One of the hardest things I've ever had to do is leave Craiger at CAP Encampment in Wendover, NV for an entire week. Craiger LOVES CAP & everything about it, but Encampment is tough. It's basically "basic training" for teens. It's meant to mess with them to make them tough. He knew that going in, & he was scared. Luckily, he had his friend Jacob going as well.
We woke up early on Monday morning & drove the 2 hours to Wendover. I dropped them off & got a quick picture before meeting up with the drill sergeants. I'm so glad I did because they told us to leave them without hugs/goodbyes/etc. I could tell Craiger was nervous from that point on. I cried most of the way home hoping he would get into a groove & have fun somewhere in there.
The whole week passed SO slowly. We weren't allowed to talk to them at all during the week so all I could do was hope he was okay. Finally, Sunday rolled around & it was time to pick him back up.
Craiger's best friend from Germany just so happened to move to Sandy the week Craiger was gone. Craiger had been waiting for MONTHS for Ryder to move & couldn't wait to see him. I thought it would be fun to take Ryder with me to pick him up. I knew that would be a great surprise after a hard week.
Ryder & I had fun walking around Wendover while we waited for the Encampment graduation ceremony to start.
The ceremony was only about 7 minutes long, & quite honestly, we didn't know which unit Craiger was in. Both Ryder & I tried SO hard to find him in the group of cadets, but they literally all looked the same. But we clapped & cheered knowing he was out there somewhere.
Ryder & I went to the Wendover Museum & waited while the cadets packed up their barracks & made their way back to the museum. (It was literally almost 2 hours after the graduation that Craiger finally pulled up in one of the busses).
I loved his face when he realized that Ryder was there waiting for him. Best friends FOREVER.
He survived. He told me stories about getting scared so bad by his sergeant that he peed his pants, taking 1 minute showers, running & doing push ups until he couldn't move, & more. But he also told me about the friends he made, how great the food was, what he learned, & how grateful he was that he made it through to the end.
We are SO proud of him.
And of course, I had to share 2 pictures:
The first is a picture of Craiger & Ryder just after they first met in Germany,
& the second was meeting up again for the first time since we moved from Germany.
No comments:
Post a Comment