prepping for LTC

A big part of this summer was Danny going to a four-week Leadership Training Course, basically his crash course for the first two years of ROTC he missed since he went to junior college classes before transfering to Texas State University.  So, he got to go to Fort Knox, Kentucky for four weeks to catch up on all the army training.  They worked him ragged and had a lot of rough days, but he learned a ton and got a lot of great experiences.  And luckily for me, the communication between the training course and families was great.  They had photographers post pictures and writers post articles on a blog that wrote about what they were doing almost daily, plus Danny got to call me nearly every night.  That, along with the fact that people at church were really supportive and friendly and invited me to do things the entire time he was gone (though, annoyingly, that support all but disappeared the day he got back...), helped make the time apart much easier.

And an even better surprise, barely a week before he got back, Danny's parents called and asked if I was planning on going to his graduation ceremony for the course.  I replied that while I'd love to go and see him and support him, time and money were an issue.  They replied, "If you get the time off, we'll get you there."  And so, the next day, I was able to get a day off work, and a week later, I was on a plane with my mother-in-law (who was visiting Texas for a few weeks at the time) to spend the weekend in Kentucky.  It was a short visit, but I'm so glad I got the chance to see Danny sooner and meet his new friends and see all the hard work he did.  And then some of his siblings picked us all up at the airport and we had a mini-family reunion with his family.

ANYway, I'm picking out what pictures to post now (they posted several hundred that I'm trying to whittle down to one post, since that's all Danny wants to post), so here's a pic for now.  Danny had about a month and a half, nearly two months between end of school and beginning of LTC, which meant for that time period, he didn't actually have any requirements for his hair.  It's an on-going joke, persay, between us that he really likes military buzz cuts, but I really like him, well, with hair (though I admit, I'm getting used to the buzz cuts now, heck I'm the one who cuts his hair).  So one of his favors to me before LTC since he was going to be gone for so long, he "grew" out his hair for me.  ... it drove him crazy, haha, but it looked really nice.  This is him just before he got his haircut for LTC.

... yes, it's so horribly long, isn't it? :P