Christmas morning

Christmas morning arrived! I got up at the impossibly early hour of 6:45 a.m.!!!!!

The things I do for my kids :o)

Well, it was chaos, disorder, and pandemonium!
I'll let the pictures tell the story!

Webkinz, nerf gun games, Thomas tents, books, movies, playdoh, puzzles, games, ahhhh!!!!
Many thanks to all those who were with us in spirit!

It was a very white Christmas in Kansas this year. From our blizzard-not a blizzard-blizzard we have received 6 3/4 inches of snow. Thankfully it has stopped falling finally. I don't think I'll be able to dig out tomorrow for church since the roads haven't been plowed yet. But we are all safe and warm and content for today with plenty of leftovers, candy, and hot cocoa to keep us stuffed, cheerful, and merry!
Love, Cyndi :o)

Christmas Eve from Iraq

Merry Christmas!!!

I went to midnight mass last night. I guess the Pope decided to hold midnight mass early (1000 local time in Rome) so we were celebrating at the same time. Pretty Cool!

Our BN sent across a pretend SIGACT (significant action) about North Pole 6 (aka Santa) receiving SAF (small arms fire). QRF (quick reaction force) was sent out and the Grinch was detained. Rudolf was forced to take evasive action and was slightly injured in the crash but the medics patched him up and he was RTD (returned to duty). North Pole 6 decided to CM (continue mission). NSTR (nothing significant to report). S2 assessed the Grinch was motivated by envy since Santa has numerous Christmas TV specials but the Grinch only has one. There is a storyboard about it too, but I have yet to see it. Believe it or not, somebody else came up this this (it wasn't me).

I unwrapped the presents this morning (I woke up at 1000 since I didn't get back from mass till 0200). Thank you very much. Kids, I love the warm blanket. I will retire the woobie back to the rucksack where it belongs. The cards are cute too. Mom and dad sent some gifts from Australia. I love the book from your parents, too! Baxter and Debbie sent a care package that is much appreciated. The Christmas Book designed by the kids was very cute too. Love the bookmarks. Many thanks also to Charlie and Becky and Ken and Cindy for the Amazon gift card goodies.

1SG kicked me out of my office this morning and told be to either hang out in my room or find someplace else to be. I'm not used to being ordered not to work. I've put in 30 productive hours the past 2 days...so I guess I could slack for a day. I think I'll find a place to curl up with some books and just rest for a while. I've been going non-stop for 30 days. Its hard to believe that it has been that long since leave.

Kids...Merry Christmas. I'll be home for Christmas...next year.

Love,

John

Christmas Eve - midnight

Christmas Eve - midnight report

The presents are under the tree, the stockings are overfilled, and the house is quiet except for the sweet snores coming from our three children nestled upstairs in their beds.

Church was pretty good - Katharine slept through mass (yes!) and Joseph only lightly fidgeted, especially since the altar servers were sitting in our pew. (The ushers accidentally sat a family in their reserved pew). Grace sang very well in the childrens' choir and looked like an angel. At home, after we had cheese pizza and Jesus birthday cake the kids got into their jammies. And Grace decided it was her responsibility to take care of Santa and the reindeer. She carefully put out a plate with 3 cookies (two for Santa and one for him to take home to Mrs. Claus) along with 18 baby carrots (two for each of the reindeer - and the fattest two are for Rudolph). I took a picture of her note. How can you not laugh at that?
I have store-bought cinnamon rolls (not nearly as good as yours!) The camera has fresh batteries and the webcam is tested and ready to go. Two trashbags are on standby. At least we're warm and snug tonight in spite of the blizzard - weathermen!
Love, Cyndi :o)

Part 2 - We have a DECORATED Christmas Tree

The kids didn't want to wait to decorate the tree. So, I got two strands of lights put on it (sloppy, and yes, they are white cords, ew, but it's okay this year!)
The kids put on the ornaments. They had a great time doing that!
And here's the finished tree! I even put up some decorations outside too!

Grace's birthday

Oops! I forgot to post some pictures from Grace's birthday!

We have a Christmas tree!!

FedEx brings free Christmas trees to most of the major military posts in the US and also send trees to several of the overseas posts for soldiers, spouses of deployed soldiers, and wounded warriors. So I went down to the tree depot today and picked out a 5-6 ft. Balsam Fir for us. Thank you FedEx!!

At home I used a saw to cut the bottom 1/2 inch off - and yes, I still have all of my fingers and the saw was put away properly!

Here's the kids with the tree just after I got it upright in the stand. (I took the pictures with the webcam).

We'll be decorating this week and we'll post pictures of the finished tree!

Vacation Pictures

R&R -

Wow, what a trip!
The kids and I left Kansas on November 8th, and drove for Tucson to meet John there for 2 weeks of R&R!!

Tuesday in Tucson -- John arrives unexpectedly 3 hours early - American airlines got him on an earlier flight - He had to run between terminals at DFW in only 20 minutes so no time to call and let anyone know! But he was upgraded to 1st class on the flight and they treated him so well! :o) When he arrived in Tucson at 11:30 instead of 3:15 - John called his dad to find out what he was doing for lunch (hint, hint!) - now Dad usually is at work at the hangar at the airport - but on this day he was at home waiting for the kids and I to arrive and also for the FedEx guy. We all showed up at 11:30 too just as he hung up from John! We all raced to the airport - (John didn't know that the kids and I had made it yet) and as he walked out the doors, well, it was happy chaos, with a lot of disorder and entropy too!

Ahhhh! Relaxing in Tucson - warm sun, sleeping through some jet lag, and good Mexican food! Playing with Fritz and the kids, sitting on the porch swing in the warm sun, looking over Dad's collection, going to the zoo with John's dad, the botanical garden with Mom & Dad, church together, the warm sun.... It was just sooooo great to be in Tucson. We packed a lot into a few days :o)

But onto California and even more warm sun! And also Rubio's fish tacos, more great Mexican food, Carls Jr!! We were visiting my family now! So many fun things to do -- visiting the beach, Downtown Disney, Cheesecake Factory for lunch, CSUF, Caitlyn's birthday party, the tidepools at Newport, Roger's Gardens, Fashion Island, and a whole day and night at Disneyland. We started at 9:00 am and stayed until 11:45 pm, starting out the day with my parents and sister, and also spending time with my cousin Becky and Charlie and her two girls - oh my gosh what fun we had!!! We rode rides, and rides, and more rides - Grace and Joseph went on Big Thunder Mountain with John and Indy Jones with me, we rode the train, the monorail, Pirates, Jungle, just about everything in Fantasyland, Small World, Buzz Lightyear, and so many more!! We never even got to Tom Sawyer's island or to Toontown. It was a total blast - thanks Debi!!!

Last day together - we spent all afternoon at Huntington Beach - soaking in the warm sun, building sand castles, and splashing in the ocean. Later, a romantic dinner for just two (thanks Mom and Dad and Debi!!!)

John's flight out was at 6:10 am on Thanksgiving morning. Bummer all the way around that he missed Thanksgiving with us! The kids and I dropped him off at the curb at LAX and left. It was a hard thing for John and I. The kids seemed to accept it pretty well that it's Daddy's job - and it was 3 a.m. at a strange airport.

Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Cindy's house was great - the kids love the backyard play equipment so much! It was so great to see my Uncle Tom and Aunt Rhonda, and Cousin Michelle there too :o) The whole time I kept expecting to see John pop in somewhere, but by then he was at the USO in Dallas, and getting on his flight back to Iraq.

Friday morning - Black Friday shopping at 4:30 a.m. with my mom and the kids! Wow it was fun - we went to Brea Mall - Penney's and the Disney store, Target, even stopped for sit down breakfast, Main Place Mall, and were all done by 11:30 am. Whew! Ok - it was awesome!! I love doing that :o)

The last weekend went by so fast! I stayed an extra day in California to wait out the tail end of a storm and get a clear shot back to Kansas. Started driving on Tuesday, but got stuck in New Mexico on Thursday because another storm unexpectedly came through. Finally got home Saturday morning, December 5th!

Grace wrote 5 essays about our vacation (so far) and I'll post them tomorrow.
It was a great trip!! Thanks to everybody who put up with us :o)