Relax.

Got to spend some time with some great ladies this weekend.  Started my Friday with a check-up at Dresser Family Dentistry.  No cavities!  And thank goodness or my dentist (aka my dad) just might try to ground me.  

Next was a trip to Faribault for a personal tour of the Faribault Woolen Mill thanks to my good pal, Jana.  She used to work with me at the CRC, so it was great to see what she does all day now.  It's a very old building with a lot of character-the whole thing was very cool.  

Later on, I had a slumber party with my friend Becky and my sister-in-law Jamie.  We had drinks and snacks while talking and laughing for hours.  We need more nights like that!

*******

As for my Saturday...

Trevor told me a few weeks ago that I had plans on March 31 from 10am-noon.  That's it.  I've seemed to ruin, or come close to ruining, every surprise he's had for me, but not this time!  Finally yesterday he told me I was supposed to head to Blown Away Salon at 10, but that's still all I knew.  When I got there, I found out I would be spending the two hours getting a facial and a massage-what a treat!  I've never had a facial and I'll admit it was weird at first.  Once I got used to it, I loved it!  It made my skin look and feel so much better-crazy!  And, of course, I love a good massage, and this one was great.  I was so relaxed I took a three-hour nap when I got home.  Just when I think he's done with surprises, Trevor does it again!  I know, I know, I'm very lucky.  I'm just waiting for the guys reading this to give him crap for raising the bar...

-A

Wouldn't Change a Thing.

As you all know, Trevor is in the last weeks of his year-long deployment.  Or, we are, I should say.  He may be the one gone, but this is most certainly a team effort.  To be completely honest, I'm exhausted with it.  Many of you have already heard me say "OK.  I'm tough.  I'm strong.  I've proven I can do this...again.  Can he come home now?" 

Many people complain about missing their partners when they're away for a weekend, or a week, or even a couple weeks.  Trevor has been away for drill weekends and many 2-3 week trainings over the years, and I don't even think about it.  Really.  So what do I say to those who complain?  Nothing.  There are many military spouses/significant others who get upset about it, but what good does that do?  I do think it's a little silly when people have a hard time going a weekend without their partner, but that's not because of our deployment experience, that's just because.  Regardless, their "long time" is a week, our "long time" is a year, and there are many in this state whose "long time" is two years.  It's all about perspective.  

I can't even put a number on how often I hear things like "I don't know how you do it" or "You're so strong. I could never do it."  Deployments are tough.  Heck, the preparation and train-up is tough.  Even the reintegration afterwards is tough. Trevor has been deployed or deploying since early 2007.  No breaks.  We found out about this deployment while he was still on his last one.  Truthfully, there are days for all of us where we don't know how we do it either.  But when push comes to shove, we just lace up our boots and do it.  And, most of us, without complaint.  Why, you ask?  Because it's worth it.  

Last night I went to dinner with a friend, Monica.  Her husband is Paul, who is one of Trevor's roommates in Kuwait.  I've talked with her at some deployment-related events over the last year, but we have never actually hung out until last night.  We ate and talked for two and a half hours, you'd have never known that was our first time really spending time together.  We talked about the deployment, family, medical stuff, foods, moving, work...you get the point.  Monica and I have things in common, yes, but there are a lot of differences.  I think it's safe to say we probably wouldn't have crossed paths if it weren't for this deployment, but I'm so glad we did.  Sounds pretty great, right?  It gets better.  I have so many friends like that, some closer than others, I couldn't list them right now if I tried.  You may have heard the term Military Family (Mil Fam) and that's exactly what we have.  People who will do anything for you and expect nothing in return just because they're awesome.  Don't get me wrong, we have awesome non-military friends, too.  These people just have an understanding of life, gratitude, and sacrifice with a "roll up your sleeves and get to work" attitude that's near impossible to find.  They will show up at our house while we're at work and stain our deck, move us into a five-bedroom house in a few hours, fly across the country to come to a going-away party, and arrange a surprise second anniversary party in Kuwait for a husband who is a world away.  I realize I've officially stepped onto my soap box, but I can't help it.  We have the best friends in the world.

I would never trade time with Trevor for a chance to get more money; it's just not what's important to me.  But when trying to make lemonade out of lemons, as they say, it is a perk of deployments.  We've been able to pay off both of our cars and we're one month away from paying off Trevor's student loan, too.  Furthermore, we've got our savings right where we'd like it with the opportunity to watch it grow yet.  Again, I wouldn't send him away to get the bigger paychecks, but we'll make the most of it when he's doing what's asked of him.

Some days I feel like when Trevor deployed it was as if we were watching our life progress in a movie.  Then he got up, pushed pause, and left.  Now I've been staring at the "pause" screen while he went and watched his own movie for the past eleven months.  Soon he'll come back and we'll hit play again, but that's a whole lot of waiting.  Regardless, I still say we're pretty darn lucky and I wouldn't change a thing.

-A

Kuwait City.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to have a "Staff Spiritual Fitness Event" to give some of the staff (the people who do all of the behind the scenes work) a break from the daily grind.  We took off about 0800 to head to KNB (Kuwait Naval Base), which is only about 15 minutes from AJ, or about 2 hours away from Camp Buehring. 

When we arrived, we were greeted by someone from the 1-125 FA (New Ulm) unit stationed down there.  This person was our "tour guide."  He took us all around- we saw the pier with a bunch of Army, yes Army, ships!  I had no clue that the Army even had ships.  Well, we do and a lot of them!!!  I was not authorized to take any pictures of the ships for security reasons, but I saw a bunch of them!  Then, we got a tour of one of the ships....that was pretty cool!  Once we checked out the PX (something that every Soldier does when they see a new base to see how the other half lives) we were off to Kuwait City.  Err, wait...nope! When we got to the gate to leave the base, the roads were deemed "red" by Force Protection due to wind and sand decreasing the visibility. Well, this means that you need clearance from a 2-Star General to leave post.  So, we head back to the PX area on base. We decided to wait it out at the Dunkin Donuts where I had a delicious iced caramel cappuccino.  We were sitting for approximately a half hour until we got the word that the roads were "green" again.  Now, we were finally headed to Kuwait City to see the Kuwaiti Towers. 

The towers were pretty cool.  Nothing too special, but they look cool and it was a pretty sweet view of Kuwait City and the Gulf.

Once we finished up at the towers, we headed off to the Raddisson Blu, a restaurant inside a wooden ship!  I know, right?  Well, this place was decked to the hilt!  When I say that it was in a ship, I meant that literally!  The wood had all kinds of engravings, everything was put together well, dimly lit, quiet environment. 

All 18 of us piled in there and gave our orders.  Some stuck with US Beef Steak, while others dined on various seafood varieties or lamb.  Orders were taken and it was time to feast on the hors d'oeuvres- they had all kinds of smoked meats, fish, shrimp, veggies, and all kinds of "other stuff" I had never seen before, nor have any way to effectively describe.  I took some of everything (really full plate!). I liked almost every last thing on my plate, which was about 20 different items.  I had about 5 different types of cheeses- those of you who know me well know how much I like me some cheese and they were amazing!!! Then, it was time for our main course. 

I got some kind of fish and lobster tail.  The fish was cooked head, skin, eye-balls, and all....it was delicious!!!  The meat was incredibly moist, yet it pretty much fell right off the bones.  Sooo good!  The lobster tail was ok, but nowhere near as good as the fish. Dessert time- there was 5 items- a couple slices of a couple different cakes, raspberry sherbet in some kind of spoon-like cone/shell thingy, kiwi, strawberry, and pineapple.  Everything was delicious. 

Oh, I didn't mention the juice.  Well, they had these juices that were all amazing.  I had strawberry while others had carrot (weird people) or kiwi.  Incredible!  It was so good I had two. In the end, it cost me 25 Kuwaiti Dinar (KD), which is roughly $85. Yeah, was not expecting that, nor was I expecting each juice to be 3 KD a piece (yeah, about $10 per juice).  Regardless of costs, the meal was truly amazing as was the environment.  After all bills were paid, we were invited to the top deck area for a dessert coffee. 

We sat for about 10 minutes, then headed out to the deck where we took some photos and wrapped up our adventure. Lastly, we got out on the road to head on back to Camp Buehring.  It was cool to see the city at night.  We even got to witness a little drag-racing...lol.  There was a jeep that tried to race a mustang GT 500.  Needless to say, the Mustang won, but not before almost swerving into oncoming traffic.  wow!  We finally got back to the base around 2230 (10:30 pm). It was a fun little adventure and break from the everyday crap around here.  As much as I was considering staying back on base and working, I was glad I decided to go.  There aren't many occasions to do something like this (have any of YOU been dining out in Kuwait City???) so I jumped on it after some coaxing from my LT...he's one of the good ones.

-T

Golfing in Kuwait.

Trevor's first post from Kuwait!

So, about 10 of us from the Medical Platoon went for a golf trip near
Kuwait City.  We had to go to AJ first to meet up with another 10
golfers and the MWR folks who were supposed to bus us all to the
course.  Well, when we got to AJ, they said that the bus was
cancelled, so LT and I agreed that we were going on this trip no
matter what!  We had been planning on this for over a month and
looking forward to it.  So, we decided to head out there on our own.

When we got there at about 1030, we took a couple pictures...we were
in awe of all the grass!!! 

Ok, this grass is more like well-kept
weeds than grass, but green short stuff nonetheless.  What caught me
the most off guard was the smell- the smell of moisture and living
things...you know...plants.  lol.  We got our rental clubs and paid
our green fees..then, it was off to the first tee.

We all shanked our drives with the exception of my LT...his was
straight down the fairway (lucky dog).  Mine was a slice from hell!!!
We continued on and my game improved after a few holes.  Then, it was
like my old self, only, with crappy clubs and being in the
middle-east.  I had a good competition going with my LT, he was up 4
on me after the first two holes, but I slowly crept up on him
throughout the 9 holes.

Well, I had the opportunity to beat him on the 9th and final hole.  I
had to sink a 4 ft. putt and missed.  So, I had to tap in for a
tie...I missed!  So, he proceeded to harass me about it and will
inevitably never let it die.  When we get home, we will play
again...and I WILL BE THE VICTOR!!!  Well, we'll see.

All-in-all, we got to get off the base for a few hours, have some fun
and relax.  We all got plenty of sun and enjoyed an absolutely
beautiful day.  These are incredibly hard to come by as this was, by
far, the best day I have had in this country.  It is rather odd that I
got to golf while on a deployment.  It is especially strange
considering our geographical location.  Nonetheless, it was a
wonderful day with some relaxing fun in the desert sun.

Beergaritas.

One of my very best friends from high school is moving to Texas with her daughter next week.  Jenna and I have been friends for about 12 years and we've lived within an hour of each other almost that whole time.  I'm sad to see them go, but I'm excited about the excuse to head south.  Yesterday I went to Jenna's to help her plug away at packing and cleaning with her aunt.  

When we realized we had done enough work for the day, we all got cleaned up and met some friends at Plaza Morena to kick off Jenna's last weekend in town.

 Jenna's Beergarita

The weather was beautiful! I'm still excited about how nice it has been lately-patio dining in March!  We ate dinner then went to Koryn and Tim's, Jenna's aunt and uncle, for a bonfire.  It was early enough that Letty could hang out for a little while, too.

Just because it's Jenna's last weekend here, we went to the bowling alley for one drink (I'm not much of a bar-goer around here...at all).

Can't wait to visit!!

The Home Stretch.

My FRG (Family Readiness Group) duties seem to be picking up as the end of this deployment nears.  We've got a great FRG team and a lot of awesome families, lucky us!  We decided to have a fun event this month to celebrate being so close to the end.  The event?  An afternoon at Wow! Zone in Mankato.

 The kids had a lot of fun!

 So did the grown ups.

As you can see, our youngest FRG member is pretty popular.  Here she is meeting one of her favorite soldiers, Lance, for the first time.  He came to say hi since he's home on R&R for a couple weeks.

Our "almost home!" cake.

*******

As if I didn't get enough of Addison Sunday at our FRG event and the walk we took afterwards, she came to hang out last night so Cassie could run some errands solo.  We may have giggled a little bit :)

Saint Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day in Kuwait:

These photos were taken in the middle of the day Kuwait time...in the middle of a sandstorm. 

 

 

St. Patrick's Day in MN:

 This was a "saw your own firewood" party.

 Just hanging out in the tree house.  Brenna told me not to put this on Facebook, and I promised her I wouldn't.

And here's a snapshot of the weather in both places this weekend.

This was the weather at 10:30am in Minnesota and 6:30pm in Kuwait.  Not fair because of the time difference, you say?  Well, our highs have been right around 80 all weekend.  Theirs? 77 and 66.  This is still winter in Minnesota, and they're in the desert.  Some things just don't make sense.