Welcome to the 757

A 757 Sunset

A view from the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel

FedEx Orange Bowl

Angela and I make at least one trip to South Florida every year, and 2008 started with a trip to a major BCS game. Our beloved Hokies won the ACC and were to face the upstart Kansas Jayhawks in the Orange Bowl. When Angela wrote me to say we had tickets while I was at OCS, it made me that much more motivated to get out of there. We decided to drive to the game, as I had plenty of leave to take and we had just moved, so a quick vacation was deserved. We love road trips together, and we have been on plenty in the short time we’ve been married! For Christmas we received a Garmin, which was AWESOME for trips and finding places. We drove to Jacksonville NAS and stayed cheap and the Navy Lodge there right off the interstate. The Garmin had found a great alternate route around a closed I-95 near the Florida border, so we got to the base with plenty of time to get some rest. The next day we headed to Fort Lauderdale. Florida is a great place to visit, with its vibrant colors and green landscape, so the drive was pretty until we hit Palm Beach… then the traffic chaos that is South Florida began. BUT we got to our hotel in Pompano Beach and hooked up with some other alums for dinner. There was a tiny strip of restaurants on the beach near where the MV’s were staying, so we figured it would be a good spot for bowl travelers to meet. WRONG. Miami is the worst bowl city we’ve been to (Jacksonville was better). There was no center of bowl events as everything was very spread out. It was not like New Orleans which is the best place EVER for a college bowl game as everything one could possibly desire is within walking distance, including the actual game. But we managed to find something to eat… and it was COLD. Very cold for southern Florida. But the beach was neat as it was a protected habitat in the winter for sea turtle eggs. I hope they hatch by Spring Break as I’m sure revelers would smash them up. The next day we slept in then found a Jimmy Johns for food, and headed to Dolphins Stadium. We actually miss the old Orange Stadium, which had a personality. The generic Pro stadium was very boring… and it was only accessible from a toll interstate. Instead of parking in lawns and gas stations of Little Havana, we paid a parking attendant to plot out a spot of cracked concrete. We tailgated a little bit, but it was cold. The Kansas fans were very nice, but obviously were not used to football. We found the band and found our seats. The game… well, we choked again. Nothing new there, but I guess the team had fun, but they certainly were not very focused. The game atmosphere was a let down too. The Sugar bowl was packed and rowdy in 2005… but there were several thousand empty seats at the Orange Bowl. The BCS picked a bad match up or people simply did not come. Another thing as Band Alums that annoyed us was the fact that the marching bands were only allowed to play one song before the game. Half time was reserved for ZZ Top?!?!?!?! I guess it really was a NFL experience… which is why the Dolphins only won one game last year? The game was disappointing, but it was nice to see old friends, like Saxxxy who we dropped off at the airport on his way back to grad school at UCLA. The next day we checked out of our hotel and decided to explore a bit!

A Burley Christmas

Once again we’re in the midst of moving during the winter holidays, but we were more prepared this year. Angela had managed to complete most of our shopping while I was at OCS, and we spent a night with wine, wrapping the gifts together several days BEFORE Christmas instead of on Christmas morning. We rolled out of Blacksburg on December 24th. We had dinner with the Burley’s and exchanged gifts with Tony’s boo while giving Angela a few belated birthday gifts. We then went to Midnight Mass, but this year Father Scordo also did not fill the Church with incense, so I didn’t tear up all. It was nice to have Rod home this year as well! Everyone was exhausted, so we slept in until 9 or 10am. We then opened gifts and took our time. Angela and I were blessed with many great presents, including a Garmin, which we have used extensively already! The highlights were our puppies, AJ and Lizzie. AJ has been living in VA Beach with Angela’s parents since Thanksgiving, and it was great to have our little family reunited for the first time since September! AJ has become tolerant of Lizzie, though he has a tendency to smack her around a bit. They were amusing and active, as we had wrapped their presents in tissue paper. AJ spent all day tearing up all his new toys. Lizzie was cute in tentatively ripping at the tissue instead of the actual present. We should have just gotten her a few pads of tissue paper to play with. They both kept thinking that any gift you had with tissue in it was theirs!

Hi Mom's Slideshow

For those of you who couldn't join us for James' graduation, here is the slideshow that was played at the Hi Moms dinner. Enjoy!

Slideshow Part 1
Slideshow Part 2

A Newport Graduation & Birthday

James had been gone for 104 days when he graduated on December 21st! What a wonderful birthday present to me for us to be together again! ☺ And…James looks adorable in his uniform…Ensign Gouger! The two-day event was very full, starting with the change of command ceremony on Thursday afternoon. It was my second time seeing James at the ceremony, but this time, thankfully, he was being relieved of all duties! How exciting! ☺ We ventured around the quaint New England town during the afternoon before going to the Hi Mom’s dinner that evening. Hi Mom’s is a chance for every to meet everyone’s families, and for the families to meet the drill instructor and class team. We enjoyed dinner and wine and beer and then a fun slideshow of all the class has gone through. Perhaps the funniest part of the slideshow was a before and after picture of James on their first evening of liberty. It’s crazy what being locked up for so long can do to those boys! (And, girls, as we were reminded by the Admiral at the dinner. Thanks for your political correctness sir!) It was fun meeting everybody’s families and wives, and I was especially excited to meet Lisa, Carey’s wife. James and Carey became really good friends, and I only wish we were stationed closer so that we could hang out more. The evening ended early, as graduation was happening early the next morning. My dad and I were lucky, because we were staying at the BOQ only two buildings over from the graduation in VIP rooms, which were nice! Our room and kitchen and living room and all was bigger than our apartment! Ha! It’s sad, but true. The graduation ceremony was very nice, and it was great seeing everyone so excited. So, James is officially an Ensign now, along with 40 other young men and women. It was really neat to see them all commissioned together, especially since they all came from such different backgrounds. We ate at the mess hall after graduation, and I must say that is the worst food I have ever had, and I have no idea how they ate it for four months. I mean…how do you mess up a cheeseburger? But, it was disgusting, so I ate a bag of goldfish instead. All in all, it was a great experience, but we are glad it is over. I do miss Newport though! Maybe one day we will end up back North…we’ll see where the Navy sends us.

OCS Pictures

Check out the NEW PICTURES in the OCS Blog...the old ones were just space keepers until we got our hands on these ones. Enjoy!

Our six month home!

Slowly yet surely we are moving into Virginia Beach. Once we've settled in, the blog should be updated a little more regularly...but in the meantime, here is our new address...until July!

1408 Round Hill Drive
Virginia Beach, VA 23456

It probably looks a little bit familiar...

Graduation, Part 1

After 15 weeks of OCS, I was finally ending it. Angela, my parents, Mary, and Rod came up to see me get commissioned in late December. It had snowed several times and it never got warm enough to melt, so we had large mounds of snow everywhere. Graduation week was great, as we had lunches with the XO and CO of Officer Training Command Newport. We got to eat at the Officer’s Club for the first time and have a sit down chat with the “Skipper.” On Wednesday everyone’s families started to arrive, and I picked up Angela from the Airport. It was great to finally be with my wife everyday! On Thursday we turned over command of the OCS regiment to the next class and had a big celebratory dinner. After change of command, we made sure Tony’s boat was still floating with the extra weight of snow on top of it! Angela and I also took my parent’s and Mary to one of our favorite Newport restaurants for classic Clam Chowder! The dinner was held at the Atlantic Beach club, and gave everyone a chance to meet everyone’s families and talk to Admiral Lotring, the commander of Naval Service Training Command, who came to the event. A slideshow of the hell we went through was shown, as well as speeches by our class team. It was our Gunnery Sergeant’s last OCS class as he was taking a promotion to Warrant Officer, so it was a special sendoff as he received a “NAM” for his work in training Naval Officers. It was nice to have one last meal with the guys I was trained with and was able to show my family a little bit of what I had gone through!

OCS

Family and fans, I am back to the blog after four of the most challenging and rewarding months of my life. After grad school turning out to be horrible at Baylor, I knew after two weeks of classes there I would never get a degree there, so I sought out a Navy recruiter. Why navy? I grew up near a large Naval base and married into a Navy family… and it would give Angela and I a chance to travel while young. Plus, there are many educational opportunities available to Naval officers. Thus, the Navy would put my little family on good foundation for the future, and get us out of Waco. My brother in law is in the Coast Guard, and we pray for him continuously. After a long year of applications, I finally arrived in Newport, RI for Officer Candidate School. The Navy began in 1947 to allow Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeants to train their Naval Officer Candidates as they realized that rigorous training produced better officers. I knew I was stepping into a tough program, but didn’t know how hard it would be. The Naval Academy gets four years to teach what we had to know in 12 weeks. The first few weeks were extremely intense as we had to learn to rely on each other. We were sleep deprived, fed horrible food, and always kept under stress. I got to know things like the S.U.Y.A, where I got wet and sandy while performing rigorous PT. In our 4th week we had an intense room and uniform inspection that I failed the first time around. I hadn’t sleep much, and did not fold all my clothes perfectly (6 by 6 inches!). So I got to redo the first three weeks with the next class. This was a blessing in disguise as I really liked my new class and made many lifelong friends there. I passed the inspection in this class and moved on to other phases of training. We took intense, abbreviated classes such as navigation and leadership courses. By our 9th week of training (my 12th) we took over command of the OCS regiment, which is everyone’s favorite part of training. You get more sleep and make sure the other training classes and getting to class and chow on time. You also get to mentor other candidates and get practical training on what it means to be an Officer in the US military. The weirdest thing for me was the fact that the Gunnery Sergeants started to treat us with some respect. We got weekend liberty and had a great time in old town Newport, which had really nice bars. We drank like Navy boys and enjoyed the free drinks given to men in uniform! I was also blessed to have Angela come up for a few weekends during this last phase, and we really enjoyed visiting the mansions of Newport. All in all, it was a great program, but very difficult at times. I relied on others’ help and made great friends along the way. If the Navy is full of the type of person I met at OCS it will be a great job experience for both Angela and I. We also looked out the window of our barracks and saw the great “victory” bridge which would take us away from Newport and “pain.”

Happy New Year!

What a crazy last few weeks!! James and I hope that you had very wonderful holidays, and that you are starting off the New Year with awesome resolutions and a great love for life! Our life should be getting back to normal now, so we should be updating again, catching you up on our last month! A brief synopsis of our last month:

~ Angela turned 24 and is no longer working at University Studies!
~ James was commissioned as an ENSIGN in the U.S. Navy!
~ We were reunited with AJ finally!
~ We celebrated an awesome Christmas and New Year with our families!
~ We moved from Blacksburg to Virginia Beach!
~ We traveled to Florida to watch the Hokies play in the Orange Bowl!

So, be checking the blog again soon…as we will update regularly! Happy New Year!