St. Louis Vacation!

Matthew and I went on a 2 day vacation to St. Louis with a free overnight stay at Best Western from Matthew's brother Daniel. We had so much fun! We went to Cahokia Mounds then ate at Union Station for lunch. We went and saw Coraline in 3D and enjoyed a yummy pizza at the hotel, mmmm. Then we went to the Zoo, Science Center and Planetarium. Even though I'm from St. Louis it was really fun going to all the places on vacation :) After our weekend I was able to stay in St. Peters with my family and my Nana. It was really nice to visit with them all for a whole week.

We walked around Forest Park quite a bit going to the different places. It was pretty even with all the leaves gone.

We went to the Science Center and saw a show at the Planetarium. It was really neat. Now we know how to find Saturn in the sky :)

We went to the St. Louis Zoo and saw the penguins, they were so cute! These little guys jumped off the ledges into the water, it was neat watching them swim around.

That is a real penguin above Matthew. I was nervous that it would try to jump on him!

We went to Cahokia Mounds, which is in Illinois where the Cahokia Indian tribe lived between 1000 and 1200 AD; they built these huge mounds, the one behind Matthew is 100 feet high and the largest prehistoric earthwork in the Americas. It's actually around the same size as the great pyramids in Egypt.

Nana and I put this puzzle together. When we were 3/4 of the way done the dogs were playing and pulled part of it off the table :( We had to put the top back together again. We had a good time building it though, and it was very satisfying to see it done.

Military Options

So, we are still trying to figure out what branch of the military Matthew is going to go into... Air force-enlisted, or Army-officer. Or if he's going to go in at all. It's obviously a huge decision, and we're trying to look at it from every angle.

If Matthew goes into the air force as enlisted: he will be able to choose a job in linguistics (after taking a test), his boot camp will be 9 1/2 weeks, then we both get to move to California where he will learn a language (preferably Chinese or Arabic) for 1 1/2 years. Then we would still have about 2 years left to live in one of 5 places in the US. Some of them are around the ocean, which is what we want. So it's a 4 year agreement. We would make well more $ than we make now, and get a housing and food allowance. And have at least some if not all of Matthew's student loans payed off.

(***Matthew got the Officer's position offered to him because the army recruiter overheard the air force recruiter reading off Matthew's ASVAB scores. His jaw dropped. He scored a 97% on almost everything.)

If Matthew goes into the Army as an Officer: he will have to go into boot camp for 9 weeks (rigorous physical training). Then he can come visit me for about a week. Then 12 weeks (without me) of Officer Candidate School (OCS). At the end of OCS, depending on his rank in his class of about 130 he can choose what job he wants. If he scores high we would obviously be in a good position, but if he scores low he may be put into a job where he could possibly be deployed. WE DON'T WANT THAT. After that he would have 7 more weeks of "specialty training" (where he gets trained to do whatever his job is) and they will move me to where he is during that time. There are also 5-6 places we could choose to live, some of them also around the ocean. It is only a 3 year agreement with the Army, which is better because if we decide we don't like it we can leave a year earlier, and if we do like it we get way more money from sign on bonuses because of the year-less difference. The job pays more than the air force, and we would still get a housing and food allowance. Plus I think 3 weeks paid vacation/year (I don't know if the air force does that) And they pay $25k more of student loans than the air force.

So...obviously there's more benefits from the army, but there's also the HUGE decision of whether it's worth it because of the possibility of being deployed. We both feel like Matthew would do well in his OCS, and we've both felt good about the army since we got the offer. We would also only have 2 1/2 years where deployment would be a threat. Matthew would also have WAY more opportunity for advancement if he did the army than the air force. And, he is majoring in Spanish, but we're worried that if he takes the air force job it will become too stressful, concentrating that hard on translating another language everyday for 2 1/2 years. In the army the job I think he is hoping for would be watching over the intel department that does the translating. So he wouldn't have to learn another language (although he wants to...they will pay for schooling so he can learn another language outside of his job for free).

Oh and also for me - both places would pay me a separation allowance, plus housing and food while Matthew is gone at Boot camp. And which ever we choose, one of my friends (Ashley) whose husband is in the marines is going to live with me while Matthew is gone because her husband is getting deployed. Which ever we choose we think we can handle the separation, though it will be very difficult. We dated for a year, then Matthew moved away for school for 8 months, and our relationship still survived. We will also be able to talk to each other on the phone, and be able to visit a few times in that 6 months he would be gone if we do army.

Like I said, we both have a good feeling about the army, but we haven't decided yet what we will do for sure. What we are hoping for is that we will be able to do the army, get the job Matthew wants, NOT get deployed, and be able to stay in and have this as our career choice for the next 25 - 30 years! Any advice...and prayers :)...would be greatly appreciated. We love you all!