Ugh! Wake up was moved up during the night to 0400, so most people only got a few hours of sleep last night. Everyone got up and took care of their personal hygiene, then almost everyone went back to sleep. I stayed awake, making sure the bay was squared away, and at 0500, we had to go downstairs for first formation. We were sent back upstairs to finish squaring away the bay (or for our platoon, sleep) before we had to be back downstairs at 0530. I called Brittney at 0510 for her requested wake up call, and got to talk for a few minutes before heading downstairs again. We marched to the ceremonial field and ran through the Turning Blue Ceremony once (which took about a half hour), then returned back to the barracks. Our platoon guide's wife was there, and he stopped to say hi, but when we got upstairs, we got smoked for thirty minutes by our special forces drill sergeant, who thought we needed a lesson in waiting to talk to family until the ceremony was over later that morning. After a good smoking, we went downstairs for breakfast, where we put on a show for the waiting family by doing push ups in the hallway while waiting to enter the D-Fac. After we ate, and while the families were in the classroom being briefed, we went back upstairs, cleaned up, changed into Class A's, and then formed up in the formation area. We marched down to the ceremonial field, where we waited until the families came from the classroom and filled the bleachers. It was then time for our Turning Blue Ceremony. The company marched out and we stood in formation facing our families. The ceremony went along and at the end, we received our blue cords (which distinguishes infantry soldiers) and our families came down to put them on us and take pictures. I got to see my grandparents, parents, Devon (who surprised me by showing up), and Brittney! After the families had returned back to the bleachers, the company marched back up the the barracks, where we got our personal things together to give to our families before leaving on our family pass for the day. We changed into Class B's, and when I finished, I took m stuff downstairs and gave it to my family. The rest of the platoon joined me in formation, but due to last nights mooning incident, we were not yet released and had to go back up to our bay. the first sergeant told us that the family saw a flash come from the bay window, and if no one showed him the picture, we would all have our family day pass taken away. We had to dump all of our belongings out. He and the drill sergeants went through all of our phone pictures, and the photo was not found. The person who was with the guy who mooned the family said that no picture was taken. It wasn't looking good--we thought we had lost our family day pass, but because the photo wasn't found, they decided that if a picture was taken, it had been deleted, so a half hour after everyone else had been released, we were let go and I got to meet my family outside. I enjoyed hugs and cookies from my Grandma Reinbold. We split up into two vehicles and I gave a tour of Ft. Benning for the Grandparents who weren't on the driving tour last month. We drove by our FTX site, and I took them the route of our last road march up to Honor Hill, and then we went out to eat at Cheddar's. As we were leaving the restaurant, my company's drill sergeants, first sergeant, and captain, with their families, came in and were seated at the table behind ours. I was glad to get out of there! After we ate, we went to the National Infantry Museum, where we spent nearly four hours looking at the exhibits, again because my grandparents weren't there the first time, and the museum does a really good job portraying what I went through at basic, as well as displaying the different wars that the U. S. has been in. Once we finished looking through the museum, we went back to the hotel to relax a little bit before heading to dinner. For dinner, we went to Caraba's and enjoyed a good italian meal. I had to report back for final formation at my barracks, so Brittney, Devon, and my parents took me back while my grandparents finished eating their meals. It was a lot easier to say goodbye to family this time knowing that I would back with them in less than 16 hours, so when it was time to leave them I headed to form up. We had a couple of guys in the company that were running late, so we got smoked until everyone showed up. By the time we were dismissed from formation, lights out was at 2100, and we were told that we would be waking up at midnight. I was exhausted from a busy day with the family, and wanted to get as much sleep as I could.
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