Mom learning how to "blog" to the fam!

Hi guys! Yes, it's actually true! Steve taught me how to use the blog, most of the way at least, so now I am trying this out for my first time!! I just need to figure out how to add pictures! I hope all of you are doing great, and I can't wait until December 18 when we are all together again!


Love everyone tons!!!

Voicemail and Quote

Voice message from Mom and Dad to Steve:

Mom: Hey Steve it's Mom...
Dad: ... and Dad...
Mom: ... calling you...
Dad: ... from home...
Mom: ... while we're eating...
Dad: ... apples.

Mom: We love you...
Dad: ... a lot...
Together: bye (bye).


Quote of the year (from Dad):
Setting - when we pull up to the O.A.R. concert for his birthday in East Lansing.

"This could be the biggest surprise since each of you were born."

Moving on up

Hey guys! So I haven’t written in a while but I hope I’ve kept you pretty up to date on the phone. Lately, we’ve been really busy helping the upper class graduate and preparing to in-process the lower class (aka “LowBots”, since we’re in the BOT-basic officer training program). We’re excited to be the upper class because a lot of the attention (and yelling) will be on fixing all the lowbots and getting them in gear. As I mentioned, I’ll be interacting with them on sort of a different level because while I need to keep holding them to their training standards, I will also be responsible for being cognizant of their morale. I’ll work to help them be comfortable enough to come to me if they need a more sane upperclassmen to talk to in the first days and weeks here.

In honor of this new class, I found a picture that was taken of me on TD-0 shortly after I arrived. Posting on the wall with our Talon (the book) in our face and/or getting yelled at and reciting information from the Talon pretty clearly characterizes a lot of our first weeks here! The funny thing now is that on Wednesday we’ll be those people in the blues…7 weeks to get this far and about 6 more to go till we’re on our way out J Love you all and look forward to talking soon.

Jeff

Hello from the Big Easy

Hello all -

Well, I am 7.5 hours into a 9 hour trip that has somehow turned into a 12 hour journey from New Orleans to Dallas. With nearly 6 hours of driving under my belt, my job is done for the day, so I felt compelled to write to all of you, say hello, give you an update and most importantly, ask for updates from "y'all"!

This past week was incredible. New Orleans is crazy, insane, Vegas-like, food infested, alcohol filled, etc. Though the majority of my nights were spent on Bourbon Street (think pictures of Mardi Gras), I managed to come out alive with a week full of memories and thousand images I sadly will not get out of my head for some time.

Food = incredible, Beer = Abita, Weather = beautiful, Me = tired.

Also, I was outside the hotel the other night, a huge tour bus pulls up and off walks Gavin Degraw (Dad, youtube him). I chatted with him for a few minutes and was later overwhelmed with a jealous group of Kendyl and friends following our conversation.

I hope you're all doing great. I'll try to upload some video and pictures as soon as I can!

Mom and Dad from home...

How the heck do we use this blog? I think we entered a comment as "Steve."

I'm sure MOM will become an expert blogger in the next week or so.... It's Saturday at 12:30 and Mom and I are headed up to the cottage.

We'll make sure we take a few pics of the humongous fish we will be catching and will make sure to post it to our family blog. Gotta go for now.... Love Mom and Dad!

Gotta Love Eastern.. Yo

Hi everyone:)

I'm so glad to see that you got this up and running Steve! I kind of laughed after talking to Steve because I just was picturing mom, who breaks a sweat trying to just turn on the computer(!), but this really has turned out to be pretty cool!

So I guess this is little spot for me to say what's up in Amy-Land. Eastern is all as well.. well, as well as it can get (Ya gotta love being at one of the most dangerous campus's in Michigan!)

Classes have been going pretty good though. Sociology, my teacher is iiiinsane. I missed a good amount of his classes but still happened to get a B+ on the first test! The drama class is fun and reminds me of a class that I took in middle school, haa. My speech class is going great and got a 97% on my first speech! I am struggling with my American Government class (surprise, right??) but thankfully Kenneth Foisy is an expert so he's helping me out.

I have a really good group of close friends here. Of course Rhonda and Lauren and the two Kenny's but also two girls down the hall from me, Katie and Jenna and a few other boys named Trevor and Jarad, so that makes school nights more fun hangin with those kids.

My room has really become the hang out room.. that's probably due to the fact that I am room mate-less. So that's nice (at times) to have people around. And boys, you'll be excited to hear this, I got a George Foreman!!! I cooked everyone this great dinner on Thursday night. I cooked cheese burgers and burgers, chicken and we got salad, mashed potatoes and fries with our meal plans from down stairs. (Though I found out that you DON'T put the cheese on the patty until AFTER you take it off the George.. oops!)

I love being this close to home because I don't know what I would do if I couldn't see you rents every week! Though, I am looking at colleges for possibly transferring to next year or the following year. Along with looking at different colleges, I'm looking at different majors. I went in as a Criminology/Criminal Justice major with a sociology minor.. well I will definitely NOT be having that sociology minor.. haa. And I've really been interested maybe majoring in Social Work. But the four years are young:)

But I think this is enough of me for now. So happy birthday mom and I can't wait to see what's new with you boys!

Love you all

Sweet home Alabama

Hey Guys! As you'll see in the picture, we've been busy not just with classroom sessions but with field events meant to test leadership abilities and teach combat skills. It's really cool though to get to do these missions.

In the picture here, I was in charge of a security detail escorting our team members to various targets. The girl on the ground behind me was "shot" because the previous security team didn't keep a good eye out for danger...no worries though because I helped get us through the end and complete the mission.

Exciting stuff. These red M-16's are obviously not real weapons, but we did get to shoot M-9's(handguns) the other day to qualify; I really enjoyed that too. This blog is great and I can't wait to read more from everyone and share some stories. Love you guys!

Jeff

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Hey Mom!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Who would think that you're only celebrating your 25th anniversary of your 25th birthday? Although we cannot all be home with you to celebrate (except for Amy because she is obviously the 'alpha' child), we are definitely thinking about you and we wish you nothing but the absolute best!

You have taught all four of us incredible lessons - lessons about hard work, commitment, perseverance, optimism, generosity and sacrifice. You've done an incredible job as our Mom (and wife ... for Dad, obviously) and we want you to know how much we appreciate everything you do for us, both in the past, in the 'now' and what will come in the future.

We are all thrilled to see you get back into substitute teaching and engage yourself in your work with children throughout the community, and furthermore children throughout our extended community, such as Detroit, with your volunteer work through Oak Pointe Church.

Again, sorry that we all cannot be with you, but we're thinking about you, we miss you and we love you VERY MUCH! Enjoy the day, the weekend and the year as a whole, and we cannot wait to all get back together and celebrate your birthday in a seriously belated - fun filled - way!

Love,

Jeff, Amy, Steve and Dad (and Bo, Shiloh, Turtle, Moe, Guinea Pig

What to talk about?

Well, here it is, the Mnich family blog. For those of us in our family who have no idea what this blog will be used for - well, first of all, welcome to the 21st century.


I think we can use this as a way to stay in touch with one another (as a secondary source, of course... let's try to keep the phone ringing for each other). Since most of us are traveling to new places, seeing new things, meeting new people and having crazy and unique experiences, this is a place to talk about it, brag about it, add pictures and keep the rest of the family informed. So, examples of use for each of us could be:




Jeff: Add pictures, updates and thoughts about your training and your progress in the Air Force

Amy: Tell us about school. Show us pictures of you and your new friends, your fellow Emus and the coolest parts of being in college

Steve: Well, maybe pictures of this madness known as Sk***dlez

Dad: What's up with work? How's the cottage? Any animal stories to share?

Mom: Update us on subbing. How is the volunteer program going? Any 'motivational' thoughts?


Feel free to add on anything, at anytime, regardless of where you are.