300 days

Kelly has been gone 300 days today. Only about 2 months left.

Birthday Celebration

Tonight we celebrated Kelly's mom's birthday (her 75th) and his brother Leland's birthday. Leland drove from the Bay area to attend the festivities. Kelly was able to call and talk to both of them so that was awesome as well. It was wonderful to get to catch up with the extended family, haven't seen some of them since Christmas. As Kelly is the #10 child out of 11 total, as you can imagine when I say "EXTENDED FAMILY" I really mean it! I think that Julia is the 39th grandchild and Kenneth is the 41st or something like that.

Looking forward to attending family events together again, only 2 months left.

Happy birthday, Mom and Lee!

General Al Atiya's Beach House

Well, out of the thousands of people here at the base, I was one of a few hundred that got picked to go spend the day at the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces beach house. It was an amazingly fun day, although it took over 5 hours to actually get to the beach house from the time we reported in the morning. Problems with the buses and some road construction really delayed things. You can see a pic of Gilbert and me on the 2 hour bus ride there. Gil and I are in the same organization and we both play volleyball, so it was great to have someone I knew to hang out with.

The first thing I got to do was play with a cheetah, who is just a big kitty. Turns out my magic fingers work on big cats as well, she was purring and licking my hand just like our cat Heather after a few moments.

I got to ride a camel, which was not as much fun. I had previously rode a camel in Egypt when visiting the pyramids, which was a blast, however, on this camel ride the guide started us trotting at a good pace. Unfortunately, you sit right on the camel's lower spine, and there was only a blanket for padding, the saddle is just a hoop that keeps you from falling backwards. So you bounce up and slam down on hard camel bone when the camel gets going. Not fun at all, especially if you are wearing saltwater damp swim shorts. So, today parts of me are sore and blistered that I didn't even know existed.

They had a traditional Arab hunting tent set up with all the carpets and pillows inside, with a big fire warming up the tea on the outside. A number of peole just crashed and took naps. There were about 8 trained hunting Falcons on on display as well. These were beautiful birds. If you sat for a while, they would allow you to have one on your arm. I didn't do this activity, probably better I didn't since I was covered in Cheetah fur, which might have spooked the Falcon. Their talons are deadly looking...

The most fun I had though was the WaveRunner watercraft (aka SeaDoo). Within 30 seconds I decided we were getting one as soon as we get to Monterey. They are such a blast, insanely fast and just too much fun to be legal. I just have to figure out a way to make velcro suits to stick the kids to me so they don't fly off. They also had ATVs available to ride and big fishing boats, but I didn't really have time to do those activities.

I did go swimming in the Persian Gulf for some exercise, the water was surprisingly pleasant still, probably 75 degrees? I also spent a lot of time catching up with a friend of mine that I ran into from Nellis AFB, Las Vegas. We were TDY for two weeks together at a Maple Flag exercise in Alberta, Canada back in 2003 and I haven't seen him since then. Small Air Force I guess.

I got to practice my Arabic with a number of people, which was a lot of fun. It is really amazing when someone actually understands what you are saying and you can have a limited conversation. After a while of talking, a whole bunch of vocabulary I haven't used in 15 years came flooding back, so I'm hopeful more of it is still up there.

I also ate way too many traditional Arab sweets like baklava and filo pastries, which wasn't hard to do because they just had tables and tables of the stuff for lunch. They even had people making fresh crepes that they would fill with Nutella style chocolate, delicious...

The Grand Finale of the day was the very nice sit down dinner. The General set up a huge tent that seats at least 200, and everyone changed back into their nicer clothes for that. The most interesting item for dinner was camel, which tastes ok, the piece I got was kind of fatty. There also was different kinds of lamb, beef, hummus, rice, pita bread, persian bread, pasta, fruits, and a huge selection of desserts, including a "malwi sakhin" which is a hot arabic bread pudding which was just amazing.

The night before I went out and ran 5 miles so I wouldn't have to feel guilty about indulging while at the beach house, and today I spent an hour on the elliptical machine on level 19, so hopefully I burned it all off.

Well, I'm already back to day to day drudgery of work, but it was great to have a day of fun to break it up. Very grateful to General Al Atiya for his hospitality. The best thing is, there is only 2 months of this deployment left, I can feel the end is near...

Vintage Julia

With Julia's 6th birthday coming soon, I was feeling nostalgic today. These are my favorite pictures of her. She was 21 months old, we were in Germany at the time. I was looking at these and wondering where Kenneth was - but of course he wasn't here yet. He wouldn't come along for more than a year from these pics! I can barely remember Julia being an only child - although when she is grumpy she makes sure she fills me in on all the details about how great it was.

Oh the things that go on here...

Just say NO, baby!
Indulging in his addiction

The aftermath: 5 minutes later

...at 11 pm no less! Hee hee.

I had a tooth pulled yesterday so I was kind of scared to go to bed, ya know sometimes when you lay down THATS when it really starts to hurt you. Kenneth was up with me, he is at that age where he is in between needing a nap some days and then other days he doesn't - but on the days when he DOES nap he isn't tired until like, oh midnight or so. So yesterday he napped which turned out nice because I wasn't too excited to go to bed because of the tooth, so it was nice to have the company.

Finally around 11:30 I decide I should quit being a baby and just go to bed, Kenneth is starting to finally show some signs of tiredness so we headed upstairs to call it a night. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I hear "CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH" I thought what on earth could that be?

I walk back into the bedroom to find Kenneth sitting in my bed eating an apple...he had brought one upstairs with him. Anyone who knows Kenneth well knows his passion for apples (specifically the huge Fugi apples from Whole Foods). It was so funny and cute I had to snap some pictures. Remarkably he did a good job and was very neat, I was expecting to be rolling over half eaten apple all over my sheets all night, but it was fine.

My mom regularly brings him 5 lb bags of apples - so does that make her his "dealer?" Enabler, thy name is GRANDMA!

From today

These were taken at church. Just good ol' random cuteness for ya. By the way Kenneth stole my bagel. Oh well carbs aren't my friend anyway.

The pic with all the kids is the Kindergarten class I teach at church and my assistant, Aggie. It's neat to have Julia with me in Sunday School, we have a lot of fun. Kenneth is having a lot of fun in his class as well, and it is good for him to play with lots of other kids.

Loved this...

Before I was a Mom,
I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on. (well this happened a few times before the kids)
Pooped on. Chewed on. Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child so doctors could do tests. Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache, the wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom..
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom.

"anonymous"