Freshman, Fun and Falls

We hosted 4 Freshman, or plebes, Sunday afternoon for an ice cream social. I wasn't sure what to expect, but we had an awesome time. We served sandwiches on homemade bread, hot pizza dip with homemade french bread slices, potato circles (with melted cheese and bacon), and veggies and dip. For desert, we had pumpkin spice cake, lemon bars and browines. I have NEVER seen 3 females put away so much food! It was so cool! They had skipped lunch in anticipation of "real food." These 3 put away the 5 guys we had over on Friday night! They kept saying, "no one says ANYTHING about home much we can eat!" I just had to laugh. I guess when you are only given 10 minutes to eat every meal, the chance to eat slowly and as much as you want is taken when presented.

I learned so much about what these New Cadets go through. Like I said, they are only given about 10 minutes from the time they sit down for each meal, and that's 10 minutes with upperclassmen being in your face the whole time. If you are in charge of cutting something that is being eaten and you don't cut it in perfectly equal portions, no one gets to eat it. Talk about stress! They aren't allowed music in their rooms, no movies, no tv, nothing personal... Lights have to be out at 10:00pm and if you get caught with lights on or studying after that... watch out! It's truly amazing what these cadets go through and still make it out the other end! I asked them if they would do it again, knowing what they know now, and was suprised with the "yes" answer. The females are required to do the same physical challenges the guys are. Marches, PT, obstacle courses... and most of them outshine the guys! They know they have to put that extra bit of umph out to make it through. I have to get it to them all... I don't know if I coulds have made it!

Brodie has her first busted lip. She was walking down the ramp at the playground and her lip stopped her fall. She bit her upper lip quite bad, at least not through. I think it looks worse than it is, and she keeps peeling the scab off, so it's going to take a while to heal. She's such a trooper, though. On the way back home from the playground, she tripped and skinned the heck out of her knee, too. Poor little thing. Riley's had a rough weekend, too. He was playing near the rock wall in the backyard and "somehow" one manged to fall in his toes. It smashed the big toe quite a bit...you can see the blood under the nail, and cut the toe next to it. However, as soon as the blood was gone, he was fine! What tough kiddos!!!

Brodie woke up due to the boys slamming their bedroom door, so I'd better go comfort her and get her back to sleep. She's finally doing much better with putting herself to bed. Now if only I could get the boys to go along with it!!!