Family Day!

Friday, November 30th, was Family Day at the academy in Austin. Gabby and I drove down early in the morning and found the academy itself easily enough, although I misjudged and parked about half a mile away from the actual building. Whoops!

We signed in and one of Erich's instructors introduced himself (can't remember his name, of course) and exclaimed over Gabby. "So tall! So pretty! So polite!" Etc. :o) He directed us to the classroom where the recruits do their studying. It had about 6 long tables in rows and we sat at Erich's spot. He was standing against the wall with the other recruits while everyone got situated. Gabby did a lot of coloring and drawing while we waited for things to get underway, and was I ever thankful that Mum had sent that coloring book with us! :o)

The class officers (all except the class president, Recruit Castle, who was off to the side). Erich is second from the left, for those who don't know (Scarlett ;o), and is Class Secretary. Meaning he keeps everything organized and together - he got a lot of praise from everyone we met.

Kind of hard to see him, but this is "Mr. Travis", as Gabby calls him. He's the guy that Erich carpools with, and has been just the biggest blessing to us! (Sidenote: Gabby was startled to realize that Travis was a recruit too - she didn't understand that he's going to be a state trooper as well, silly girl!)

Erich and bunkmate Mickley, demonstrating cafeteria formation. They line up, execute a sharp right turn, and fill their trays down the line - all very shipshape and squared away. Mickley is another really nice guy - he attached himself to us as Erich showed us around because his wife was just days from her due date (she's scheduled for a C-section tomorrow) and so he didn't have any family there. He is very funny - did his best to corrupt Gabby at one point. Erich left her in their sleeping bay for a few minutes while he went to pick up some laundry, and when he came back he heard Mickley whispering to Gabby, "And you be sure you tell your daddy that I said you can have some ice-cream and maybe some cake on the way home." Gabby got quite the kick out of that. :o)

This is Instructor Ballarda, in charge of their Arrest and Control Tactics classes. He's Filipino, and incorporates a lot of Filipino martial arts into their training. He is Lance Armstrong's personal bodyguard, and once a year or so, he takes about a month off to go to France with Armstrong and his entourage for the Tour de France. He is really amazing and the recruits all like him and respect him a lot. I got some videos of him and the recruits doing some sparring and other stuff, and if Blogger will let me, I will post them.

Gabby eating lunch and watching the ACT demonstration. (That's her backpack underneath her daddy's sweatshirt, not a Quasimodo hump. :-P )

Random picture of a cruiser and a CVE (Commercial Vehicle Enforcement) Tahoe.

This is one of the walls in the dorm building - one huge picture of the original building way back in the 1800s.

This is all the storage space Erich has! (And that's my purse there, in case you're wondering.)

This is above the door going into the gym. (Sorry it's crooked.)

And this is going back out of the gym. The recruits slap each sign as they go in and out.

A female recruit (C class - Erich's in D Class) taking down a "suspect".

Video of them just doing basic ACT - Erich is not in there, sadly. He was relieved, of course, but I would have loved watching him do this. :o)

Instructor Ballarda sparring with another ACT instructor. This was unrehearsed, and I wish I'd gotten more video of it, because the flow, grace and precision of their movements is just mesmerizing.

This is another example of ACT - some of the stuff they do every day.

And one more takedown video. That's all, I promise! :o)

All in all, we had a wonderful time. We were all completely wiped when it was over, but it was so much fun, and getting to see where Daddy is living and working was really good for Gabby.