Halloween

Many Halloween parties were to be had while we were in Alaska. We love us some Halloween parties! There's a great costume shop near my parents home known to only a few. A lady has an extensive collection in her three car garage. No cars. Hardly any standing room either. We found a little duck costume for Lillian that served us well for the first party. This gave us (my mom) enough time to make her costume for the last party a week later. A party with a fabulous bon fire and fireworks!

Thank you to all my siblings who had wonderful parties and amazing food. Thank you to my mom for making the adorable panda costume. We had a great Halloween!

A room with a view

Baby and I are visiting the lovely State of Alaska for a few weeks. We kissed the dog goodbye and headed to snow and beauty. THIS was the view out our room the first morning!

Which, hello, is the best view ever! Thank you JD and Caitlin for letting us stay with you, enjoy your amazing view and sharing your Life cereal. It's an awesome way to wake up.

Not only did the dog lick us goodbye as we left but the crocuses came out to bid their farewell. Look at all the color! This year all the colors shared the stage.

Remember that one Spring I complained about the crocuses making an appearance based on color. Only one color at a time decided to grace the yard. And I complained about it. Who in their right mind complains about flowers? No one, that's who. No one in their right mind complains about beauty in the world. That post now stands as testimony of my temporary bouts of not sane.

It's wonderful to live in such a beautiful world. Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy your beautiful Spring where ever you are.

Girls trip

A number of years ago while I was in the financial grasp of higher education my mother, sisters and I rarely saw each other at the same time. Though I traveled back to the grand State of Alaska every summer it was to exotic places like Shemya, Reddog Mine and Kensington. There were seasons where contact with my family was limited to thank you notes for the use of a shower during midnight drive-by's. All us canny girls decided this lack of true interaction must stop. Thus, the Girls Trip was born.

This is from our first trip.

Here we are a few weeks ago outside the Orlando Temple.
(The color scheme in the Celestial Room is purple and green. Usually I'm most opposed to purple, however, this was delightfully elegant.)

Till this year our trips have been within the State of Alaska. This time we broke our geographical bonds and met up in Florida. Spending time with my mom and sisters was wonderful! We had a great time eating amazing foods, visiting water parks, applying copious amounts of sunscreen then promptly sweating it all off, taking pictures in every lighting, angle and pose conceivable and just being together. It was a marvelous week.

The fireworks at the Magical Kingdom and Epcot Center were great, though a wee bit crowded. If there had been a suggestion box, I would advise more seating options at the Magical Kingdom. The sidewalk got a little hard after a while. The Epcot center was more accommodating even if a pagoda was slightly in the way of the show.

Pastries in Paris are a must if you're ever in the area. I just hope the French girl filling my order for the third time within two hours was too busy to recognise me. Maybe putting my hair up, down and then in a hat worked.

To dodge the Florida heat and humidity, large amounts of cold desserts were consumed. Ghirardelli's did not escape our mob descending on their air conditioning and devouring some great ice cream. Here is where I would like to write that all four of us ate this boat of sweetness. Hmm... not so much though. I pretty much had all of it.

After scoffing at lines of people standing in the sun to get signatures and pictures with Disney characters I trampled a little girl in a princess dress and tiara to get to the Beast. Her prince charming must have been busy at the October Fest. How could I not pass up an opportunity to kiss the Beast? What character would you go out of your way to meet?

Long before our arrival each of us picked one eating establishment and one activity that we could not leave without completing. What a great system! There was no way to see everything and this way no one whined about their ideas being shot down like guinea fowl. For my birthday we ate at the Rainforest Cafe. I tried to call Dave during one of the thunderstorms so he could hear the elephants and lions roaring. It didn't work so much. We went to a show of my choosing that would not have been possible without Dave's birthday present to me of his June allowance. Thank you, Honey! You're the best!

Look at what they got me for my birthday cake! It even had a candle somewhere in the oohey gooey foot-high greatness. Now, this we all ate. I don't think there was a crumb left.

This is evidence for my drums instructor that I did practice while on vacation.

In my absence Dave purchased Rock Band. "Honey, now you can practice all the time." What things have your spouses managed to sneak into the house while you were away?

Thanks for a great week girls! Can't wait till next time.

What's Cookin?

Gosh. Is it April already?

I have so much stuff to blog about! The biggest news is that Valli is pregnant. And what is even better is that it's mine! We are at about 15 weeks now. For all of you who don't know what that means (like me), we don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet. We find out in week 20. It had better be a boy, that's all I'm saying. From what Valli has tried to explain, it seems our baby is a 4 inch long turd-shaped, wriggling, thumb-sucking, meat-wad with a discernible neck.

Valli is doing great. She wasn't ever super-ill so we are grateful for that. In case you wanted to know, I handled the first trimester like a champ. I was never sick and the energy levels were through the roof. I think I even lost a couple pounds.

Meat-wad's suspected birthday going to be some time in early October. These are some of the things I want our baby to have for its birthday: a Nintendo Wii, a Remington 300 Ultra Magnum, the 3rd season of My Name Is Earl, and numchucks. Valli wouldn't ask for anything unless it was life and death. Not even for her first baby. But you can trust me that she agrees with everything I've written

Deuces, y'all.

Daddy's Home!!

I'M BACK! And I love America. It's the best. I haven't sat down to write a blog because I've been to busy having fun, and I forgot all about it. Valli is at a lathe class so instead of pinning I'll write a blog about being home.

I got back to Ft Campbell around 8pm on the 23rd of December. Happy Birthday Joseph Smith, Lindsay Firth, and a bunch of other people not listed att. After 4 hours of time-wasting bullcrap I got to go home. The Army sucks. Literally, who on Earth wants to listen to the crappy band, sing the crappy Army Song, and be speached at about 'How great it is to have us back, now don't kill yourself or get sent to jail the first night back' for four hours, after sitting in airplane and airfields for 30 hours while our families are waiting in bleachers. Army: you suck for that. Suck. Anyway, after that mess I had seven days of repatriation/paperwork/dont-kill-anyone-including-yourself-beat-your-wife-drink-and-drive-drink-and-anything speaches.

I told you I was busy having fun. Now that that worthless crapfest is over with I have finally started my vacation. I have 30 days of Army-free bliss to spend doing all the things I've been waiting for. It's been awesome. Valli posted the bike pictures already- which is uber-cool, but not the best thing. The BEST thing is being with Valli, and includes a billion smaller reasons rolled up together.

Other best things about being home are:

Peace and Quiet. I could go on and on about the one. But I'll just say that Afghanistan was a very noisy place.

The House. Valli has done so much work on the house that I hardly recognise it. The bathroom is awesome and the eternal hot water is awesome and the new kitchen counters and cabinets and no more crappy carpet and crappy panelling is awesome too.

The huge truck Valli bought.

Christmas Holidays and rad gifts like friggin-awesome fuzzy slippers, REI gift certificates, and a monster gas grill. Also, Jenny- your gift is almost done, I swear I'll have it sent by February. And Ed, sorry man, not this year either.

Cooking my beautiful cow. He is so delicious.

Not working. There are no words.

Not being in Afghanistan. Way too many words.

The. Bike. Is. AWESOME!!! In case you also want one now, it's a Yamaha RoadStar Warrior 1700, and it has a ton of power! Who knew? Apparently not the insurance company because the premiums are so cheap! About a quarter of what they were for the last one. It is so sexy and loud and fast and shiny and cold to ride on in January but I DON'T CARE! I just bundle up and suffer because it so much fun!

The list has to end somewhere and I guess this will work, but I could go on and on. Being home is wonderful, and Valli and I are doing great, and if I haven't got around to calling you yet you are not alone because I've hardly called anyone. But I love you guys and hope you are having at least as good a time as I am, if not better.

R and R

I'm back!

My vacation was awesome. I can hardly describe how great it was to be back in Alaska for the last 20 days. I didnt get to do all the things I wanted, and I didnt get to see half the people I wanted, but still had such a wonderful time.

Before I left Bagram, and again in Kuwait, we were repeatedly warned that things will have changed while we've been gone. Expect things to be awkward for the first few days. These little pep talks were always at least an hour long and included a detailed list of activities that were prohibited. Ironicly, I always had the impression that they expected us to go out and do them all anyway. Such as- drinking and driving, going to jail, doing drugs, spousal abuse, murder, tackling and detaining american citizens of middle eastern ancestry. Personally I never had a desired to do any of these things. In fact, once I landed in Anchorage I didn't feel any akwardness at all. It was great.

I had such a good time. I could go on and on about all the fun stuff I got to do- but I won't. I will say that I got to eat great pizza and other wonderful foods, I went kayaking in Seward, 4-bying in Palmer, rafting in Denali, rollerbladed through the solar system, and hung out with some of the best people you would ever want to meet.

I'm not happy to be back in Afghanistan. But it's not so bad.

The Fathers Day Special

Happy Fathers Day!

Fathers are so important. So influencial. So essential.
Mine is great. The best I could ever ask for. I've been thinking about some of the moments from my life that my dad has really come through for me, or taught me a valuable lesson, that I am really thankful for.

Like the time when I was 8 and he picked me up from the police station after I ran away in the middle of the night and started a fire in the woods while he and my mom were on a date. We had a good talk about choices and responsibility. The thing that stuck with me the most from that talk was that he didn't kill me- as I felt I deserved- And I knew that he really loved me.

When I was 11 he helped me get a paper route for the Daily Republic to teach me the value of work, self-reliance, and the feeling of accomplishment from recieving my very own paycheck. I was a terrible paperboy and he frequently had to help me do the route, or go over it to fix my mistakes. Putting the papers on the porch was just too boring after a while.

He was always involved in the Boy Scout program when I was, and taught me how to do manly things like camp, fish, make fires (big mistake), fix flat tires, first aid, how to build and fix stuff, and he set an example of service and preparedness and all those other scouty qualities.

He went with me my first time in court. I swore that I didn't know anything about that forest fire I started. I had to do it with my hand on the Holy Bible in front of a judge. I was only 10 and I knew if I told the truth that me and my whole family would go to jail. So I lied, the fire started itself. And prayed that God wouldnt just smite me straight to hell, and promised Him I'd never do it again. It was the most scared I have ever been, and Dad was there to support me.

My Dad carried me to emergency room when I tripped on some stairs and busted a hole through my lip. And again when I busted my head open on the elementry school rope that we weren't ever supposed to swing on. And patched me up over and over when I would come home mangled because I did something stupid.

My dad was the tallest, smartest, toughest, funniest, coolest person alive. He was Indiana Jones. He was He-man. He was a force for good.

He consoled me after I lost my first school fight.

He helped me do all my science projects and taught me how to do impossible things, like add fractions and spin a quarter with one hand.

He was my first home teaching companion and taught me the meaning of duty and magnifying your calling.

He taught me how to deal with dissappointment, how to stick things out, and how to keep my sense of humor. He taught me respect for women. He introduced me to spicy food, rock and roll, grilling, and martial arts movies- some of the greatest pleasures in life.

And that's not the half of it. The list goes on and on and on.

So thanks Dad, and thanks to all good dads and father figures everywhere. I love you. I appreciate you. I want to be like you. Happy Fathers Day!

And now, a quick vid for all you patient and supportive dads out there.