31 Days in the Moment: It Starts!

Today starts the first day of the 31 Days Writing Challenge for the month of October 2014. I chose the category of Family Life and hope to write about the moments in our lives over the next month.

So, to get this thing started, today I will write about how excited I am that our youngest son will be home on Friday! He graduates from the US Marine Corps boot camp then and will be headed home after they call "Liberty!" I can't wait. We said good-bye to him on 1 June 2014 and it was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. I am glad that I didn't have to drive him to the recruiter's station. I could never have made that trip. The big green van picked him up from home.

He has had some very exciting moments while in boot camp. Just two weeks into it, he was diagnosed with pneumonia and ended up in the medical group for about five weeks. He had to start boot camp over after he was well again. He has some scar tissue on his lungs, but is apparently healthy otherwise. Then, somewhere along the way, he made sharpshooter, then expert, on rifles. Proud mama moment there! His 3rd great-grandfather William "Jim" Spence was also a sharpshooter with the Palmetto Sharpshooters during the War Between the States. Then, there was the Crucible...50+ long, hard hours of hiking for as many miles along with sleep and food deprivation. This part worried me very much. We haven't heard from him since that event and have no clue how he made it through. We hoping to hear from him on Thursday, if not sooner. I doubt that I will sleep a wink on Thursday night, anticipating his homecoming.

I am as proud as I can be of him, but boy does my mommy-heart want him to stay here!