Merry Christmas!

This is the first chance I've gotten to sit down at a computer with the internet in a few days. Isaac and I had terrific flights out here to Tennessee. The flight from Killeen to Houston was not as rough as I had feared it might be. Isaac took a bottle as we ascended and descended, so his ears didn't stop up. I didn't realize what a potential problem the ears thing was until some friends of mine asked me what I planned to do to prevent it. On the flight from Houston to Nashville, we experienced only a slight bit of turbulance as we descended into Nashville. It was fairly bumpy, but Isaac slept through it (with that being the only portion of our travels when he napped!). Thank you to all who helped to bathe our flights in prayer. Please pray that the return flights on Tuesday 30 Dec are as smooth.

Justin seemed to be doing well when I talked to him this morning. He said that the day had not varied much from other days, except that most people greeted him with "Merry Christmas." I really wish he could be here, but I am thankful that he is hopefully able to make Christmas a little brighter for some of the men and women serving our country. I am going to post some pictures below this post of our time here in Tennessee. I will update again as I have more time and pictures.

For some reason, it (the Blog program) has decided to post my pictures in reverse chronological order. It took a while for the pictures to load, so I'm just going to leave them in this order.
Christmas morning: We were opening presents at my parents' house, and Isaac decided he wanted to help out. He did manage to pull the tissue paper out of his gift, shown above. My brother got him a onezie embroidered with, "I love my Uncle Z." Isaac grinned and cooed when I showed it to him.

Christmas Eve: For years, my mom's side of the family has gathered at Ninnie and PawPaw's (my mom's parents) on Christmas Eve to eat, visit, open presents, and remember the true meaning of CHRISTmas. My grandparents love each other so very much, so I just had to post the picture above, one of those pictures taken at just the right (or wrong!) time. It looks as if they are upset with each other, and they weren't at all. My mom accidentally took a video clip with her camera immediately after this as she was showing this picture to me!

22 December: Isaac and I had gotten ready to go with some friends to meet another friend in Franklin (basically, Nashville) for lunch. He just looked so cute in his overalls that we had to snap a quick shot! He has gotten pretty good at holding up his head, so it is really fun to sit him on a couch or chair and take his picture.

22 December: Isaac is captivated by Grandpa's shadow puppet show. We noticed him looking at the spot of light streaming through the door onto the wall. My dad decided to make shadow puppets, which resulted in one of Isaac's oh-so-cute grins.

Up, up, and away!

It's hard to believe Christmas is already upon us! Isaac and I are flying out of Killeen to join family in TN for Christmas. I agree with my sweet friend, Jessica, whose husband is also away this holiday season (and who is also traveling home, with small children): it will definitely be bittersweet to not have our husbands with us at this time, but if they have to leave, it's good that it's at a time when we will be surrounded by family. God has surely blessed us with wonderful friends, family, and the capability to travel long distances in short times to see them. Isaac and I fly out in just over five hours. While I'm excited about being with family, I am less than thrilled about flying. I think the part I'm most anxious about is flying with Isaac and keeping him from having painful ear popping. I'm also a little anxious about the fact that the temperature is supposed to drop about 30 degrees while we're in the air (and that's due to weather, not just location change.), which tends to make for a bumpier ride. Oh well, the airlines won't take off if they see the air is not suitable to travel. Please keep us in your prayers as we are traveling and spending time with family. I will try and update you upon our arrival in TN, hopefully posting some pictures. I am taking my video camera, so I may attempt to post video clips, assuming I'm able to take some. Have a happy holiday season, and Merry CHRISTmas!

Update.

Justin was able to email me today! I am still amazed at the amount of communication we've been able to do. I realize it will decrease once he's in country. He was pretty tired when he was online emailing me earlier, so he didn't trust his editing of what he'd typed. I've looked it over and am pasting it below.

From Justin:
I realize that I have told you very little about Kuwait. Where we are has pretty nice accomodations. This FOB has a great gym, phone trailers, Internet trailers, and several fast food places and a pretty good size PX (not as large as on an installation on US soil). The Internet is really, really slow unless you pay to get high speed, which I am currently doing. The tent I sleep in has heat and a wooden floor. It sleeps up to 90 people, and we have about 60. Its not horrible, but sleeping in a room with that many people makes it almost impossible to get a few minutes of solitude. The food is fine. The training is OK. Today we were put in a Humvee simulator and spun around a couple of times. We were simulating a rollover accident. There are your normal briefings and such, but most of my time is still spent checking up on the soldiers of the battalion. There are several chaplains stationed permenantly on this base, so they already have sufficient worship services in place. The air temperature is not too cold, but the wind blows constantly and freezes you most of the day.

Card Trick

As many of you reading this probably already know (due to involvement), I gave Justin a deck of cards at Thanksgiving during our Pickering Family Christmas, which we held out here. I know a deck of cards doesn't sound like much; however, this deck is special. I covered the backs of a deck of playing cards and sent them to friends and family to write a note of encouragement, favorite scripture, etc. for Justin to have during deployment. A deck of cards was used because there are 52 cards in a deck and he is supposed to be gone roughly that many weeks. He can post a different note of encouragement each week, putting the previous week's card back in the box. This will help him to track time spent away from home. Justin was very grateful for the gift and refused to look at any of them early. These cards, along with your continued prayers, mean a great deal to both of us. Thank you again to the ones who helped with this!

Day of Departure

I am just now able to sit down and make myself look at pictures from the day Justin left. I tried especially to document the time shared between him & Isaac, as Isaac will be much different when Justin returns. See the captions below each picture for explanations.

Daddy & Isaac using Isaac's first Christmas present, pictured below.
Justin bought Isaac his first Christmas gift once we had discussed it, a chalkboard designed to count down the days of Daddy's deployment. We do realize he has no idea what a number is (and probably can't even see the funny white squiggles very well), but it is a great tool for discussing "Daddy," in hopes Daddy will be familiar when he comes home. **Note: The count of days is only approximate.

The boys are enjoying some cuddle time while watching television.

Justin just finished loading the car with everything necessary for deployment that had not already been shipped.

Justin is giving Isaac his last bottle of the night, also being the last bottle before he left. This was a very sweet moment. Before taking the bottle, Isaac babbled everything to Justin that was on his little heart. At least that's what it sounded like.


Continue to keep Justin, his soldiers, and fellow chaplains in your prayers. As horribly as we miss him, I do realize that he is following God's will. What an awesome God we have!

Waiting to Leave

I have set down 2-3 times this week to write about what all I've had going on, but never really got started. A lot of that is because I still am stubbornly refusing to begin emotional, philosophical, or other ramblings online. As close as I came was putting a lot of pictures from Thanksgiving and mine and Em's Christmas celebration in my photo albums (there's a link on the right side of this page). That said, I finished packing my bags a couple of days ago. I think every other person I know has called at some point this week (thanks everyone). We've videoed several story times with Isaac. Sorry Mom, I think I enjoyed "Hello Colonel Rebel" more than Isaac did. He preferred looking at the window. He'll come around I'm sure.

Em and I have gone to dinner more than we've cooked this week. Neither of us really felt like doing a lot. That's pretty much been all we've done. I think she is getting extremely tired of me repeating information about insurance, banking, the dog's medication, changing oil in cars, and all of the other things I am obsessing about far more than she is. She says her days of obsessing about those things are coming soon enough.

For the moment, we're simply bored and waiting for my time to report. She'll be more or less taking over the blog for the time being. She'll keep everyone updated on what is going on in all of our lives. She'll be posting my address sometime soon.

Great Sat Morning

I think I did well on gifts for Em last night (I also irritated her, but we won't get in to that). Her back has been tight all week. (She had an observation at work yesterday). Since I have already bought her anniversay, birthday, and valentine's gifts I convinced her to open the birthday gift a few months early. OK, so its a lot of months early. I'd gotten her one of the mats that you sit in a chair and it warms and massages your back. I'm a little surprised that she didn't sleep in one of the recliners.

Isaac woke us at 6 this morning, which is what he is supposed to do. Since this is one of my last weekends before heading out, I got up to feed him and let Emily sleep in. He's always in a great mood in the mornings. He'll laugh, or come as close to laughing as he does at this point. He doesn't really get upset (at least after he finished the bottle). He's just happy to have someone around that talks to him. He goes back down for the first nap of the day around 0730, so I now have a good 30-40 minutes to relax before Em gets up.

Christmas Pictures

I thought I would post a couple of pictures from our Christmas this past Saturday. I am waiting to get some pictures of the entire family from other people. I didn't think to get the camera out when everyone was still here. The top picture is Isaac's first Christmas gift. This is one of the few pictures with his gifts where he isn't screaming. He didn't mind laying in his bouncy seat while everyone else opened gifts, but he was not a fan of us tearing paper and cutting tape with him in our laps. After months of complaining that clothes don't fit (for obvious reasons), Emily got a lot of clothing.

The last couple of days have ben spent getting the house back in order. I've also rearranged the garage to make sure Emily can easily get to any tools she might need while I'm gone. Finally, I finished my packing yesterday. I have to pick up some personal hygene things and load them.

On a side note, I just saw my little brother in the crowd at the Today show. He and his wife took a trip to NYC for their Christmas gift this year.

After Thanksgiving Exhaustion

Its been a busy couple of weeks. Last week, my entire family was here for Thanksgiving. My Aunt and Uncle from Houston also came up for the day. In all, we had twenty people eating at the house. My oldest brother and his family arrived Tuesday. The next brother and his family arrived on Wednesday. Everyone else came in on Thanksgiving morning.

Emily and I crashed yesterday. We got home from lunch, fed Isaac, and both slept the rest of the afternoon. By Saturday night, everyone but my parents had gone home. Emily and I did our Christmas while they were here. We just didn't want to exchange gifts with just the two of us. Em surprised me with a handheld GPS. She had convinced me that she'd gotten something else. Em had another great gift she gave me. She had contacted a large number of my friends and family and mailed them a playing card. They wrote messages on the cards and sent them back. This gives me a thought or message from someone for each week of deployment (approximately). I flipped through to see who she had contacted, and I'm thankful for all who've participating. I am waiting to read them throughout the deployment.

This morning, I'm watching Isaac kick and play before he goes back down for a nap. I am going to the office for a couple of hours later today, but I still have a lot to do around the house to get ready to be gone.