Parents Weekend!!!!!!!

[Warning - this one will be long!]

Labor Day weekend is Parents Weekend at USAFA - which means that families are welcome to come visit their cadets and that the doolies are actually allowed to leave base Friday evening through Monday evening! Families can visit the classes and eat in Mitchell's on Friday, and there aren't any classes on Monday. There's also some other special activities, including the first football game of the season on Saturday. So Dad and Mom had been planning to go up for that since before Nathan left. And so had I, but Nathan didn't know that part! :D :D :D

Dad and Mom got in Thursday evening and were able to see Nathan for a little while, then they visited his Chinese and Chemistry classes with him on Friday. He went to their hotel room with them, and then at 1:00 in the morning I arrived and woke him up. [How I got there is a bit of a long story - but it doesn't belong here. You can check my personal blog for that.] When I woke him up, he smiled at me and was like "hi!" And then he suddenly realized that I was supposed to be in Arkansas, not in Colorado, and he got this "what are you doing here???" look on his face :D It was fun to surprise him!

Anyway, on Saturday we spent most of the day at the football game because doolies (and maybe all cadets) are required to attend all home football games. The Falcons beat the other team all hollow! USAFA has lots of traditions for football games, but I won't go into all those. We did get to meet a couple more of the live mascots though, and the Wings of Blue (the parachuting team) did a little demo.

(me with a couple of the mascots)
(This picture has most of the freshman in Nathan's squadron. They're affectionately referred to as "baby griffins" because the mascot of Mighty Mach 1 is a griffin. Nathan's in the back, second from the left)
(before the game, the cadet wing marches onto the field)

(a couple of the Wings of Blue parachuters)

(They have a tradition at USAFA that at football games the doolies "switch ranks" with upper classmen. The ranks are the dark blue things on Nathan's shoulders. He had two different ones, but it doesn't show up in the mirror as well as I hoped it would.)

It was super hot at the game and Nathan, Dad, and I all got bad sunburns (high altitude = easier to burn), but it was still fun. After the game, there was an open house at the home of the people in charge of the USAFA branch of Officers' Christian Fellowship. Every week there's an on-campus Bible study, a meeting between chapel services on Sunday, and an informal meeting at their house, all just for the cadets. The leaders we met seem like wonderful people who really care about the cadets. I'm so glad Nathan has the opportunity to have those times with other believers!

Saturday evening we drove around Garden of the Gods some. It was pretty, but it got dark too soon to enjoy it as much as we would have liked.

After we got back to the hotel, Nathan and I looked through some of the WebGuy pictures I had saved to my computer. Of course, that made him remember things about Basic to tell me. :)

Sunday morning we went to two different church services in Colorado Springs so Nathan could get a taste of some of his options. That afternoon we went on a tour out to Jacks Valley, where the basics had spent 2nd Beast. Here's Nathan at the end of the Assault Course:

It was neat to see some of the places where he had to work so hard. It made me feel sorry for him! All that stuff he had to do :/ I'm so proud of him for making it through though! :D


Sunday evening Nathan's host family had invited all "their" cadets and families to come over, so we did. It was nice to meet them. They are very friendly and want to provide the cadets opportunities to relax off campus whenever they get a chance.


Monday morning, Nathan took part in a marathon. No, he didn't run 26.2 miles. He was doing more of a relay marathon. A 1958 USAFA grad (who was in Mighty Mach 1) has a son with severe Cerebral Palsy. About 50 cadets from Mighty Mach 1 took turns pushing the son in a "wheeled jogger" in half mile or mile increments. They were hoping to break the record for that marathon, but they didn't quite get there.
Here's Nathan at his starting point: the 7-mile-marker.
And here's Nathan pushing Kenny during his turn. That's Kenny's dad pushing alongside Nathan, and the guy on the bike was helping them out too.
Here and here are a couple links to articles about the race.


Below is a random picture of Nathan in the van. That's his Contrails that he's holding. The page on the right has lots of ranks and other insignia that he has to have memorized.
After Nathan ran, we had to check out of our hotel. We spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon at a city park in Colorado Springs - but the scenery is so beautiful that it's basically equivalent to a state park. It has nice hiking trails too! So here's a slightly silly picture of Nathan from while we were hiking:

We went out to eat all together, and then I went to my friend's house to start the trip back to JBU. Dad and Mom dropped Nathan back off at campus, and thus ended our first Parents Weekend. It was terrific and I'm so glad I went! :D