Merry Christmas

Santa apparently knew what to leave at our house.  Isaac got a play kitchen.  Hopefully, this will let him "help" cook without grabbing any actual kitchen knives or pots.  Claire got one of the few things that actually matters to her...food.  We also gave her a new play mat.  Isaac gave her a plush duck for Christmas, which he's tried very hard to get her to play with.  He pretends the duck is licking her face like we do with his stuffed puppy.

This morning was probably the last Christmas for a while that we were the first to get up.  I'm not sure Isaac realized he was going to open presents until we handed him the first wrapped gift.  We were able to get up, make coffee, make cinnamon rolls, and feed Claire before I went to get Isaac out of his room.  It'll never happen again, but we enjoyed it immensely.  He's currently engrossed in a Charlie Brown movie that was left in his stocking.

Last night, we had a really good turnout at the Christmas Eve Service on SHAPE.  The road condition was listed as "black," so we were pretty unsure how many people would make it.  The praise band didn't get to practice until an hour beforehand because several of them had been snowed in.  Hopefully the service was a worshipful time.

Dinner is marinating in the fridge now, so everything is ready for friends coming over this evening.  Nothing to do for the next few hours but relax, watch some Christmas movies, and nap after a late night last night.



Let It Snow...

The last week has been a bit busy.  I played catch up the first half of the week.  Wednesday, I helped lead a "Lessons and Carols" service with a British chaplain.  This is the first time I've put on any type of clerical robe in several years.  Anyway, we were on the road the next morning to go to Landstuhl, Germany.  My assistant had surgery, and we wanted to go up to check on her.  The roads coming back were sheets of ice.  We managed to stay out of the ditches, but had a couple of slides that weren't a lot of fun.  The last couple of days were spent getting ready for some entertaining this week.  As you can see from the pictures, the snow from the last couple of days is beginning to pile up.

You can also see Isaac's new way of entertaining himself with the Christmas gifts.  He's ignored the gifts up to this point, but this morning he thought they'd make good blocks.  This would be funny except for the only reason he stacks blocks is so he can knock (or kick) them down. 

He wore me out in the snow this afternoon.  I tried with very little success to get him interested in a snowman.  However, his favorite snow activity is making me get a running start before diving into the snow.  My head still hurts and we came back inside three hours ago.

I've added some pictures to the photo albums, including some of Claire.  To the left is her first attempt at eating solid food.

Brussels Christmas Market

This morning, we caught the train into Brussels to spend a few hours at the Christmas Market there. Every large and small town has begun having a Christmas market, which normally consists of venders specializing in Christmas junk, regional specialties, etc. It's a German tradition that has spread into more and more of Europe. Brussell's market is supposedly one of the better ones.

This was also our first experience using the train system to travel. (Thus the picture of everyone sitting on the train platform). We'd used buses once, but stuck to using the car for the most part with the kids. We'll definitely use trains for any trip we can within Belgium.

Otherwise, it's been a busy week. I've been a bit sick, which has made Emily's week that much busier. Last night was the children's Christmas Party with our FRG. They made ginger bread houses. Isaac ate an entire plate of candy that was supposed to go on his house. He then had a plastic cup full of sweedish fish and candy corn, which he brought home. I'm kind of unsure how we got that cup, and really hope he didn't take it away from some other kid. He continued to argue with everyone who tried to tell him he was in Belgium. Since the second weekend of November, he's refused that he could possibly be in any European country besides Germany. It becomes an intense argument if anyone tried to convince him otherwise. (On a related note, Em no longer thinks it would be a good idea to put him in the Belgian school system).

Isaac obviously was not a fan of Santa Claus.  I don't actually think it was Santa as much as me making him leave his plate of M&Ms (Yes, a plate of M&Ms) on the table so he could see Santa Clause.

Cold Weather

Starting a couple of days after Thanksgiving, we had a week with high temperatures that never reached freezing. On top of that, we had several days with light snow showers. You can see in the picture that it never really got thick enough to matter. It was just enough to make the yard look pretty and the roads to be a pain.

The ice on the sidewalks forced me onto the exercise bike or to treadmills in the gym, which I always hate to do. I'm supposed to start marathon training in a week or so for the Paris Marathon in April. I dread to even think about the training.

Otherwise, there's not a lot going on. We finished Christmas shopping last week. The tree is up. The house is decorated. Isaac has developed a great love for "A Charlie Brown Christmas." We have to change it's hiding place almost daily because once he finds it, he'll find a way to climb to whatever shelf it's on.

So the Season Begins...

I suppose the holiday season has officially begun. For the second year in a row, I haven't finished Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. (In my defense, I wasn't back in the States until December last year). Thankfully, I just have to finish shopping for Emily this time around. Tonight, we put up our Christmas tree. It's the first live tree I've ever had. We're using the old, wooden Christmas tree decorations from when I was a kid. Actually, they're the ones we used when I was a kid. My Mother wouldn't let those near her tree. They were what hung on the tree that the kids got to decorate. We mixed in a bunch of gold ornaments Emily had from when she was a kid.

As we do most years, we make a kind of big deal out of this particular event. (I tend to go Clark W. Griswald during December). We made ginger bread men. Isaac loved them, but rarely took more than one bite of a cookie before putting it back and getting another one. We put on The Polar Express, which Em and Isaac both loved. Claire was amazed at the colored lights. Isaac was initially confused by the fact that I brought a tree into the house, but warmed up to it when he got to start putting things onto the tree.

By the time we finished Isaac would run to Emily and hug her. Immediately he'd run to me and hug me. Understand...Isaac doesn't hug without a four step running start. He successfully put Emily on her back once.

Otherwise, it's been a pretty good week. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Joe & Rochelle's yesterday, which was nice. On Wednesday, I had a meeting with a British chaplain. I'm helping with one of his Christmas services in a few weeks. It was a lot of fun talking with him on some of the differences between chaplains in the UK and the States.

Two year olds...just not as cute as they sound

This morning I was reminded that Isaac will copy most of what I do. Emily was putting dishes in the dishwasher as we got ready for breakfast. I walked by and slapped her rear end. She said, "Justin!" just as she does every morning when I slap her rear end. I began pouring my cup of coffee when I hear, "whack." Isaac had walked behind Emily and slapped her rear end. Emily's response..."Justin!" I should go ahead and apologize to any girl he dates in the future. He's stuck with an example of flirting that generally involves his father just iritating his mother. Poor Emily is stuck living with a two year old, a one month old, and a husband that shows effection only slightly more maturely than pulling the girl you like's ponytail in elementary school.

Differences in European Countries

Coming back from Garmisch, Germany this weekend, Emily and I came to a few conclusions about driving in Europe. The Germans are undoubtedly our favorite drivers. At 90 mph, we were being passed like we were standing still. The nice thing was that the left lane was actually used for passing. After passing someone, people move back into the right lane. Turn signals are actually used and I was only cut off once while driving in Germany. The car that cut me off....was from France. All of the positive statements above did not seem to apply to any cars we encountered from France. They stayed in the left lane, cut people off, and were completely random with turn signals....basically, they would fit in with drivers in the US. Then we come to Belgian drivers. Even more random than the French vehicles.

Thankfully, the house was in good order when we got back. There has been a lot of flooding in our area over the last few days, including some from my battalion. Honestly, it's nice to feel that we can begin getting into a little bit of a routine with Claire and Isaac.

The last few weeks

I haven't really gotten on here to give any updates for the last few weeks. A lot of that was because my Mother was visiting to help us get everything settled with Claire. I spent most evenings visitng with her and Em or falling asleep ridiculously early on the couch. (Mostly, I fell asleep early on the couch). This weekend, we have spent at a Singles Retreat in Germany. I'll try to post a few pictures later tonight. I'll try to give the bullet points for the last couple of weeks.

• My Mother hemmed our curtains, which all finally arrived. We no longer have to bunch them in the windowsill so they won't sit against the radiators. It also makes the house look much better.
• I've already mentioned the Single Soldier retreat. Em has decided Bavaria lives up to all of her expectations, complete with houses that look like ginger bread houses. Isaac loves to announce "I see Germany."
• Isaac's opinion of Claire is back to skeptical at best. He is very affectionate and interested in Claire around new people because they make a big deal out of him when he shows Claire attention. When he isn't benefitting personally from giving Claire attention, he is indifferent or annoyed by her presence.
• Isaac never figured out how to say "Trick or Treat" when we were Trick or Treating, but he says in 10-12 times a day when he wants us to get his Halloween candy from the top shelf in the kitchen.
• We are no longer a single car family. We bought a Toyota Corolla a few days ago, so Em is no longer stranded at home with two kids.
• I learned how to pull apart a toilet with a mechanized grinding unit underneath it. Don't ask why, how long it took, or what had to be done to the bathroom afterwards. Shockingly, I can say I didn't curse at it (I think).

I think that sums up most of the last couple of weeks. I'll try to post some pictures tonight. Otherwise, it'll probably be 2-3 days.

Back to Work

I've been back in the office this week after paternity leave. It's nice being back in a routine. I suppose I should say a little about ministry here. I normally don't allow myself to make comparisons for the first six months in a new ministry, but I think I can make a few comparisons. My battalion is very small in comparison to 1-12 Cav. The entire BN is roughly the size of a mechanized infantry company. It's nearly half civilian. It's obviously signal instead of combined arms, which is a drastically different mindset. It's also not a unit that deploys, so the pace of everything is much, much slower than anyone in 1 Cav. So what does that mean as far as a chaplain goes? First of all, I've found that a little more of Cav than I want to admit probably rubbed off on me. My assistant has to remind me about once a week that I'm no longer at Hood. (Speaking of which, I seem to have landed the best Chaplain Assistant in the region yet again).

It's harder to catching many of the soldiers just to check in on them. Many of them work shifts and we're spread out so ministry of presence is not as easy as I would have imagined. The ministry has more events (and resources) than I did at Hood. In some ways that's nice,o learn a new set of skills for navigating requests and some of the paper drills.

I'm enjoying 39th SB. The commander is extremely supportive of the chaplaincy. Both company commanders are as well. The unit is a very tight knit community. Actually it's a tight knit community within a tight knight community b/c SHAPE and Chievres are not exactly large duty stations. I am speaking in chapel services about once a month, which is great. I'd like to speak more, but at least I'm getting to speak.

That's the brief overview of work and ministry for me.

Adjusting

Isaac has finally made the adjustment to having Claire. He holds her legs when she's in her bouncy-seat. He's a little nervous about any further contact. I got him to hold her for a few seconds last night. This morning he gave her half a bottle.

Otherwise, we finally tried the ice cream shop down the road that makes it's own chocolate and ice cream. The ice cream met every expectation.

My computer finally has a power cord again, so I uploaded the pictures from September and October onto my photo albums. There are a few pictures from around Mons as well as a lot of Isaac's birthday.

Belgian Maternity Wards

We're still sitting in a hospital room with Claire. The normal stay after labor and delivery in Belgium is 4-5 days. It's nice in some ways to know that Emily and Claire are well-taken care of before going home. However, Emily is tired of the same four walls and is ready to get home. I am taking a few days of paternity leave, so I end up running errands during the day and coming back to spend the night at the hospital with Emily and Claire. Isaac and I will probably be back at our house tomorrow night. He's been staying with friends, but Emily wants him to get a good nights rest and have some time at the house before we bring Claire in on Thursday.

Claire Arrives

Yesterday afternoon, my beautiful and stubborn wife refused to admit that she was in labor until her contractions were seven minutes apart. Around 6:45 PM, she decided we should go to the hospital. (Something I'd suggested an hour and a half before). At 7:05, we dropped Isaac off at some friends' home (thanks Joe and Rochelle) and went to the hospital. At 7:45 PM, Claire Lucille was born. I have thoroughly enjoyed saying I told you so to Emily today. It's amazing how much less she intimidates me when she's not pregnant.

Claire was 7 lbs 5 oz and 19 inches long. Mother and baby are well. Isaac is very indifferent about Claire. I convinced him to be interested for almost a full 60 seconds before he decided to play with my cell phone some more. There are pictures of Claire and Isaac, as well as the house we're renting, in my photo albums.

For those who've asked, I hopefully will begin consistently posted pictures again. My laptop is out of commission and using Em's laptop is an annoying and painful process.

Probable Belgian Rental

Well, let's try this again. I have been trying for two days now to post a few pictures of the house Justin and I are probably going to rent here in Belgium. It is in a town called Erbisoeul, between the two posts Justin will be frequenting. We are probably closest to SHAPE, but that is o.k. since he will need to go there occasionally, and I am hoping to get a classroom there at some point. Once all the photos are uploaded, I will go back and type a brief snippet about each underneath. The pictures were an afterthought, so they are kind-of random, as the language barrier prevented me from truly evaluating how the landlords felt about me taking photos. Ok, the computer is putting these pictures in crazy places, but they are on here! Now, for the tour......

When you walk in the front door and turn to your right, you see the living room/dining room combo. Right now, there is still carpet that the previous tenants left behind. We may leave it in some of the bedrooms, but we are probably going to have it removed from the rest of the house. It prevents some of the doors from opening properly.

When you walk in the front door, if you look straight ahead, you see the three steps leading up to the bedroom/bathroom area. The door on the far right is what will probably be the master bedroom. The door on the left will likely be Claire's nursery. Just to the left of her room is the main bathroom with a shower/tub combo, toilet, and sink. Just past that is the room that will likely be Isaac's.

This is a picture of the kitchen. It is quite large by local standards. The cabinet space is a HUGE attraction. The only major appliance we will have to borrow for the kitchen is a refrigerator. That doesn't bother me, however, as it means we can go ahead and request an American-style fridge/freezer combo. Most Europeans do not use freezers. We still will have to get several small appliances, as ours are in storage due to the incompatibility of the plugs with European outlets.

I'm not sure why Blogger decided to put these two pictures beside each other. The picture on the left is the part of the kitchen area that got left out when I took the previous shot. It would be a nice place for a small breakfast table. The picture on the right is another shot of the living room. I panned a little farther left than in the first posted shot of the living room, so that I could show the fireplace and TV area. The lady in the picture is one of the landlords. The color of the brick in the last picture is approximately the same color as the exterior brick. The exterior brick may be a slightly more golden shade, but it's close. We meet with the landlord at the housing office tomorrow, where our "agent" will speak both French and English and act as a translator. Hope this helps to give you an idea of our (probable) new home -- Voila!

Still No Good Pictures

OK, I did not take the camera with me today. Inprocessing doesn't really provide anything photo worthy anyway. I was able to meet a number of people in the battalion this afternoon as well as the garrison chaplain. My office area is extremely nice. The weather was excellent, which I've been told is not the norm. Dreary weather is supposed to be a little more common. The area we're in is definitely farm country, which is nice. We passed hay fields being fluffed and baled today.

Since I seem to be unable to remember my camera, I am posting a few pictures of our hotel room and the view from the balcony. The army lodging facility was at capacity, so we're in a local hotel, which is nice. The restaurant in the lobby is really good. Since we don't have a vehicle or drivers' licenses yet, we're stuck spending a lot of time at the hotel after work hours. We are going over to our sponsers' home for dinner last night. They've been great. Otherwise, there's not much to tell about.

Arrival

We made it to Belgium around 0900 this morning (local time). We did a few of the necessary steps to begin inprocessing, mainly getting IDs made. Tomorrow we'll actually start doing the inprocessing.

Our hotel is nice. The room is pretty large by Belgium standards (I think). The area is beautiful. I'm just getting ready to move forward with getting settled and plugged back into ministry.

Isaac handled most of the trip well. His stomach got upset a little before we landed. We think that he'll be back to normal in another day or two. We didn't even take the camera out of the briefcase today. Between wrestling with Isaac and our own exhaustion, it just didn't happen. Maybe that will happen tomorrow.

Kids

I know the last several posts have basically been anecdotes about what Isaac is doing. A lot of that is because everything else seems to be a massive to-do list. Clearing Ft Hood is largely over. My last couple of places to clear will take forever, but I have the required paperwork, so it's just waiting in line. Most of our free time is spent tying up loose ends like getting the house ready for the move out inspection or closing out utilities. It's pretty mundane.

This leaves Isaac providing a massive amount of entertainment. The second picture you see is when he pulled the pack-n-play down for the
second or third time this week. He learned that if he threw the mat out of it, he could pull on a tab until it collapsed. He didn't really need to collapse it. He can crawl out of it any time he wants. I took this picture b/c we basically have no idea where he'll be sleeping when we check in on him at night. He seems to sleep on the floor, lay on the ruins of the pack-n-play or lay on the mattress we had once put in the pack-n-play. He generally throws that to the floor.


The last picture is obviously Emily's stomach. This child has been extremely sedate compared to Isaac. He constantly pushed and kicked.

This child moves a lot, but doesn't push against a lot of people or really do anything that anyone other than Emily notices. These pictures are the obvious exception to that. I kept waiting for an alien to burst from her abdomen and commence a killing rampage. (For those who are too old or young to know, I"m referencing a movie from the 80s).

Hopefully, this week will provide something of greater interest.

Getting things ready

I had to change the template of the blog back to something lighter. Something about the largely black background was annoying.

Anyway, we're a couple of weeks from leaving Ft Hood. I've finished most of the clearing process. I still have to get the Finance Office and the BN S1 to sign off on my paperwork. The Finance piece will involve a lot of waiting, and I'm still a little fuzzy about what that will accomplish for me. The unit I'm going to and the chaplains in the area have each provided me a great deal of information, which is making this move a little more comfortable.

I think I'd mentioned previously that all of the furniture and household stuff that is going with us has already left. That leaves our house largely empty. This is somewhat depressing for Emily and myself, but Isaac seems to be enjoying the empty house. The first picture is him climbing in and out of our empty cabinets.

The second is from his bedroom. His bed has shipped, so he's sleeping in a pack-n-play. I'm not sure if he flipped it crawling out or after he crawled out. The last picture used to be our den. It is now where Isaac has decided all of his toys not already shipped out should reside.

We actually have a son again.

Isaac has been in Mississippi with my parents for the last three weeks. Em & I met them in Shreveport today to get Isaac. Had a great time visiting with Allison and Jerry and their family (cousins living in Shreveport). Approximately eleven hours in a car whose air conditioning is out is not exactly a relaxing day. We're exhausted.

However, as promised, I have another selection of vacation pictures. The first is from our hotel room. We stayed in the Best Western Presidential just off Times Square. They went with the theme of presidents. The lamp shaped like George Washington's bust was interesting. I found it more than a little disturbing that it always looked like Kennedy and Washington were staring at my wife as she put on makeup. Kind of creepy. I thought about putting a towel over Washington's head, but Emily said she needed the light. The hotel was okay. The housekeeping left something to be desired. Each day, they left a different decorative pillow or throw blanket. This was not done intentionally, I asked the front desk. They also were very hit and miss on whether they left wash cloths. They just either didn't have enough to go around or just didn't care.

The second picture is me in front of the doors for St Peter's Cathedral. Absolutely the most beautiful church I have ever been into. Em thought I was crazy dragging her to three different churches to look around, but admitted this one was astounding.

Vacation Day One

If you can't tell, Em is standing in front of the sea lions display at the American Museum of Natural History. She did not appreciate the comparison I made while she looked at this particular exhibit.

We went to the Natural History Museum our first full day in NY. Much better than I really expected. I actually wish we'd scheduled another hour or so. After the Museum, we wandered around Central Park, had Mediterranean food for dinner, and went to see Wicked.

( I'm going to try to choose one picture from each day. These are basically what I find entertaining. Since this isn't what most people find more interesting, I encourage you to look in our web albums. I'll be updating those over the next day or two.)

Update

OK, so it's been five weeks since I posted anything. That is less to do with opportunity or things to post and more to do with blatant laziness. I'll give you the bullet points for the last five weeks. I think I have already posted that we are moving to Belgium. Here's the updates.

• We went to MS for July 4. It was great to see family, eat fried catfish, etc. We left Isaac there with Mom and Dad. I left Em there. She went to TN for her little brother's wedding (Congratulations Zack and Mallory). I came back to Ft Hood and went to work.
• I've done a married soldier class, single soldier class, and an ASIST training class since my last post. I have a Strong Bonds retreat next weekend. After that, I begin clearing Ft Hood. For those not in the military, that's the 2-3 weeks of administrative red tape that I have to go through in order to move.
• Em has already cleared all red tape for herself and Isaac. In addition, she managed to get my passport, which was mailed to the wrong place. It seems very few people are able to say "no" to a pregnant woman.
• The first load of our house has been picked up for shipment to Europe. There are three different shipments for this move. The first is the furniture and household goods we are taking to Europe. The second is a very small shipment of things that we'll need very soon after we arrive. These are shipped next week. The last are the things that will go into storage here in the States. This means we are living in a mostly empty house.
• The van has been dropped off for shipment. This means we are sharing the Mustang for the next few weeks. Not much fun. (Speaking of the Mustang, it's for sale.)
• Em and I spent last week in New York City for vacation. Excellent trip. I'm going to try to post about it tomorrow. Most of our pictures should be uploaded into our web album tonight. We'd already made our reservation and bought all of our tickets before we found out we were moving, so we went.

Race

Last night, I ran a half marathon over in Temple. It was very different starting at 9:30 PM instead of early in the morning. It was still muggy and hot throughout the race. I actually ran up on a guy who had collapsed with a half mile to go. He was unresponsive, but breathing. One of the people in my group ran on to get the ambulance. He was stable when they left. I didn't even check my time when I got to the finish line. It'll probably turn out to be around 2:30. Stopping was the right thing to do, but it still annoyed me to see people standing around the finish line that I had passed at mile seven. I was on track to finish in 2:05. I wanted to make it in under 2 hours, but I paced myself poorly.

Changes

It's been an interesting week. I think I mentioned that my battalion commander was to change this week. Immediately after the change of command ceremony, my division chaplain walked up to me and said she'd heard from the board that was making chaplain assignments and asked what I thought of Belgium. I got the official orders today, so Em and I are frantically trying to get ready to move as soon as we can so we get moved before she hits the point in pregnancy where she can't travel anymore. She was less than excited on Wednesday night. The more friends she's talked to that have worked in Belgium or that are stationed in Germany, she seems to be a little more excited now. She has been amazing at figuring out how to navigate the paperwork and red tape necessary to move OCONUS.

As a side note, I owe a couple of my brothers apologies. I always rubbed it in that I don't normally react to poison ivy. Apparently Texas has a different type of poison ivy because my ankles and arms have broken out after a run through the woods last week. Sorry about that guys.

Pondering the future

No new pictures this week. That's probably because the last week allowed little time for pictures and this weekend was largely spent running errands. Last night, my outgoing battalion commander had the primary staff to his house for dinner. We enjoyed ourselves. Isaac thought it was great. He played in the sprinkler and got in the way of "yard ball." Emily is currently on the internet looking for "yard ball" or "ladder ball."

Today, we went to church. I had my weekly period of missing being a pastor. I actually have that thought more than weekly. Em & I are a few months from needing to know if God wants us to stay in our current ministry or go back to serving in the local church. As we pray about it, neither of us really feels a strong push either direction. Perhaps this is one of those places where God's will is broad. There are days when I truly enjoy the opportunity to share with soldiers and discuss faith with soldiers whom I probably would not meet as a pastor. I do love the ministry as a chaplain. There are just some things that infuriate me beyond what I ever experienced as a pastor or youth pastor. I don't think this is the format to get into those specifics.

Emily is looking forward to this week. Friday was her last day of school, so she's got her to-do list to work on this week. She's a little behind on her reading for vacation next month. We're planning to go to NYC for a week, and she wants to read a little about the city's history.

Memorial Day Weekend is winding down. I can't believe it's already June. Last Thursday night, we did our Hail & Farewell for LTC Fadden and CSM De Valle. It was down at Round Rock at a baseball game. For those who don't know, Hail and Farewells are periodic dinners to welcome and say goodbye to incoming and outgoing officers for a unit. We have about one a month right now. At this point, there are very few officers in the battalion that were there when I got to 1-12. As far as I know, I'll be around until December, at least.

Friday, I managed to break my mountain bike, which could be a problem since I need to start training if I'm going to complete the triathlon I plan to late this summer. Also on Friday, Isaac decided he needed to pick one of the two tomatoes we have (had) on our tomato plant. I was trying to set up the sprinkler for him to play in. I turned around in time to see him pull off the tomato and bite into it.

Saturday, Em & I went to get massages and cooked dinner at home. It was our sixth anniversary.

Sunday, we said goodbye to a couple of our friends who are heading to Ft Lewis. Will Alley and I went through the chaplain school together. We've gone to church together and served in the same brigade for the last year and a half. We'll miss Will and Jessica.

Today, we cleaned the house and Isaac played in the sprinkler again. I guess that's been our weekend. Maybe the pictures below will satisfy my Mother's requests for recent pictures of Isaac.

Routine

I realize that we have become very irregular in posting on the blog. It mostly occurs when Isaac has found additional, interesting, or irritating new skills. Life is pretty routine. There's honestly not a lot to talk about. Em & I both go to work. We play with Isaac. We go to bed. Next week, we'll have the sonogram where they try to figure out if the next baby is a boy or girl. We are still unashamedly hoping for a girl.

Someone asked me the other day what exactly it meant for me to go through the normal routine as a chaplain in garrison. It varies from day to day. We'll use today as an example. I had officer PT this morning. After PT, I taught a class on family budgetting to a few of our soldiers. (Money management is a common problem for soldiers. It is often an issue that comes up in marriage counseling). The rest of the morning was spent working through all five of our companies talking with soldiers. This is largely informal ministry that builds relationships with my soldiers. Right after lunch, I stopped by to introduce myself to the command sargeant major of another battalion. They are without a chaplain right now, so some of their soldiers may be sent my way if they need to talk to a chaplain. I tried to get some preparation done for a Bible study I teach on Wednesday nights, but ended up with a soldier stopping by to talk about an ethical decision he's facing. On Thursdays, Ft Hood ends the workday at 3 PM so soldiers can spend a couple of extra hours with their families, so by this point it was a little after 3. In between this stuff, I returned emails back and forth concerning a two day course I'm teaching on suicide intervention next week for the brigade.

The details change, but this is a fairly routine day. I hope that helps for the people who have wondered what I mean by "same old routine" when they ask how my week has been.

Can't Sleep

It's been a long time since I've had trouble getting to sleep. Getting up at 0500 to make it to PT does wonders for putting me in bed early in the evening. Isaac had a doctor's appointment this afternoon. He has an inner ear infection again. This is his second this year. He must be feeling better as I'm listening to him through the moniter.

Tomorrow, I'm running a 10k over in Copperas Cove. I don't expect a particularly good finish time. I'm mainly using the race for motivation for some other races I plan to do this summer.

As far as work goes, this week I started a Bible study on Wednesday evenings on post. Turnout was low this week, but we'll see. It's just nice to prepare and at least attempt to lead a study of scripture. My last couple of months in Iraq, I was so tired that Bible study prep was a struggle. A few weeks off gave me a chance to recharge, but 5-6 months has been much too long of a break from teaching.

And so it begins

Isaac has developed a new skill. In the last two days, he's climbed on top of the table. He's climbed over the back of the couch. He climbed into the freezer. This should make for an interesting next few weeks.

Spring

This picture is from two weeks ago. We decided to see if we could successfully grow a few herbs and flowers in pots. Isaac thought this was a great idea while he rode in the wheelbarrow or ate dirt (see the photo album). When I wasn't paying attention, he thought it was an even better idea to play in the dog's water bucket.

The other picture is from after church today. He actually kept the coat and tie on through church. The shoes were put back on 3 times that I know of. I suppose I should have put a cute picture with him smiling before church, but this is the one we had of him sitting still.

Anyway, we've had a leisure afternoon. However, Isaac has now eaten an entire chocolate bunny. I have a sneaking suspicion the leisure part of that is over considering he is now running around the couch and perhaps speaking in tongues as I type.

This afternoon, Isaac and I played outside after dinner. Isaac got to feed Ox a few treats. By a few, I mean as many as he could before I finally hid the box from Isaac so the dog didn't get sick. Isaac assumes that everyone rams food into his mouth at the same rate he crams food into his mouth. This meant that for the first time in his five and a half years of life, Ox couldn't eat jerky treats as fast as they were pushed into his face.

As I chased Isaac down the sidewalk, I realized something. I definitely am loved by everyone living in this house. However, the one who I think loves me the most, actually listens to what I say, occasionally does what I say and is least likely to run into traffic or bite me is probably Ox. For those of you wondering, yes I am comparing my dog to my wife and child. Yes this post will annoy my wife and I will pay the consequences. No I don't care.

Big Boy Bed

Just a really quick post...Isaac has slept the past 2 nights in his new big boy bed! The quilts are a temporary thing, as the red and navy comforters are on back-order. Besides, it's not like he uses the quilt at the moment. We'll work on that later. Right now, we're just thrilled he stays in the bed.

New Room

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. I suppose I haven't posted because I simply haven't known what I wanted to talk about. Parts of the last couple of weeks have been really busy. Parts of it have been wonderfully slow. I'll skip to today. I suppose most people who actually check this know by now that Emily is pregnant (about 9 weeks along). This means we'll need the crib in a few months for number two. (Yes, we are hoping for a daughter. No I don't feel bad admitting that.) That means we are about to begin transitioning Isaac into an actual bed. It also means that I have now lost my office here at the house. The nursery has moved into my office. Isaac's bunk bed was delivered today. In the name of indoctrinating the child at a young age, the Ole Miss pennents and flag go up tomorrow. The red and navy bedspreads have been ordered. I'd post pictures, but I'm feeling a bit lazy. Otherwise, today was the spring cleaning day for Em and I. We washed windows, fed the lawn, cleaned the fridge, mopped, caught up on laundry.

The Zoo

This morning, Em & I took Isaac up to Waco to the Cameron Park Zoo. For the most part, Isaac was mildly indifferent. The tigers and lions seemed a little more interesting. I suppose having the largest cat he'd ever seen roar and breath on the glass right in front of him may have been somewhat more interesting the watching a monkey hang there and stare back at him. He would giggle every time the lion's breath fogged the glass. He cackled when the lion or lioness would growl or snap at the other one. To make things better, we got there as the zoo opened and there was no one there for the first hour we walked around.

Since we've gotten back from Iraq, most of our work weeks have been four day weeks. Many have only been three day weeks. This has been great for getting time with the family. It's also made the work days very pushed to get the administrative and staff work done. There really isn't much of a schedule to fall in on. It seems that much of the next few months will be that way.

There are more pictures of the zoo in the photo albums.

Marriage Retreat

Today, I completed the first Strong Bonds retreat as a chaplain. I've provided some marriage enrichment classes, but this was an overnight retreat at a resort in Grapevine, TX. Everything seemed to go well. The administrative stuff ran very smooth. The resort and my assistant both excelled. The seminars themselves seemed to go ok. There was good participation through both days. It's always hard for me to really judge how well any retreat goes when I am the one leading or teaching. It was a very different experience for Emily and I. In previous retreats or camps I've led, she and I went almost completely different directions. We actually ended up spending more time together as a family than normal, which was nice. The resort we were at had an indoor water park. Isaac loved floating, sliding, and pretty much anything else that put him in a swimming pool. He danced for the child care providers. In general, he seemed to have a good time. It'll take us a week to get him back on his normal schedule. I would post pictures, but I left the camera sitting on the entertainment center at home. Hopefully I'll get some from some of the soldiers that had their cameras.

Battalion Ball

Last night was the battalion ball for 1-12 CAV. For those who don't know, cavalry units are allowed to wear the black Stetson hat instead of the normal headgear. I'm sure Emily would have more to talk about with it.

Update on Previous Post

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I would add more pictures from the marathon Stan & I ran. I've added them to the online photo album, but wanted to give a few explanations. We all wore tshirts in honor of my sister-in-law, Julie. She is going through chemo treatments for breast cancer. Robert was supposed to be at the race with us, but stayed home to help care for Julie. We took pictures of his t-shirt in various places over the entire weekend. That's the reason for the random pictures of a tshirt in front of a plate of food or sitting in a chair by itself. I think the rest of the pictures are fairly easy to figure out.

Who'd of thought?

I grew up a Saint's fan. One thing I never really expected to see is Tom Benson holding up the Lombardi trophy. Anyway, you can see from the picture that Isaac was more focused on eating bleu cheese dressing than watching the game. He didn't seem to approve of getting meatloaf and eggplant while Em & I ate chicken wings. Once he got out of the high chair, he grabbed chicken bones, dipped them in the dressing and would have eaten it until he got sick if I had not taken it away from him.

Otherwise, things have returned to somewhat of a routine. At work, I'm trying to finish up working on married soldier and single soldier retreats for my battalion. There seems to be a constant series of changes or confusions surrounding funding for these things coming from the Chaplain Corps. One of my biggest frustrations will military ministry at this point is the poor communication and inefficient channels of authority within the chaplain corp itself. I love the ministry to the guys in my battalion, but I am constantly frustrated in dealing with my branch.

Emily is doing well. School is ok. She's ready for the summer, but what school teacher isn't. Isaac is learning more words, but still sees little point in saying much more than "more" and "all done." The child likes to eat. He does enjoy trying to catch his football, and does well with that. He feels he needs to applaude each time he catches the ball.

I'll try to post a few more pictures in the photo album. Some of them are from a trip to Houston to visit relatives from last weekend.

Race details

I'm supposed to have a few pictures taken by photographers along the route of the Disney World Marathon. I'm still waiting for those to download, and I'm a bit impatient. Here's the weekend. On Thursday morning (around 0130), Dad, Stacey, Stan, and I left the farm for Disney world. At about 0530, the trailer the car was on had a tire blowout. It's great fun looking for a trailer tire before dawn.

We got to Orlando, picked up our race packets and listened to part of Hal Higdon's presentation at the health fair. Robert was supposed to go with us, but decided that he needed to stay with Julie. The weather had been projected to be icy and dangerous. On Friday morning, Dad and Stacey ran the 5k race. Stan and I didn't run the marathon until Sunday morning. We started near Epcot. Our race cut through Epcot and we were at the Magic Kingdom right after sunup. Leaving the Magic Kingdom, we had a long road run before going into the back of Animal Kingdom. This was Stan's toughest stretch. He's had IT band problems and his knee started hurting soon afer the race started. From Animal Kingdom we hit MGM Studios. About mile 20, I began hurting. By mile 22, I hated every step. Late in mile 25, my knee went out. This wasn't expected as I've had no knee pain throughout the training. Regardless, Stan and I both finished, which was the goal.

I've got a number of pictures to upload to the online photo gallery, but I'll leave that for whenever I get the rest of the pictures.