Onto the Mountains!

The Benning phase of Ranger school is finally over and I'm onto the Mountain phase in Dahlonega, GA. This is going to be the most intense of all the phases. We'll have two 4-day field problems with one day of re-fit in between. And, this time, we'll be climbing up mountains instead of hills...oh boy!

For the last week and a half I haven't had more than two hours of sleep per night. Some times a mere 15 minutes is all we can manage. Here, you learn just how much sleep and food your body needs to work. I have been extremely surprised how alert I am at 3 in the afternoon after having been up already for 12 hours - as long as I'm moving. Put me in a chair or on a knee and tell me to stay awake for a WARNO - that's a different story. The Lord has truly blessed me in my time here. Thank you for all your prayers and fasting. Please keep it up!

The course is going well this time and we have a good group of Ranger students to help out and get everyone their "GO's".

I look forward to being back with Elisangela at the conclusion of the course in December. This is the last time I'll volunteer to spend so much time away from home. I miss her too much. Thank you to everyone who has taken such good care of her.

Love,

-Michael-

Some Day - Somewhere - It's A Girl!

A blog update in the middle of Ranger School??? So I wish.

After two weeks of the pre-ranger course and seven days of the real thing, I had a fever. Normally that's not a problem, but with H1N1 paranoia rampant, they treated me a little different. All I really wanted was some Tylenol and some warm clothes - that usually does the trick for me, but not these guys. 24 hours of medication, then 24 hours of observation once the fever subsides and the medication stops. 60 hours later, the PA decided that I wouldn't recover (check the block) within the alotted window of 72 hours, and he resolved that recycling me would be the best thing for him.

So, what did that get me? Three weeks in the Gulag. They were nice enough to give us a pass for today and tomorrow, and if we're really good, we'll get one next weekend too - I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch. This is Ranger School. This is a terrible place. As soon as you get here you want to leave, and when they tell you that you have to spend an extra three weeks here it's like Chuck Norris gave you a roundhouse kick to the face. Ahhh well. Most people recycle at least once. The day they recycled me and I came back to Camp Rogers, I saw the graduating Ranger class and found a friend from Ft. Rucker - David Del Cuadro-Zimmerman. I was glad to see he made it through. I was really struggling.

Thank you to all family members who fasted for me. It gives me great strength to know that my family supports me. And thank you to all friends who are taking such good care of Elisangela. It warms my heart when she tells me about all the people who are watching out for her and taking care of her while I'm away.

On another note, we know what we're having. It's a human, AND it's a GIRL!! In late February we're expecting the arrival of Elizabeth-Jane Araujo Hill. I don't have any pictures of the sonogram here at Ft. Benning, so those may have to go up later...three months later.

We love you all and hope to see you soon!

It's been a busy 8 weeks and things have finally slowed down for a while. As it turns out, we're not leaving for Ft. Campbell quite yet. As it always will, the Army held out on my Ranger school orders until the last minute - I was almost done with out-processing. So now that they're in hand, the whole game changes.

I'll report to Pre-Ranger tomorrow at Ft. Benning to start the 11+ week journey into my own Heart of Darkness. I hear it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be...yeah, right. A lot of times when I tell people that I'm going, they give me the screwy eye and say "why would you do that to yourself." Good question, I just keep telling myself that it will be good for me - and I'm right.

Last week Mom and Dad and Emma came to visit and spend a week here with us to attend the graduation ball and ceremony. I was "blessed" with being the OIC for the grad ball which garnered me some additional duties during BOLC IIIB - to make things worse, that was the last graduation ball that Ft. Rucker will see for a long time, since BOLC IIIB, post flight school has died. We were the last class, so anyone can imagine how motivated the cadre were. All-in-all, it was a good experience. My main motivation in volunteering as the OIC was to get experience, because no doubt I will have to plan a similar event some time in my career ahead. There were lots of lessons learned - I got what I wanted. At graduation, Elisangela pinned on my wings, but it turned out to be just a little bit harder than she thought it would be - hence, the look of frustrated anger on her face. What a great picture.

We got to spend some great time with family, a couple days down in the Florida sun will make anyone happy. We hit the Destin beach on Thursday, then headed up to Milton, FL to float down the Coldwater Creek. A splendid time was had by all, except for Elisangela who was only having a good time when I was pushing her down ther river and keeping her away from the banks, rocks and logs. Next time, we'll go in a canoe.

Our big news today is of much greater import and excitement. We are now on week 14 of our next baby adventure. We have an appointment today, but I doubt we'll be able to know what it is yet. That will have to be a surprise that comes in letter-form.

Since I'm the one that makes these blog updates, there won't be any for the next couple months. That shouldn't be much of a change from how often I currently update. :) We love you all very much.

TCHAU!

CampBELEZA!

Part of our family day activities was receiving our follow-on assignments from Fort Rucker after graduation. These last two days were a race to the finish line. A few weeks ago I spoke with Bro. Hank Taylor (a.k.a. LTC Hank Talyor, commander of the 2-17 CAV out of Fort Campbell) to ask for an assignment to his unit. I knew Bro Taylor when he was a boxing instructor back at West Point during my plebe and yearling year and taught his daughter Cassidy in my sunbeam class. Suffice it to say that I respected him then and now as a person of character.

On Wednesday I found out that he had not received any of my emails and thus had not put in any request for assignment. After a half dozen failed email attempts and numerous phone messages, I had just about given up. As I went to bed last night I was sure Fort Riley Kansas was in my future. Yet, may the heavens be praised, Bro. Taylor got in contact with the folks at HRC (human resource command) and made a miracle happen.

I'll graduate from flight school on 2 Sept. 2009, then it's off to Ranger school and the 2-17 Cavalry at Fort Campbell, KY.

Thanks to everyone for all your love.

Familiy Daze

We just finished our NVG phase Thursday night with a check ride, and now it's onto bigger and well, other things. Gunnery comes up next week, which is going to be a good time, but we have to get through left seat combat skills. To celebrate, we had our class's family day today. It's a day when everyone gets to come to the airfield and see/touch/sabotage Army aircraft. Fortunately, there were no sabotages today, but there was a lot of seeing and touching of aircraft. Plus, there was Papa John's pizza - my favorite. I've had a hunkering for pizza lately and today was a good day to kill the desire. I ate my fair share, but I'm still hunkering for pizza. I feel like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Pictures!!

Road Rage

Elisangela wins! When I was sixteen and many months I finally passed my driver's license exam. It only took me three tries, and I still only got 80 points out of 100 - one more off and I would have failed it three times instead of two.

Though she was distressed about Cagona's condition (we had just taken her to the pound), Elisangela decided she would go and fail the test one more time. After a short wait we got called in and she took off on the road test. It didn't take her long, because she was already sure she would fail. Imagine my surprise when she came back with a score of 94 out of 100! She passed! I was elated. We went out for ice cream to celebrate and repented the whole way home (why did I get a double cone?!)

Doggie Paddle

Farofa had his first pool party the other day at the Kuhni's with their dog Rocky. Rocky is already an experienced swimmer, but Farofa, though an instinctive paddler, suffered a little bit.

He made it all right with a few coughs and a loud burp after swallowing a lot of air, but he wasn't going to come back in without a push.

Yes, that's a real mustache. No it doesn't scare the kids.