Overdue again!

So I just read Boni's latest blog via facebook and realized that it has been over a month(almost 2 months in fact) since I wrote anything on here.  SO a quick update from Speicher...it's dusty today...and I do mean dusty.  We heard from the weather guys early this morning that "severe dust" would be here by lunchtime. Lunchtime came and went with no dust and we were starting to feel pretty silly for hurrying up all of the missions.  Then I went into THE meeting...and lo and behold, 20 minutes later was severe dust everywhere!  It's so gross when it does this.  The dust just hangs in the air and then when it settles you make little dust clouds with your feet wherever you walk.  To make matters worse, our room isn't what you'd call exactly "sealed off from the outside", so dust comes into the room and settles on every available surface.  This means that all of the cleaning I did on my day off last week is now in vain.  Builds character though!  :)

For anyone that knows me well, this next story will come as NO surprise, but will make you giggle.  The other day we went flying and swung by the range so I could get a little target practice in.  After I shot all my bullets, I had to change ammo cans.  If you've ever done this before while flying along at 120 knots you know it's no small feat.  If you have never done this before, let me tell you, it's not small feat.  In order to get the weapon close enough to me to reload without risking dropping a full ammo can over the middle of nowhere, Iraq, I had to stick my foot out the window and push on the gun mount to relieve enough pressure to bring the mount close to the aircraft.  This led to FAIL #1...I got my foot stuck between the aircraft and the gun mount.  Luckily the wind was strong enough to KEEP my foot stuck while I reloaded. Don't worry folks, it didn't hurt...much.  Which brings us to FAIL #2, upon getting my foot unstuck and getting the gun mount back outside of the aircraft where it belongs I somehow managed to bang the top of my knee into the bottom of the ELT.  If you know what and ELT is, you know that this must have hurt.  If you don't know what an ELT is, it's a small black metal thing.  I promise that it was not a gentle bump and it did NOT tickle.  I now have a large purple bruise on my knee.  But the bruise could possible have come from FAIL #3.  After the flight was over I took my empty ammo can back to refill it.  I picked up the full ammo can and I swear it was as if my knee and the ammo can were two magnets.  For some odd reason I swung my arm and banged the full ammo can into my knee(at exactly the same place I had hit it earlier).  As previously mentioned, to those who know me and my accident prone ways, this story comes as no surprise.  I can assure you that Lyle was not surprised at all to hear of my wonderful day.

On that note, things are well with us.  We're staying busy.  Lyle and I have started doing Crossfit.  I whined a lot at first, but I'm starting to find that I really enjoy the workouts now.  Good thing Lyle never reads this because I'd never admit to him that I'm enjoying the workouts.  PS, If anyone can get the address to this blog to Mimi, I'd be ever so greatfull!  Hope everyone has a wonderful day and if you're in Iraq, watch out for the dust!  :)

Greetings from Brisbane!!!

So I've fallen a little behind, but no time like the present to get caught up!  We've been in Iraq for a little over a month now and were in Kuwait for about a month before that.  Everything is ok in Iraq, the food could be better (but it could also be alot worse).  The living areas are pretty nice and Lyle and I have plenty of room.  We finally got a tv delivered via walmart.com last week, but our cable seems to be a little shady.  So far all we can get is the Arabic version of CNN.  Ooops...  I work and work out and go to bed and wake up and do it again...Lyle works, and works, and works, and goes to bed and does it all over again.  Lyle and I decided to take our two week leave early in the deployment because we knew not a lot of people would want to go then and we'd have no problem getting to go together...which brings me to why I'm writing this in Australia!  Here shortly we will be getting ready to hop on a plane to go to Fiji to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary!  We're sooooo excited.  In the last 24 hours, we have visited 3 countries and have one more on the way for a total of a whole bunch of countries in one day's time frame.  We are very excited about visiting Fiji and can't wait to tell everyone all about it!  We love you guys!

Getting on the plane...

Well, the day has finally come when we get on the plane to head out of the country.  Lyle is already gone and the game of hurry up and wait has begun.   Right now everyone is sitting around watching a movie.  All I want is a nap.  I understand the Army's game of being ready on time and what not...but this is out of control.  I'm so bored but I don't want to use any of my electronic devices because I want to save the batteries for the exceptionallly long plane flight.  Once we get to the airport I think I might pull my iPad out if there is a charger nearby so I can have all the precious battery life I can.  I'm going to miss everyone and I'll be contacting people on Facebook as soon as I can.  Mimi has our address and if you don't have access to Mimi, just email me or send me a facebook message.  See ya'll in a few months! 

Happy New Year!!!

So it begins here:  Lyle and I are at Fort Hood getting ready to go on yet another adventure in the big sandbox overseas.  This time we're travelling together and I cannot wait to see how much fun this is going to be.  On one hand, at least we're not going to be seperated for a year.  On the other hand, we've never had to live together in such a confined space before.  I don't know how small the room is going to be there, I just know it will be small.  In the meantime, I've taken Kimmie's advice and started a blog to keep anyone who is interested up to date on what's going on in our world!  Life is short!  Enjoy!