Hanging out in Charleston

We arrived in Charleston (actually, Goose Creek, at the Navy Base) last Friday and got settled into our site.  Nicolas got us checked in with the host, and we visited for a bit before we took him out for pizza for dinner. 

He had his “comp” (think Final Exam) for ‘A’ school on Monday, so he was spending most of his time on the weekend studying, but he did come over each day for dinner, and a little bit of relaxation in the evenings.

We had beautiful weather here – finally escaped the heat & humidity of Florida –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and we got a few things taken care of while he was studying. 

One was getting a new phone and internet service.  We’ve been with Straight Talk for phone, and Millenicom for internet since we started fulltiming in September 2012, and when Millenicom was bought by Verizon last fall we held off on switching over because we had good internet at the campground we stay at in Michigan, and we knew we were going to have cable internet through the winter in Florida.

Since we left Ft. Myers, we’ve been on campground wifi – which can be hit or miss, as most people know, and my “smart” phone was beginning to lose its mind.  We decided it was time to look again at the major carriers.  While we were still in Ft. Myers, we visited both Verizon and AT&T to compare costs and plans, and ultimately decided we should probably just go with Verizon for my phone + internet, and leave Bryce’s iphone on straight talk for now (it uses AT&T), since he just bought it in the fall.

Then I realized that I had just paid for April with straight talk . . . so we waited a little longer.  One we got here, we were within a couple days of my service end date, so me made the switch.

I got a cool new Samsung S5 with a 10GB data plan (with my Ford discount, the 6GB plan would have been $56, and the 10GB plan was $60 – no brainer to go to the higher plan!).  We could have just reactivated our millenicom 3G aircard for $20/month without a contract, but we could also go to a 4G aircard, for the same money (Free device with a 2-year contract), so that is what we did.  We can still suspend service on the aircard and save the $20/month when we’re in Florida for the winter.

So, that was our big purchase for the weekend – and we were even able to get $30 bill credit for trading in our 2 junky old straight talk phones, and the $100 bill credit for transferring my phone number.  Not a bad deal!

Other than that, I was busy making home-cooked meals for the Sailor, and trying to plan our route for after the RV-Dreams Reunion Rally.  We may have a hitch in our summer plans, though . . . Tom found a motorhome online that appears to be a very good deal, and may end up drastically altering our summer plans . . . we’ll see . . . lots of logistics to research and work out!

On Monday, Nicolas successfully passed his comp . . .

and the preparations began for graduation on Friday! 

 

They had to shred all their notes (top secret stuff!), and clean their classroom . . . and get new patches on their uniforms to reflect their new rank --

 

 

 

 

 

MM3, Machinist Mate, Petty Officer, Third Class

We’re so proud of him!  He worked really hard to get to this point, and he’s got even more hard work ahead of him!  We’re confident that he’s up to the challenge . . . after a little rest!!

His next school doesn’t start until sometime in July, so he’ll have a chance to let his brain recover, and he has 10 days of leave to travel with us and have some fun family time!  We’re looking forward to it!

We got our invitations for graduation,

and we’re looking forward to seeing this group of new Petty Officers graduate on Friday!

(Nicolas is in the back row, 3rd from the right)

One more day of having him drive off in the evening,

and then he gets to stay with us for a little bit!