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.