Matthew's graduation and our trip to Ft. Knox Kentucky

I would be lying if I said we had a wonderful trip. The only good part of the trip was that I got to see my Son. The military personnel of Ft. Knox have a long way to go to even come close to being a little nice....that's enough about that. Let's just sum it up with there were good parts to the trip and bad parts and right now I am going to focus on the GOOD....

I want to thank all of you who kept us in your prayers, I did just fine on the planes and actually kind of liked it :) I know I would not have been able to do it without the support of your prayers, my husband and of course the continuing peace from the Lord. I knew that if I wanted to see my son that I had to get on that plane and I DID IT !!! I even surprised myself that I didn't have a major malfunction right there in the airport.

We got into Louisville at about 11:20AM Wednesday morning, and after picking up our rental care we were on our way to our hotel.

The lobby area of the Hyatt Regency downtown Louisville~(looking down from our floor)

Our hotel room~

The bed area~

Some views from our room~

Day view~

Night view of a different building~

We took a short nap and then went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants~ Cracker Barrel~


Me inside the Cracker Barrel just to prove that I did go to Louisville I had my picture taken with the plates and things that said Louisville on them :) ~

We don't have those out here in the west so when I have the opportunity to eat there I do. Wonderful service and food.

Thursday morning we headed toward Ft. Knox~

The main visitor entrance~

Then we preceded over to Brooks field for the graduation ceremony~

Some pictures of the graduation~

The entire Charlie company, all 4 platoons~

Matthew is in 1st Platoon ~front row 3rd from the left

Marching in formation coming onto the field~

Parade rest~

Standing at attention~

Taking the oath~

Saluting the colors~

The Color guard~

Marching off the field~

After the graduation they went back to their barracks and changed, then finally after 120 days of not seeing him I got to get a big hug from my Son~

We did some running around on base getting some things done that he needed to do. He got a cell phone so now I can text him and he can call me whenever they allow him the use of it. They let him text a lot more than call which is fine with me...now my phone is like my lifeline to him so I carry it real close by wherever I go.

We also visited the George S. Patton Museum and I took a few pictures with Matthew standing by some of the tanks~

All too soon our time with him came to an end and I had to give him back to the military, it was so hard and I have to be honest I didn't cry when I gave him that last hug but on the way to the airport and in the plane was a different story, every minute in the plane was a minute further away from my baby, he may be a grown man and a soldier but he will always be my baby!!

Here is his new barracks for the next 15 weeks while he is there for AIT~

This is the last picture before he headed inside and we left for the airport~

While we were there we (Roger and I ) did get to see the Louisville Zoo~

Some pictures of our visit~

Me in front of the Louisville Zoo sign~

The Lion~

The Rhino, boy are these things HUGE~

A couple of pictures of the gorillas~

These pictures were kind of hard to take as they were inside behind glass, but I got what I could. My favorite is of the Silver backs face even though it's kind of blurry he was looking right at me and I just loved that look...

We also were able to stop off at Churchill Downs, what a beautiful place~

Then we were back in the air headed back home, what awesome majestic views the Lord provided for our trip back to California~

Clouds under the wing of the airplane~




Once again I want to send out a big THANK YOU to all my wonderful friends out there who kept us in your thoughts and prayers!!