we rolled in the mud and shot some guns

Today Christopher got me my very own brand-new uniform and I went to work with him for the Spouse Spur Ride. Here we are looking all cute before things got a little messy.

These are our friends Steve and Kayla. 

Kayla and I had only met briefly once before, but we made it our personal mission to do everything together. Apparently it was also our personal mission to have our picture taken at each and every possible moment.

After getting dressed in our husbands' gear, they put camouflage paint on our faces.

Here's the impressive high-tech board which outlined what was to happen during the obstacle course. The man explaining it pointed to each station as he spoke with an equally impressive and high-tech stick.

Our first obstical was to climb up and down one side of the rope wall.  

We then carried a sandbag over three walls... 

...and walked across the low balance beam.

Here we are walking across the first set of tires. Don't our sneakers just look oh so professional?

After the tires, we walked across the high elevated balance beam. At the end of the beam was a wall approximately 42 feet tall over which I went with an ease that would make Superman jealous. Or maybe it was 8 feet tall and Christopher had to push me up and I kind of tumbled over to the other side. 

It was after walking over more tires that things really started to get interesting. We were given more sandbags and told to roll them in front of us as we crawled under the ropes through the mud. The problem was that Christopher's helmet is slightly large and kept falling over my eyes so I really had no idea where I was in relation to the end of the mud pit. That explains why I kept right on crawling and rolling even after I was out.

Before we reached the end of the course, we walked in a zig-zag pattern and crawled through two small tunnels. We somehow missed the memo that we were supposed to carry the sandbags while we walked zig-zaggily which makes a whole ton more sense. 

And then we had to run and dive on our stomachs into a bigger mud pit. 

From the obstacle course we drove in some sort of tan Army vehicle (I don't remember its name) to, and Kayla and I were VERY excited about this part, the machine guns and Humvee. Please note the way we're holding the rounds. We were quite laid back about the whole string of bullets* thing. If we had been given more, we probably would have started laying them on top of our heads or possibly even wearing them like scarves. 

*they were blanks

We each took turns riding in the front and shooting the gun from the turret. Men were shooting at us from the woods and we were told to shot back. There was a small misunderstanding when I mistakenly shot at the lady videoing us because I thought she had a gun and I was trying to get her first. That's probably why I'm not a real soldier- I can't tell the difference between a gun and a video camera.

Here we are in the tan army vehicle with our friend Rachel. We decided that while our uniforms were immensely cool, they weren't pretty, hence the daisies. (I think that last sentence is another reason why we're not real soldiers.)

What you see below is photographic evidence of the great K & S team assembling a gun in under two minutes. Granted, it was only in four pieces but who's counting? Certainly not us.

With all the shooting experience from our time in the Humvee under our belts, we got to shoot guns again. The video lady was notably absent from the vicinity.  

At last, after great effort, blood, sweat and tears (and a lot of "WHY CAN WE ONLY DO THIS ONCE A YEAR? We want to do it again next week!" coming from two unnamed participants), we earned our spurs. All the wives lined up and the husbands pined them on our collars.    

So that's what I did today. Tumbled over walls, wore paint on my face, shot guns.

You know, all the normal stuff.