Sunday, December 21, 2008

ATC 2008

It's so nice to get dressed up every now and then. For the recruiting world that means ATC. (annual training conference) We had a big king size room with a LaRgE bathroom with windows all across the way and an awesome view of the state house and downtown columbus. Our room was up by Andy Warhols eye, luckily we couldn't see him from our room :-) We arrived in Columbus Friday about noon. Sarge had to jet off to classes (hence the 'training' part) But I had more freedom. I met up with friends and we headed to the mall. I'm a big scaredy cat about driving in unfamiliar areas.....especially large, busy areas. But somehow I got talked into driving. I was doing good until D called and asked us to come back. It was impossible! It took us 4x longer to get back then it had taken us to get there. Even the gps couldn't save me. We were so extremely lost! The gps kept telling us to turn left onto one way roads or roads that were blocked off for construction. I could not for the life of me get back to the valet area of the hotel to pick up another wife so she ended up having to walk around the corner to where we were parked. After that I asked one of them to drive LOL seeeee....big chicken :-) There was a situation with a city bus, a screaming bus driver and illegal U-turn but I won't mention that. LOL Friday night we broke up by companies and had our separate parties. Some companies have themes for their parties so it looked alot like Halloween. We saw a cereal killer (Small bloody cereal boxes with knives in them stuck to someone's shirt) Thing 1 and Thing 2, a smurf, a couple of romans and I can't even remember what else. Luckily our company was just sports themed....as in, wear a sports jersey. But 'someone' forgot to tell me. We discussed doing an 80's theme next year-I'm all for that! I'm already looking for the perfect outfit :-) The company parties are always a blast. And here's where I brag on my hubby for a job well done. The brigade command sergeant major came in looking for Duane to commend him for a good year and present him with the Top Station Commander award, maurader coin and a shirt awarded for excellence :-) *beaming with pride* Saturday morning rolls around much too early and lots of sleepy looking people congregate downstairs for classes....again. Luckily they had lots of starbucks and breakfast ready for us. In the morning there were classes about being an army recruiting spouse and about the Family Readiness Group, etc. And the soldiers went over to the statehouse for a motivational speech by RUDY, Rudy Ruettiger, the football dude from the movie RUDY. Then a lunch break. Then us gals were back to class for a sensing session. which is basically bringing any questions or complaints to the commanders attn....quite annoying in my opinion because most of it was complaints or questions that the wives should have been asking their hubbies, not the commanders. I say if your not willing to help or be part of the solution.....then you're not aloud to whine. Then we had a spouse panel which I was on, in which the other spouses could ask us questions. Guess I'm of that older/wiser age now :-( sounds like code for : old. Then finally we got to go get ready for the ball :-) I was a little nervous because we didn't get to sit with our station this year, which took me away from 'my girls' :-( We were seated at the company commanders table but I ended up having a blast :-) The making of the Grog is always interesting. Those boys come up with some interesting stuff. Each time they add a bottle of alcohol (or whatever) they have some silly lil story to go along with it. Our redneck wine got filtered thru someone's lucky jockstrap, that hadn't been washed all thru college (as if!) The mixed up alcohol wouldn't be so bad if I dared to drink it (which I don't) but when they start adding stuff like pork rinds and last years grog that has been sitting in someone's car all year and swamp water...then it gets really really gross. But at least they are creative!
Sunday morning the Chaplain has a prayer breakfast (basically if you want breakfast, you're going to church too heehee) then the guys have a few more hours of classes. And alot of the wives spent the whole time trying to get the cars out of valet so they could be ready to go when the guys were done in class. The poor valet kids were overwhelmed with hundreds of people trying to get their cars out at the same time. Alot of people got them out before they went to bed at like 2am but we were not about to park the car out on the street all night. We went down at 8am and there was already a 30 min wait. The people that didn't venture down till later were NOT very happy because it took about an hour and a half. I'm sure valet parking is lovely when there aren't quite so many people :-) I'm already looking forward to next year's ball :-) And I'll make sure we take a government vehicle so that I can't be responsible for driving heehee J/K

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