Hi all,

Congratulations on the wonderful news!! Best of luck to both of you. It will be a fun journey.

I have heard differing opinions on the swearing in... For me, it was a very emotional moment and I was thrilled to be there. That was the morning he left for Cape May, at MEPS. The best people with an answer as to what/when you can attend, his recruiter! Call and ask. It's ok, honest. Sometimes even recruits that want to give answers just don't have them. His recruiter will know the right answers.

8 weeks will be July 11th, so you don't have to worry about a holiday graduation. Plan but don't OVER PLAN! You never know what could happen and your plans might be delayed a week, even 2. So be careful. However, you are also talking the Jersey shore in July. So that part will need a bit over planning. There is actually a pinned topic in this forum recommending different hotels. You can look into those and make reservations sooner rather than later. Be sure to mention you are there for CG graduation. One it will probably get you a small discount and two that time of year there is often a 2 or 3 night stay minimum, you can get a room with for only one night.

At this point it is way too far out to guess at company names. Classes can be split, weeks can be skipped, there are a lot of different scenarios. Once we get closer, I can give a much better guess.

You can join the FB group at anytime. There is a Moms group USCG Moms. If you PM me your name, I can PM the admins there and let them know you'll be requesting to join. You can find a lot of support on FB, either the company page, the Moms page or any of the friends and family pages.

Anything else, let us know. We are happy to help.

Thank you!!!

He was home last night and had to go take care of a few things. Turned in all but one thing on his paperwork. Found out when he's getting sworn in. I will have the official date for graduation in about a week (I'm thinking positive--he's been to a boot camp type thing with CAP so I'm not worried he will have any problems). I think he's very excited.

I've worked out the date for his send off party. It's a crazy weekend for our whole family with everything else being planned that same weekend. It's a popular weekend apparently. But I'm determined to that he will get a send off. Small for family and then I graduation party when he gets home.

I haven't talked to my in-laws yet, but we will probably go up a couple of days early to see the area but I do want to make reservations early especially since we will need at least 2 rooms.

My suggestion.. Date night! Just the 2 of you. My son and I went out for dinner. He left his girlfriend at home, I left my boyfriend at home. Just my son and I went to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. No phones, no people, no laptops, no disturbances... Just the 2 of us. We sat for a few hours. We talked, laughed, cried, shared and it was just us. So date night... Make it happen, honest, you won't regret it.

If he ships on May 20th, the official graduation date is July 11th. Honest, I know what I'm talking about. Been doing this a long time now. HAHA

I definitely want to do that. It will have to be a date "breakfast" but that will be okay too.

I'm not as nervous as I was last time I thought he was leaving to go. I think because it was such a roller coaster, he was going, he wasn't going, he's going. I finally got to the point once he goes (IF he goes) then I'll believe it. I'm sure May 20th I'll be a bit of a basket case but after the last year+ until he is actually sworn in I'm not obsessing, worrying, getting excited, etc.. lol I'm actually kind of thankful that there is so much going on that weekend before he leaves that I won't have much time to dwell on it.