Day 87/194

Wednesday, Week 13!
No more whispering! Late night chats when his roommates are asleep are over for now. Kev and I were able to talk at a reasonable time last night and I was so happy. However, his roommates do distract him a little when they are awake;) I swear they are all either tooting (Kev included) or tuning into our conversation, and when they are asleep I can't hear Kev because he is whispering. This is what happens when your boyfriend or husband leaves you to live in a small room with 12 guys! Toots so loud the other wives on the phones hear, or talk about who's movement smells worse after meat loaf day. Enjoy!! I think I am going to have to retrain Kev after the academy!

The cadets' morning started with participation in the Senior's Capitol Run! They all went out and lined up in knuckle push up position near the gates of the academy and did push ups until they came out, then planked on their knuckles as they ran by. After they ran off, the Juniors went back to their day. Kev said it was inspiring and pretty exciting to catch some of the run, even if it was on his poor knuckles. Three more months until he is in their shoes :)

There was a gig line after breakfast because apparently the sergeant was sitting in his car watching the ceremony and saw a couple cadets fall out of plank too soon. Kev said he ate breakfast pretty quickly and ran out to the drill pad early for drill so he by chance just missed the line, no gig! Others weren't so lucky!

Lunch: Lunch is never exciting - unless its chili cheese dog day OR lunch after the Senior's Capitol Run. The entire Academy was able to enjoy prime rib and shrimp - JUMBO shrimp according to Kev. When lunch was the topic we started having on the phone last night, I could even hear his roommates getting excited. Apparently, every cadet received a slice of prime rib and 5 jumbo shrimp. However, when Kev bit into his 5th jumbo shrimp, it crunched because the center of the shrimp was still frozen solid. In an effort not to give up on his 5th shrimp, he said he slipped it under his warm prime rib to hopes of defrosting it. I can't even tell you how concerned he and his roommates were about this frozen shrimp incident and how hard I was laughing on the phone! The defrost attempt failed. Their conclusion was that if it had been a regular size shrimp then the defrost method may have been a success but instead the jumbo shrimp was too thick. The jokes continued on about going to the staff office to report the frozen 5th shrimp that ultimately meant he only truly received 4 of the 5 distributed shrimp. Clearly none of them will ever tell the staff about the shrimp if they want to live another day ;)

The Junior class finally took over the fountain ceremony on Wednesday around lunch time for the FIRST time. Apparently it wasn't the smoothest production the staff had seen and the cadets were made well aware it looked like 'trash'. They will just have to keep practicing. Apparently it was a 'pivoting' issue that had a domino effect.

Prior to being let out for liberty, the rest of the day was spent doing felony pull overs which Kev said was a lot more fun than the basic stop and loved it - ONLY because it is a scenario and not real life danger. Some of the lessons and tactics they learn remind you how brave they are for the kind of people they will be facing on the job. As his girlfriend though, I am praying that all Kev's days as an officer are filled chasing chihuahuas on bridges and saving baby ducks. (For those of you reading from out of the country - CHP recently closed the Bay Bridge to catch a little chihuahua wrecking havoc!) That is the kind of pull over I want Kev to be doing. I always tell Kev that I am going to make an iPhone app for CHP wives, girlfriends and families to pre-order chihuahuas and ducks let lose on their highways. What a business that would be! Look out for us on Shark Tank ;)

- Mimi