I apologize updating this blog has been so sporadic now!
The good news is that things have been going great. R successfully completed Phase 3 and Phase 4 and has officially been off break-in for 2 weeks, doing solo shifts. He LOVES patrolling solo and I can honestly say life after break-in has been wonderful. We were lucky enough the R didn't require any extensions on break-in and his FTOs (field training officers) were all great guys who took a liking to R. After break-in, he got admin-assigned to day shift for the next two months (to give them solo time patrolling during the day, to get acquainted with the beats prior to night shift solo) but likelihood of us getting night shift next quarter are high.
I'm trying not to get too attached to our currently schedule but it is my FAVORITE schedule so far. He is working weekend days (Fri, Sat, Sun with alternating Thurs) which I was originally very nervous about, losing our weekends and the ability to see friends and family on their days off. Luckily for us, we have quite a few friends who also work weekends so we still get to have fun during the weekdays. And lemme tell ya, the grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon is a dream compared to Sunday. Luckily R loves this shift too, he enjoys day shift patrol and really likes the guys on this team.
During break-in, because his office works 12s, they would occasionally have a week with 5 days off in a row. During one of these breaks, we went down to Disneyland and ended up meeting up with 4 of his cadet-turned-officer friends from his CTC and their wives/girlfriends. It was such a blast reminiscing about how far they've come from starting the academy in August 2014 and talking about the exciting things they'd encountered on the job. I'm so happy we made those connections on Facebook (the wives Facebook group for our CTC) and that the men kept in touch because I think those are connections we will treasure for a very long time. We're even invited to the wedding of one of the cadet-turned-officers R met at the academy.
Since R finished break-in, CTC IV-14 graduated! Congratulations to the new officers and families on the big achievement. We were especially excited because our office got 6 new officers (which is good news because it moves us ever so slowly up the seniority ladder). And just last week CTC II-15 started, so if any of you are reading this blog, welcome! It feels like an eternity ago that we were starting our journey into the academy but at the same time, it passes faster than you could ever imagine! If any of you family members, wives, moms, etc are reading from either CTC I-15 or CTC II-15 classes are reading, I promise you will survive this process! It does get better. :)
Everyday, R and I look at each other and we can't believe how much has changed in a year. But it's been the best year of our lives and everyday we talk about how blessed we are to be part of the CHP family. It truly has been quite the journey.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Phase 2 of Break-in
Every week I turn to R and say, "I really should update that blog soon." Well better late than never right?
So we're actually closer to the end of Phase 2 (Phases being 15 working days long) and we did indeed switch to graves. For his particular office, he works from 5:00 pm to 5:00 am. We got lucky enough that he started graves on a Tuesday (after a weekend) so the transition was easier than we thought it'd be. We simply stayed up as late as we could, which for us was 4:00 am that day and then slept until 1 pm. And yes, I switched to his sleep schedule too. Since my job allows me flexible hours to work at anytime, we didn't see any reason to keep separate schedules. Might as well roll with it while we can!
We calculated it and R gets more sleep on graves. During the day shift, we would stay up later than we should for various reasons but on graves, we sleep ASAP.We also generally sleep better on graves. The only caveat was those first few days before we bought blackout curtains. One of the reasons we fell in love with our apartment was the numerous windows and amount of natural light, but it's not quite as desirable on graves. Working graves? BUY BLACKOUT CURTAINS!
The downside is how bizarre our eating schedule is. We eat "breakfast" together at 1:30 pm but we eat meals I made for dinner (which I prep in the middle of the night). It took 3 weeks before we ate an actual breakfast meal during the week!
Graves brings a lot more experience in DUI and the field sobriety tests. R has arrested/tested multiple people on shift. There's fewer incidents/accidents too naturally because there's usually less people on the road. Graves has brought on a few more interesting stories of people he encounters but R is still enjoying the work. And he's learning a lot, especially about his area.
One of my favorite date nights, R and I drove the area his office patrols and he showed me all the places of interest. It was fun seeing all the streets he mentions every night and it really demonstrated how far these guys go from the academy. I'm so proud of him!
For Phase 3, we're sticking with graves so we've got at least another month of our crazy schedule. For the most part, I still stand by what I said previously about break-in, it is easier than the academy. Even though we only get 2 awake hours together on the days he works, it's still better than our weekend-only time when he was at the academy.
Thanks for checking in! Here's to phase 2.
So we're actually closer to the end of Phase 2 (Phases being 15 working days long) and we did indeed switch to graves. For his particular office, he works from 5:00 pm to 5:00 am. We got lucky enough that he started graves on a Tuesday (after a weekend) so the transition was easier than we thought it'd be. We simply stayed up as late as we could, which for us was 4:00 am that day and then slept until 1 pm. And yes, I switched to his sleep schedule too. Since my job allows me flexible hours to work at anytime, we didn't see any reason to keep separate schedules. Might as well roll with it while we can!
We calculated it and R gets more sleep on graves. During the day shift, we would stay up later than we should for various reasons but on graves, we sleep ASAP.We also generally sleep better on graves. The only caveat was those first few days before we bought blackout curtains. One of the reasons we fell in love with our apartment was the numerous windows and amount of natural light, but it's not quite as desirable on graves. Working graves? BUY BLACKOUT CURTAINS!
The downside is how bizarre our eating schedule is. We eat "breakfast" together at 1:30 pm but we eat meals I made for dinner (which I prep in the middle of the night). It took 3 weeks before we ate an actual breakfast meal during the week!
Graves brings a lot more experience in DUI and the field sobriety tests. R has arrested/tested multiple people on shift. There's fewer incidents/accidents too naturally because there's usually less people on the road. Graves has brought on a few more interesting stories of people he encounters but R is still enjoying the work. And he's learning a lot, especially about his area.
One of my favorite date nights, R and I drove the area his office patrols and he showed me all the places of interest. It was fun seeing all the streets he mentions every night and it really demonstrated how far these guys go from the academy. I'm so proud of him!
For Phase 3, we're sticking with graves so we've got at least another month of our crazy schedule. For the most part, I still stand by what I said previously about break-in, it is easier than the academy. Even though we only get 2 awake hours together on the days he works, it's still better than our weekend-only time when he was at the academy.
Thanks for checking in! Here's to phase 2.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Month 1 of Break-In
Wow, I can hardly believe we're almost a month down. I apologize for the lack of updates!
So R started break-in and it's been a whirlwind so far. He enjoys his office and he likes the officers he's met. He's well acquainted with his FTO (Field Training Officer) and he is learning A LOT. The academy was great preparation for learning at a quick pace but being out on the road entails a lot more than they could have taught in the classroom environment. The main areas R focuses on learning is knowing the beats his office is responsible for (the roads or freeway segments they drive) and filling out forms with speed and accuracy.
So far, R had written multiple tickets and answered numerous calls to accidents on the road. His schedule right now is 12 hour shifts and since he's paired with a senior officer, he's working weekdays. It's the best possible schedule right now but we know not to get comfortable since he will definitely be working graves and likely weekends once break-in is over. But we can enjoy it while it lasts!
For our office, break-in works in 4 phases. Each phases lasts approximately 15 working days and each phase is with a different FTO except the 1st and 4th phase, in which R will return to his initial FTO to determine if he's ready to handle the road on his own.
So those are the logistics but how is it really going?
Overall, it's going great! R loves what he's doing, he's learning a lot and I can already tell it's a career he's going to really enjoy. Having 3 day or 4 day weekends has been such a treat compared to our 48 hour weekends we had in the academy, plus he comes home every night for a home cooked meal and gets to sleep in our comfy bed. It is LIGHTYEARS better than academy life. For any of you wives or family members reading this with cadets who are starting the academy or are currently in it, I can tell you life after the academy has been much easier on the two of us so far. But then again, we haven't started graves yet so I'll update you when that time comes.
There were a lot of people that warned us about how stressful break-in would be and how it might be tougher than academy life. For us, that's not the case. R does come home with work at night but just being able to be at home to do it, is a vast improvement from academy living. If he has a hard day at work, knowing he can come home to decompress is a huge relief. And boy lemme tell ya, I'm so THANKFUL they taught these men to function on so little sleep at the academy, because on the days they work, they don't have much time to sleep. I know I rest easier knowing that he can function well on the job with only 5-6 hours of sleep, and I really appreciate the academy training for that.
Lastly, we love living in the East Bay! Our new apartment is worth every penny and we love being home because it has wonderful amenities. There's so many wonderful things to do in or around the Bay and R and I are so thankful to still be close to home if want to make a weekend trip.
So there's a little update for now, I'll try to be better about popping in here!
So R started break-in and it's been a whirlwind so far. He enjoys his office and he likes the officers he's met. He's well acquainted with his FTO (Field Training Officer) and he is learning A LOT. The academy was great preparation for learning at a quick pace but being out on the road entails a lot more than they could have taught in the classroom environment. The main areas R focuses on learning is knowing the beats his office is responsible for (the roads or freeway segments they drive) and filling out forms with speed and accuracy.
So far, R had written multiple tickets and answered numerous calls to accidents on the road. His schedule right now is 12 hour shifts and since he's paired with a senior officer, he's working weekdays. It's the best possible schedule right now but we know not to get comfortable since he will definitely be working graves and likely weekends once break-in is over. But we can enjoy it while it lasts!
For our office, break-in works in 4 phases. Each phases lasts approximately 15 working days and each phase is with a different FTO except the 1st and 4th phase, in which R will return to his initial FTO to determine if he's ready to handle the road on his own.
So those are the logistics but how is it really going?
Overall, it's going great! R loves what he's doing, he's learning a lot and I can already tell it's a career he's going to really enjoy. Having 3 day or 4 day weekends has been such a treat compared to our 48 hour weekends we had in the academy, plus he comes home every night for a home cooked meal and gets to sleep in our comfy bed. It is LIGHTYEARS better than academy life. For any of you wives or family members reading this with cadets who are starting the academy or are currently in it, I can tell you life after the academy has been much easier on the two of us so far. But then again, we haven't started graves yet so I'll update you when that time comes.
There were a lot of people that warned us about how stressful break-in would be and how it might be tougher than academy life. For us, that's not the case. R does come home with work at night but just being able to be at home to do it, is a vast improvement from academy living. If he has a hard day at work, knowing he can come home to decompress is a huge relief. And boy lemme tell ya, I'm so THANKFUL they taught these men to function on so little sleep at the academy, because on the days they work, they don't have much time to sleep. I know I rest easier knowing that he can function well on the job with only 5-6 hours of sleep, and I really appreciate the academy training for that.
Lastly, we love living in the East Bay! Our new apartment is worth every penny and we love being home because it has wonderful amenities. There's so many wonderful things to do in or around the Bay and R and I are so thankful to still be close to home if want to make a weekend trip.
So there's a little update for now, I'll try to be better about popping in here!
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Graduation day!
What an incredible day! As I type, R has been sleeping for nearly 4 hours and I imagine he'll sleep through the night too. Time to catch on 6 months of sleep! I turned off all the lights, tucked him in and started the arduous process of cleaning our apartment for the final move out this weekend.
Graduation was such an incredible day and one I know I will never forget. While this blog was primarily kept to update friends and family, I know there are other readers (maybe people from future cadet classes) so I want to go back and review the days leading up to graduation, as well as the day itself in future posts to come.
I also plan to continue to write about break-in and how R is doing post-academy. So stay tuned!
WE MADE IT!
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
15 days left! (Week 25)
Typing out 15 days was such a wake up call! I can't believe how close we are.
Here's what's happened since our last update:
- Final Spanish certification
- Testing for bilingual status... and get this? R passed :) So he will be a certified bilingual officer which means we get some extra monthly pay and have higher priority for transfer. He was SO proud of passing and we had some tasty tacos to celebrate.
- Company A got tear gassed 2 weekends ago, which R still says doesn't compare to the OC (pepper) spray.
- Then last weekend, they got to practice driving the Ford Explorers.
- They also had their final Report for Grade test, which included 8 hours scheduled for report writing. It took R and his roommates less than 8 hours but it was still quite a long test. And he passed!
All of week 25 so far has been EMS training. They've become CPR certified, learned how to triage and tourniquet, etc. It's awesome they essentially get all this training for free. Since we're in the home stretch, the weeks seem to feel longer and longer but overall, we couldn't be happier to be this close to the end.
We also managed to finally decide on an apartment in Walnut Creek and we're ready to move! It's a mixture of excitement to start our new chapter but also sadness because we love Sacramento so much. Moving-wise, the weekend of the 21st is the first Saturday they don't have Saturday classes so we're making our major move that weekend. Then we'll keep only the essentials in Sacramento while he finishes up graduation week.
In less than 3 weeks, R and I will have moved out of Sacramento and into the East Bay to start our life as part of the law enforcement family!!
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
30 days to go! (Week 23)
Down to 30 days left of R's time at the academy and we couldn't be more excited!
After the cadet's got their assignments, they tested on scenarios. Despite being 21 weeks in, R was definitely nervous for scenarios, since we knew they were one of the last major tests that they could fail out on. We were so relieved when R passed all of them, as did his roommates!
Since then, the cadets have been finishing up the LDs, which are their academic classes on law enforcement topics. They certified on their night shooting and finished up Spanish PMA as well. It's been a series of long days for these cadets as their time at the academy is coming to an end.
This past weekend was the big ride along, where all the cadets got to visit their new offices! R and I were so pleased that Hayward was just a car ride away and it gave us a great opportunity to look for new housing in the East Bay. On Friday we did a test drive to the Hayward office and on Saturday R spent the day there.
I was so excited for R that I barely slept the night before his ride along and when he got ready to leave at 7:15, I was wide awake and ready to kiss him goodbye. He looked SO handsome in his cadet blues with his brass name plate and radio. I was beaming with joy as I wished him luck on his day ahead.
He came home Saturday night (after spending 8 hours at his office) SO excited to tell me everything they did that day. He loved his office and said all the officers were very nice. He was also very happy with the beats he was shown because they were fairly easy to remember and they didn't include any unincorporated areas. So good news overall! I think Hayward will be a good fit for us.
It's hard to believe that in a little over a month, R will be an officer with the California Highway Patrol. We're so incredibly lucky to have gotten this opportunity and I hope you all are as proud as I am that R made it through!
Cheers to the final 30 days and starting this new chapter in our lives!
After the cadet's got their assignments, they tested on scenarios. Despite being 21 weeks in, R was definitely nervous for scenarios, since we knew they were one of the last major tests that they could fail out on. We were so relieved when R passed all of them, as did his roommates!
Since then, the cadets have been finishing up the LDs, which are their academic classes on law enforcement topics. They certified on their night shooting and finished up Spanish PMA as well. It's been a series of long days for these cadets as their time at the academy is coming to an end.
This past weekend was the big ride along, where all the cadets got to visit their new offices! R and I were so pleased that Hayward was just a car ride away and it gave us a great opportunity to look for new housing in the East Bay. On Friday we did a test drive to the Hayward office and on Saturday R spent the day there.
I was so excited for R that I barely slept the night before his ride along and when he got ready to leave at 7:15, I was wide awake and ready to kiss him goodbye. He looked SO handsome in his cadet blues with his brass name plate and radio. I was beaming with joy as I wished him luck on his day ahead.
He came home Saturday night (after spending 8 hours at his office) SO excited to tell me everything they did that day. He loved his office and said all the officers were very nice. He was also very happy with the beats he was shown because they were fairly easy to remember and they didn't include any unincorporated areas. So good news overall! I think Hayward will be a good fit for us.
It's hard to believe that in a little over a month, R will be an officer with the California Highway Patrol. We're so incredibly lucky to have gotten this opportunity and I hope you all are as proud as I am that R made it through!
Cheers to the final 30 days and starting this new chapter in our lives!
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Day 133 of 158 (Week 20) (Oops, I guess I forgot to publish this one!??!?!)
It's official, we know where we're headed.
R will be joining an office in the Golden Gate division!
We're very excited because it puts us less than 2 hours away from home and we've heard good things about the CHP team in the Bay area. We also have quite a few friends living in the East Bay area. We were ecstatic to finally receive confirmation to share with family and friends.
It's also nice to finally talk about graduation. Funny thing about R is how superstitious he is. For instance, last year we had to keep our Christmas tree up until early February because the Denver Broncos were winning all season while we had our tree up so it HAD to be up for the Superbowl. He's just a superstitious guy by nature. So for most of his time at the academy, we would talk about graduation in whispers only, so we don't jinx him. But as of week 18 when we received the dream sheets, we've started talking about what life will be like after graduation. I've been able to ponder aloud about how break-in will be and a possible mini graduation trip we're thinking of taking.
That's not to say there aren't more tests to pass in the next 7 weeks, there definitely are. There are still lots of reasons to send R good vibes and prayers to power through to the end. But after nearly 4 months of speaking in hushed tones, I'm so happy to be able to talk about graduation as a tangible event, happening in 48 days!
In terms of scenario testing this week, so far R has passed them all on his first attempt. He was particularly worried about the Crim Law scenarios yesterday but he passed them all and came home on liberty to have dinner with me so we could celebrate. They have 2-3 scenarios to do today and then Company A is done with them.
The downside of it being Week 20 is that it became a big week of cadet dismissal, with them losing 6 more cadets in their CTC this week to EVOC. My heart breaks for those cadets and their families, for the long journey they've taken, only to have it cut short. But I hope and pray they find the strength to come back to the academy, if they're called to do that.
Continue to keep R in your thoughts and thanks for hanging in with us on this journey!
R will be joining an office in the Golden Gate division!
We're very excited because it puts us less than 2 hours away from home and we've heard good things about the CHP team in the Bay area. We also have quite a few friends living in the East Bay area. We were ecstatic to finally receive confirmation to share with family and friends.
It's also nice to finally talk about graduation. Funny thing about R is how superstitious he is. For instance, last year we had to keep our Christmas tree up until early February because the Denver Broncos were winning all season while we had our tree up so it HAD to be up for the Superbowl. He's just a superstitious guy by nature. So for most of his time at the academy, we would talk about graduation in whispers only, so we don't jinx him. But as of week 18 when we received the dream sheets, we've started talking about what life will be like after graduation. I've been able to ponder aloud about how break-in will be and a possible mini graduation trip we're thinking of taking.
That's not to say there aren't more tests to pass in the next 7 weeks, there definitely are. There are still lots of reasons to send R good vibes and prayers to power through to the end. But after nearly 4 months of speaking in hushed tones, I'm so happy to be able to talk about graduation as a tangible event, happening in 48 days!
In terms of scenario testing this week, so far R has passed them all on his first attempt. He was particularly worried about the Crim Law scenarios yesterday but he passed them all and came home on liberty to have dinner with me so we could celebrate. They have 2-3 scenarios to do today and then Company A is done with them.
The downside of it being Week 20 is that it became a big week of cadet dismissal, with them losing 6 more cadets in their CTC this week to EVOC. My heart breaks for those cadets and their families, for the long journey they've taken, only to have it cut short. But I hope and pray they find the strength to come back to the academy, if they're called to do that.
Continue to keep R in your thoughts and thanks for hanging in with us on this journey!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)