A change

I've been wanting to share this for a month now but we had to wait until everything was finalized. Today Jon went up north and was sworn into the Army!!!!
He leaves for basic training July 5th! So like 2 1/2 weeks from now. And he'll be gone until mid December. This is such a huge change for us but we are excited. We know this is the right thing for our family. This will hopefully make it so I can stay at home with Taegen.
Ok so I'll start from the beginning...
about a month ago me and Jon got to talking and decided that he needed to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Working for my dad doing construction just wasn't going to cut it much longer. The topic of him joining the army jokingly came up. He said he would like to join but never really considered it since he thought I would have a problem with it. Once he found out that if that is what he really wanted to do, I would consider it, he started seriously thinking about it. That monday (this conversation was held on a friday) he went into the recruiting office and got his paperwork. He filled it all out and said he was waiting for my go ahead to hand them in. It took me a couple days to get on board, but before the end of the week he handed them in and the ball was rolling. We hit a couple snags along the way, but they said things were still looking good. He then gets a call from his recruiter who tells him that after pulling his record the found out he had 43 violations!!! How in the world someone gets 43 violations I have no idea...but he did. The majority of these were traffic violations. (In Jons defense there was only actually 23 or so actual tickets. The rest were things that only the Army considered violations, like getting arrested for a warrant, rescheduling a court date, etc) This could possibly end up being a problem. They said they were going to have to find out if a waiver is needed. Since they've never had anyone with so many violations before they didn't quite know the protocol. The answer came back as a yes. This didn't really mean anything to us other than it was going to take a lot longer and going to be a lot more paper work for the recruiter. After about a week, the recruiter called and Jon went in to fill out his part of the waiver. The next day the waiver was sent up north for approval. After about another week it finally came back. It was both good and bad news. The waiver was approved, but not for active duty. They want him to join the reserves for a year, then they can re-evaluate and he can switch to active duty. Basically all this violations make it look like he has a problem with authority so he pretty much just needs to prove to them that he's no longer an idiot and he's grown up a little bit :) Once the approval came in, they got the paperwork and the next day he was sent up to salt lake. (which was yesterday) The waiting game was still not over. He got the go ahead, but now he still had to pass his meps (his physical). Waiting to hear from him all day today was excruciating! He got up at 5:30 and wasn't done until 4:30. It was a long day for him, but he passed. he even passed his eye exam which he didn't he would. So that was good news.
What will he be doing? His job is "Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic" So basically anything and everything that moves he gets to fix :) This was perfect. He wanted to be a driver but that isn't an option for the reserves, but  mechanic was on the top of his list as well. So for now we are staying in So Utah. Once he gets back from training in December, he only has 6 more months of the reserves, then he can switch to active duty. And we'll hopefully then be stationed some where new and fun for us :) We are so excited about this! This is perfect for Jon and he couldn't be happier. He gets to play with guns and cars his two favorite things.
And actually since he joined the reserves, he got a 12K sign on bonus that he wouldn't have gotten if he went active duty. So that was a blessing.
We are sure going to miss him while he's gone though. I can't believe he leaves so soon. We originally thought he wouldn't be leaving until the end of the year so this was a huge shock. Looks like we're just going to have to make the best of the next 2 1/2 weeks.
Well I better go get ready to see my soldier :) He's on his way home from SLC now...can't wait to see him :) :)