I answer the phone and Chris told me he had 24 minutes to talk. So I have 5 minutes left of my break and I was like who cares. So I ended of taking a 29 minute break. It's ok my supervisors are nice. So he starts by telling me he was catching up on my letters. I asked him how many he had and he said 4. So I asked him how often he got mail and he said usually everyday but some days they are just too busy. He said he wishes he could write more but if you are doing what you should be doing there wont be much time to write letters. He said some guys mess around or will write letters at night, but he is doing what he is supposed to and if it were me I would want as much sleep time as possible. So I am not bitter.

I asked him if he received our family home evening packet and if he got made fun of for all the girly paper and colors and markers. He said no. The only time anyone sees his mail is if he gets a package and the TI will just open that for everyone to see. And if they receive a picture they are required to show that to the TI. So apparently he can have more than one picture so send him pictures if you want... just not anything that you don't want all 60 of them to see. And remember the TI made fun of his hair in our wedding photo.

I asked him if he liked my rambling letters and he said yes. Getting mail is definitely better than getting no mail.

In one of my recent letters I had told him about Lily trying to jump out the window at cars when we are driving, so he asked me if she really did that and I told him that she loses her window privileges when she does it so she is getting better. Then I asked him if he got the letter about her and my pills. He said yes and that he knew that was going to happen. I asked him why and he said because you have so many pill bottles on the counter... so I told him they were no longer there.

I asked him what church was like and he said they march for a half hour to the chapel and then they have sacrament meeting and the speakers are usually the trainees that graduated that week. After sacrament meeting they go to either relief society of priesthood or the new comers class. So the first week was with the missionaries and they sent me the email and the pictures and the second week they had interviews with the branch president.

I asked him a question from my dad. My dad wanted to know if this or the MTC (missionary training center) was harder. In a previous letter he told me this was the hardest thing he has ever had to do. So I asked him if going to the MTC better prepared him for basic training. He said I think it is just because I am older. Most of these guys are straight out of high school.

I asked him if he had friends or if he stuck to himself. He said the atmosphere promotes team work so they are all pretty good friends except there are a few who are the odd man out.

I asked him more about his inspection when he got called a liar and he said there was more to the story which was sensitive information. He told me he kept a sock that he used for dusting and the TI went off about his sloppy sock. Poor Chris.

He told me he has been doing laundry for two days. I asked him if he volunteered for the position or if he was assigned the position. He said the TI asked for volunteers first and he volunteered because everyone had told him to do that. I had talked to his boss, Dan, and he told Chris that he should do Kitchen Duty. So I asked him about that and he said he did it for one day and it was just as bad. He told me he was the guy that got everyone's trays when they were done and it really sucked. I asked him what the best job was and he didn't really answer.

In a letter I had sent him I asked him what he wanted to do while we were there for his graduation. So he asked one of his friends in the background what we should see and he told him that we should go to the River Walk. He said we can go to Sea World if we want to as well.

He asked what else was going on and I told him his Dad was in Yellowstone and his Mom works hard. He said he wants pictures of all of them. So I am going to send him all the pictures in his wallet but feel free to send him some as well.

He then gave me an overview of what the next few weeks would be like. He said this upcoming week is Hell Week and they are going to be really busy. He said they are taking a lot of tests and one of them is to see if they can take apart their gun and put it back together. He said they also get fitted for their "blues" as well this week. The week after that they go to the obstacle course and the week after that they spend a lot of time working with their guns because week six is The BEAST, Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training. It is where they put everything they have learned about combat training into action. They simulate a war zone for more info go to
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforcejoin/a/afbmtbeast.htm
It gives you all the details.

After that they told us we had one minute left and we said our goodbyes.

I was just surprised he got 24 minutes... lol. It was great!