Third time's the charm

We've been undergoing some major life changes recently. The last we told people, Sterling was going to start a Master's program here at BYU and we were planning on buying a house. Yay! Then we told people that that was not in the plans and that Sterling was looking for a full time job in his major. Which, it turns out, is very, very tricky since he only has a Bachelors.

So we reverted to what was Plan A right after he graduated from BYU. For those of you who don't know what Plan A is, please look here.

That's right! We're doing Marines again! To recap, for those who haven't been reading our blog for very long, or for those who have, but don't check too often because I never update it, Sterling got kicked out of the Marines back in Jun 2009 after just a week.

He worked random jobs for awhile, then this last October, we decided to try again. And were almost guaranteed a spot, but then didn't get it after all for reasons that will never make sense to me. Despite the disappointment, we decided to give it one more try. This is actually the last time Sterling could easily get into the Marines because once he turns 27, he has to get a waiver to apply again, and as we know because of the October selection, if you have a waiver, it reduces your chances of getting selected.

So, Sterling's selection officer put in Sterling's application one more time. About a month before the selection board met, his selection officer, Captain Davis, gave us a call and said that members of the selection board had asked for Sterling by name to see if he would want to be considered for a NFO (Naval Flight Officer - the one who navigates and fires the weapons in a plane) as well as a ground position at OCS. The reason being that they had a few spots open up for this season and Sterling was the only one in the entire region (from here to Hawaii) that is qualified to be an NFO. Of course Sterling said yes. Then, the week before the selection board met, we got another call from Captain Davis who told us that several pilot spots had opened up and that, once again, they asked for Sterling by name and wanted him to compete for a pilots spot as well. So, now Sterling was in the running for not only a ground spot, like everyone else, but also a NFO spot, and a pilots spot. We were told that it was almost guaranteed that he would be accepted, but after what happened in October, I wasn't getting too excited just yet.

The selection board met in November and Sterling got a pilot's spot! Yay! So we really are doing it all over again. He'll be leaving for Quantico, VA on Jan 7th and then will graduate from OCS on March 18 and receive his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps the same day. We're so excited.