1) Schools out for me! Woo hoo! The day of school was June 9th. Then I cleaned up my classroom and said my final goodbyes to my classroom on the 13th. Since we are only going to be here until Oct. I won't be able to teach another year. I was able to get my first year of teaching out of the way and now I'll get to do it all over again in Texas. We also traded in our beloved Bronco and got a new used ride: An Expedition! My dream vehicle--really. I've wanted it since i was really young. So now if you visit us you'll be riding in style!
2) Bridger was assigned to fly Apaches--the ones with the guns. Not what we were expecting him to fly but we definately think it is what he was meant to fly. After months, weeks, and days of anticipation we also found out where we will be stationed next: El Paso, Texas a.k.a. Clear in the heck out in west Texas, sandwiched between New Mexico and Mexico. We wanted to go foriegn and it looks like our wish was granted. People have told us that you feel like you're in a different country because everyone speaks Spanish and all the signs are in Spanish. It will definately be a new experience and different from here. Main differences that I already know between El Paso and Alabama are: Empty desert versus green, lush tropic. Spanish versus Southern spoken. Illegals versus Rednecks. I'll let you know of more differences as I discover them.
3) The first part of my summer was busily getting ready for Girls Camp. It was very different being a leader than being a girl and different going to a camp with air conditioned cabins than sleeping in tents. The stake does all of the work here and had the girls assigned by levels--not wards. So as ward leaders our job was to make sure our girls were in the right spot and then hang out. Pretty tough job. I was kinda bummed it was not "real" camping, but also grateful for the air conditioning with the humidity. I did enjoy going on the hike--twice---because it felt like i was in the mountains for a little bit. (We really miss our mountains). The reason I did it twice was because they needed me to go help mark it out before we took the girls on it. The first night I did not get any sleep--dang first years! All excited about camp and packed 20 in one room with me and a leader who went right to sleep. Lucky me.
4) Bridger has been busy learning to fly the Apache. For the first month all I heard every day when he got home was "You know how awesome I am?" "I'm so cool because i fly apache" "You know why I'm so great, because i fly an apache" blah blah blah. Seriously--EVERY single day. And "My job is so cool" "bet you wish you had my job" "do you realize you're married to an Apache pilot?" "Do you want to know why i know everything" etc, etc. The stereotype of a apache pilots being super conceited and big headed is completely and utterly true. As soon as they get the assignment they instantly are given an arrogant attitude as well--apparently another thing issued by the Army. Good thing Bridger really is a good pilot so he can walk the walk with all his talkity talk. 
5) On Sunday I got released as Young Womens president. They finally came to there senses. I am sad and relieved at the same time. It was a lot of work, but I am sad to leave my girls and sad i didn't get a chance to do everything I wanted to. But when two of my counselors moved away and I'm moving in two months then thats the way it works out. So now I spend most my days cleaning, working out, playing with my pups, watching netflix, working on my masters, watching netflix, eating, shopping, hanging with friends, and many other very difficult tasks. Being unemployed is a rough life but someones gotta do it--and I'm still getting paid for it. No, not on welfare just the bonus of being a teacher--getting paid in the summer.
6) Bridger just had a check ride today to end his current phase of training rightly titled "the Bag" stage. This part of training is just like it sounds--they put covers on all the windows, creating a bag-like effect and Bridger's job was to try and fly with only using his eyepiece. Pretty difficult stuff. Bridger says he wants to find the guy that thought it was a great idea to hide all the windows and fly with a video piece in his eye with N64 graphics and kill him. He passed his check ride with flying colors and is glad to be done with the bag. Next up is night flying. He gets to go in late at night and practice flying in the dark. After that will be gunnery where he gets to shoot the guns. As you can imagine he is very excited for that stage.
7) Bama Lu and Minnie have become best of friends. They love snuggling up and sleeping together. They play together--though sometimes I can't tell if they're play fighthing or real fighting. But they keep us entertained. Minnie tried to swim in the river at Shark Tooth creek and almost floated away. She can move her paws in the swimming motion but does it very slowly and I watched her start swimming toward me, get caught in a little faster current and start floating down river. She just kept the same slow speed paddle and calm demenor. It was really funny. Bama every once and awhile gets super hyper and literally bounces of the walls. Tonight was one of those nights. She runs from rug to rug to hall to lovesac and back again while Bridger shouts "yahoooooooo". This time she got me good because she got so excited she jumped up in my lap. Bouncing Bama is a favorite of ours to watch!
8) So now we'll keep doing what we're doing until the end of September which is when Bridger's supposed to graduate. Then we'll probably be heading to El Paso in October. If anyone is feeling like driving cross country give us a call! We'll have a fun time driving 24 hours to our new home. But we're excited for the new adventures ahead and we're trying to enjoy the time we have left here. We already went to DisneyWorld--which will have to be it's own post and this weekend is New Orleans! Then Atlanta in August. Many fun things to come before the end of this summer!
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