A day in the life...

I received a really cool letter from Ry that he wrote on Jacob's birthday. He talked a bit about a platoon competition which they had on an obstacle course. They had to weave through a maze, jump over a ditch, climb a rope, scale a wall, monkey bars, go under a bar then over a bar, low crawl and lastly crab walk. His platoon won (yay!). He explained that in order to win, everyone one had to finish. For this accomplishment, they were catered (in the woods) a hot breakfast (very nice since it was only 15 degrees outside!) consisting of grits, eggs, turkey bacon and bread (sounds great except for the grits!). After breakfast they went to something called a confidence course/tower. Every event in this was over 45ft in the air (!!!! so much for his fear of heights!!! LOL). He really enjoyed doing all this. For lunch, they had MRE's which he thought was not too bad. He even went as far as to say: "I think our entire food storage should be MREs!" Hmmm....we'll see what he says about that after a few months on that stuff!
On Jacob's birthday they had a short march and then a team challenge. They were supposed to figure out how to negotiate a course as a team. As he so quaintly puts it: "It didn't go too well. There are too many kids who think they know everything who don't want to listen to anyone about anything. WHATEVER. I just sat in the back and chuckled to myself." Well, maybe a few more weeks and these "kids" will begin to grow up a bit? He says that his group gets smoked/scuffed more than anyone else in his company. He explains that half of the reason is because the kids won't do what they are supposed to do...the other half is because his three drill sergeants just love P.T. and think that they should do it all the time. LOL. Well, let's look on the bright side....Ryan will be in the best shape he's been in in over a decade! ;)
It's very cold over there and extremely rainy--"IT has been extremely cold and rained more since we have been here than it did all of last year! I am sick, but refuse to go to sick call. I don't want to miss anything."
He's always had a problem with calling in sick--but here I think it's a good thing that he's sticking it out.
Again, the last thing in his letter was a request for letters whenever we can send them. Again, thank you to those of you who are writing to him. It's much appreciated.