Billy and I had a wonderful visit this past week. He finally got in last Friday night around 12 am. We had a great going away party for him at our house, I'll post some pictures of it, for sure. It was really nice, and most of his good friends in Charleston came. The only problem with that night was our little dog Arthur was fed too many scraps and oysters! The poor baby threw up four times on Sunday! Aside from that, it was a success for sure, and I appreciate everyone's help! From there, we left for Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama on Tuesday for the Yellow Ribbon Ceremony. It's always so much fun to travel with my baby! For a minute on the plane, we pretended we were going to Mexico and not to a military function. In all reality, however, it went really well and I'm so thankful that we had those few extra days together. Marisol and Billy's mom came as well, they drove from Aiken, SC. We stayed in a quaint bed and breakfast called The Victoria. I'll post some pictures of it too. Basically Tuesday was a travel day, Wednesday was full of briefings and conferences, and Thursday was the Yellow Ribbon Ceremony. It was beneficial for me to go to the conferences, despite the complete disorganization of the day, since I learned a lot about military family benefits of all sorts; from counseling, to scholarships available to family members. All in all, my favorite parts were being able to spend a few extra days with Billy, and being able to watch him in action! Since Billy's home unit is in August, GA, I don't generally get to see what he does during drills, and training,etc. We were able to watch a couple company formations, and we heard the commander of the unit speak, and I got to meet Billy's coworkers in the context of the army, which was really neat for me. After Thursday's ceremony, I dropped Billy off at the barracks and drove myself (sobbing) to the airport in Birmingham, Alabama. The following day, just yesterday in fact, Billy flew to Oklahoma for the final training until he deploys in January. As of 11/17/09, he turned active duty, which means we started counting down the days from 400 until he comes home. Also, he has a mailing address at Fort Sill, which I'll post as soon and he e-mails it to me. Other relevant, and good news is that we now know Billy will stationed in Kuwait. This is really great news, as it is considered one of the safer places to call home when you're over seas. I guess that's it for now, although there is much more I'd love to go on about. For the moment we are negotiating Billy's plane ticket home for the couple of days he has off over Christmas. Although that final visit will be short, I'm just so thankful that we'll see each other again one last time before he leaves the country. I hope this post finds everyone safe and well.
Amy
There's me with my battle buddy, Strango (obviously a nickname). We both came from my old unit in Augusta and have been good friends for quite a while. Coincidentally, we were assigned to the same platoon and are in charge of the same group of soldiers. Lucky for us, because if, as our unit was, the majority of the people in the unit are transferred in from everywhere for the sole purpose of deployment, you may not know right away who you'll be able to count on. 
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