I’ve been doing quite a bit of sewing this past week but I can’t share any of it with you quite yet.  Two of the projects are gifts and one is an uber top secret challenge for Quilting Arts magazine.  I think I’ll be able to show you that one some time around November or December.

In the meantime, here’s another scrapbook layout for you.  The military theme seems appropriate for this day.

Don’t you just love how delighted Josh & his buddy look?  I think they’re glad to be done with boot camp!

I found the calendar that’s taking up the left side of the page online at the Marine Corps website.  It shows what kinds of things the guys (and gals!) would be doing every day and every week throughout their training.  It was great to be able to follow along at home and have an idea of what he was up to.

Here’s the journaling:

After the pin ceremony Josh had liberty until 7 p.m., so we got to hang out with him for  a while.  We’d been following along with this calendar for the 13 weeks he was gone, but we wanted to hear all the details he hadn’t written home about, especially about the Crucible.  We took him to lunch, got a tour of the barracks, met his DIs and learned a lot about what he’s been doing.  You can tell by the picture below that he and the other guys were very pleased and excited about their accomplishment!

Photos on opposite page, clockwise from top right:

• The entrance to the barracks
• Josh with DI Sgt. Hammer
• A photo we took the day we arrived (Wednesday) we couldn’t tell if Josh was in there or not – later he told us we’d just missed him.
• His trunk with his gear – impressively neat and tidy.
• Josh with DI Sgt. McCombs
• A depleted “scuzz brush” – These started out as full brushes, but were worn down by the guys running around with two hands on them pushing them  along the floor.  Not fun!  Mostly used as a punishment.
• DI SSgt. Hall
• Josh & Larry Shaw on Josh’s bunk

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