First off I would like to thank all the amazing people who make N4M work. We just returned from my son's PIR and it was amazing. The journey was so much better because of all the information, guidance, and support I found here.

If you are new to this site the best thing I can tell you is READ EVERYTHING! They have gathered all of the information you need to know to make it through the 8-9 weeks and made it available here. 99% of your questions can be answered in the information provided. Special thanks to Lemonelephant, CatMom and Diannep for all their guidance and support. When I was at PIR people kept coming to me for information because I had learned so much here :)

If your SR has not yet left for Great Lakes I would strongly suggest you use the information provided about the last 30 days. Set up their bank account (NFCU is great) get their affairs in order, prepare their wallet, make sure they have addresses and stamps and get a re-loadable phone card. They will give them some but believe me, you don't want them to run out of minutes in the middle of a precious phone call.

If you have an Anchors Aweigh party, have guests write cards or notes that you can send on to your SR while they are at GL. I had blank note cards and pens, stickers and stamps/ink pads set up for people to create cards and then sent them one at a time while he was at RTC.

Once they leave it is like a black hole and that is the hardest part. My son was away at college so I thought I was going to be prepared, but it is really different because you know you cannot contact your SR whenever you want. Waiting for the box and the form letter was the hardest part for me. Reaching out to others here on N4M and the Facebook page really helped a lot. Just be mindful of OPESEC / PERSEC. In the end we created a "secret" FB group that was only available by invitation for our division. These ties helped throughout the whole time he was there and made for a wonderful PIR experience when we got together.

WRITE, WRITE, WRITE! You will see this over and over in the discussions. Letters are gold. I wrote a letter every day starting with the day he left. I numbered them on the envelope and as soon as I got his address I mailed them all and then at least one a day. I wrote about anything and everything. I printed out silly picture, cartoons, sports scores, pictures of the dog, anything. I found cheap cards. It really doesn't matter. I also found a list of inspirational quotes and added one to the end of each letter I wrote. In addition he received letters from his sister, GF, Father and friends and family. He said he got the most mail in the division and no matter how crappy his day was, when mail call came, he always had something.

Get ready for PIR! That is exciting and gives you something to do! Order PIR ribbons from Unique Memory Makers, they are made by one of the FB administrators and they are great. Buy or make yourself a blue candle. You can order Navy gear from Armed Forces Gear and there are really nice challenge coins available at PIR Gifts and also on Ebay and Amazon. They also sell Boot Camp challenge coins at PIR. I actually had a basket set aside with a list of things to make sure not to forget. You will read about good ideas from lots of different sources, this will make sure you don't forget anything. (Camera, chargers, memory cards, lint rollers, IDs, etc.) Oh and remember to make a poster or create something to display on your door.

Go to Sarge's Meet and Greet. He is a great guy and it is a fun way to meet everyone you have been talking to in cyber space. 

There are a lot of great hotels in the area and many have discounts for Navy families. I would personally recommend renting a car. It gave us a lot of flexibility the whole weekend. If you fly Southwest join their Rapid Rewards (if you are not already a member). A week before PIR they sent an offer for a full size car for under $13/day! Just be ready to be flexible about what you will be doing. Our Sailor had been in a push division and completed BS21 on Thur morning and then had PIR practice. When he called we were already in GL and he was EXHAUSTED. We spent a lot of the weekend hanging out in our hotel room watching football (Army - Navy game / Go Navy!) and talking. 

That brings up another point. Our Sailor stayed at GL and was informed that he couldn't go to the Navy Lodge (or the Gateway) and that they wouldn't give a chit to go. No reason given but it effected about 4 or 5 families that I know of including us. I don't believe this happens often and it certainly did not effect anyone not staying in GL. The point is, you need to be able to go with the flow. We easily found another hotel and Navy Lodge was very accommodating about giving us a refund.

PIR is amazing! Just make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to get there. We left at 6:15 and there was already a line. The best advice is to stay in the left lane, pass the entrance and turn around. You can then easily make the left turn in to graduation. Saved us a good 30-40 minutes. Where you sit is dependent upon where your sailor is (they can tell you when the make the I'm a sailor call.) My son was AROC for his division so I knew he would be up front. We sat less then 20 feet in front of him. He said later he was absolutely shocked to see us so close :) But if your Sailor is further back you might want to sit higher up. They have a sign in front of where each division will line up. It gets warm in there! We ended up not having to spend any real time outside either so it was quite comfortable even though it was December.

So now we are home and we move on to the next step in this grand adventure. I will be leaving the Boot Camp group and moving over to our A School "family." It has sometimes felt like forever but now looking back it seems like it was over in a flash and I am a proud Navy Mom. So good luck to everyone here. God bless all of the people who work so hard to help us through this process. HOOYAH!!!