On December 17th, Craig and 11 of his buddies from the 61st recruit class graduated from the Greensboro Fire Academy! Craig received two awards and was chosen to give a short speech, which was, of course, hilarious. The whole ceremony was awesome and we are super excited that those 20 weeks are over. Despite being really glad that the academy is over, God has been gracious to our family and guided us through what could have been a really rough time on our marriage. When the families gathered for family night back in August, one of the Captains gave us some crazy statistic for separations/divorces during the academy. After the first week, I could see why. Our husbands had morphed into physically drained zombies who had to study every weekend for an exam on Monday morning. Family time was left to the curb if it wasn't structured and almost forced. But, like I said, God was gracious and gave Craig energy to sit on the floor and play with the boys on evenings that he just wanted to go to bed (at 6pm), to eat dinner with the family, and patience to answer my every question about the academy (I had a lot). It was a great time for me to "step up" the helper role that the Bible calls wives to be in and surprisingly and awesomely (new word I think) Im not tired of that role at all. I'm cherishing it. And I love love looooove hearing Speirs say, "Wy Wy! Wy Wy! Daddy is a fireman!"
Burn Day: Craig is working at the front of the hose.
