The Other Side of the Coin

Tonight I wrote an email to a military wife who reached out to me through the blog, worried about her husband who might soon deploy and not really sure who might understand what she was going through.

And tonight, my wife linked to an absolutely devastating story of the ordinary, unexceptional misery felt by thousands of military families every day.

Link directly to the story here.

It's not said often enough--the deployed have it easy compared to those left behind to worry after our safety and well being. I'll never know how hard this deployment has been for my family.

I love my wife more than anything in the world

I'm also quite fond of Kellie, the bigger, cute looking dog.

I'm not as yet entirely sold on Copper, the smaller one. Cute but rascally, that's Copper. I have to say, though--it did mean a lot to me that he took the time to make a sign and have a picture taken.


Sadly, as I'm sure you all know, the Redskins lost this weekend. It was a sad end to a trying season, and now Coach Gibbs has retired from the team as well. Coach got us to the playoffs in 2 of 3 seasons, which when you get right down to it is pretty amazing. Coach basically got the Skins into the top third of the NFL for the first time since, well, Gibbs was coach the first time around.

All of this aside...I wanted to say again how truly wonderful Lauren is, and how lucky I am to have her in my life. Thank you, baby, for the wonderful picture with the puppies.

Love to all, I'll catch you tomorrow.

Happy New Year Redux!

This is a picture that my parents and wife took on New Year's Eve. I really love it--Lauren looks beautiful, my parents look happy, and even though I already know how much they care...it still means a lot that they put together something silly and cute like this for me. I guess it goes back to the troop greeters in Maine...I consider myself pretty darn cyncial about bumper-sticker-patriotism. But the fact is, knowing that people care about you and what you are doing is enormously important to us out here. More so, I'm sure, to the guys closer to the front lines than I am.

Happy New Year again, folks--I'll see you on 2 January!

Oh, and I almost forgot--anyone who would like to send me pictures of yourself in interesting places holding up signs, that would be pretty cool. I'll post all that I get, put a little gallery together. I think it might be a neat little guest book.

My Better Half is Getting Older

And last but not least for tonight, happy birthday to my beautiful wife Lauren. Twenty eight years ago today she came into this world, and we're all that much better for having her in it.

Here's to you, babe, on your special day.

Happiness to End the Week

Lauren has completed work on our wedding album, and it looks fantastic...such a wonderful way to remember such a wonderful day.

We can't wait for the big, all-hands wedding party when I'm back from playing soldier.

Lauren is on her way down to Fort Bragg this weekend, so as usual, I'll probably we off the net for a couple of days. A great weekend to everyone, and we'll see you next week!

Things I've Learned While Upacking

Hey everyone.

I'm up in VA again, and have spent the better part of the last couple of days unpacking at our new apartment. I've learned a number of interesting things about my beautiful wife in the process.

1. Becoming a lawyer requires a lot of law books. Our apartment is drowning in a sea of impressive looking leather-bound tomes with words like "Torts" and "Contracts" on their spines. I know that lawyers work hard to get where they're at, but I'd say that at least 5-10% of the battle is in buying and lugging around books.

2. Becoming a lawyer requires a lot of Nora Roberts books. This is the only explanation that I can come up with for owning and lugging around 30 of them.

3. This entire time we've been dating long-distance, Lauren has had a book that fancies itself as a hand book for couples in such a predicament. I feel like this has placed her at an unfair advantage for the duration of our time together, and that reparations are certainly in order.

I think that's it for now, but I'll come back with more if I can think of anything else, book related or otherwise.

Another Weekend Well Spent.

Hello again, everyone, and thanks for bearing with me this weekend. As I said I would, I left the blogging to others, so that I might enjoy another weekend with my lovely bride Lauren.

As you might recall, when we last saw Lauren she was frantically driving south through hordes of fellow cars in a nearly doomed attempt to drive through DC/Richmond rush hour. But for the grace of God, she was able to slog through--and even made it in time to enjoy a late night meal with me at the friendly Fayetteville Chillis.

From there, we caught a movie, relaxed, and spent Saturday evening with Matt and Laurie Holmes--and their 4 kids + dog. Matt is an old friend from Alaska who not so long ago saved my buddies and me from drowning in CAPOC's apathy, and Lauren and I had a great time catching up with the Holmes's.

A brief shout out is also in order to the hard working folks over at the Fairfield Inn of Fayetteville. Lauren and I stayed there in lieu of sharing my twin bed over at the barracks, and our room was clean and comfortable, and the service was excellent. There were a few "interesting" guests along for the ride, but honestly--just because you stand on the balcony of the Fairfield Inn in nothing but your swim trunks and beer gut--miller light in one hand and KFC in the other--doesn't mean that you're any less of a man than the rest of us.

Alas, as these weekends tend to do, this one went by altogether far too fast...but the good news is, I have a three day weekend, so I'll be up in VA on Thursday evening. Fun will follow. Zany adventures will no doubt be close behind. And through it all, there will be much rejoicing in all the land.

**Note--the gentleman on the balcony with the Miller Lite in no way resembled a cat, but if he had, his beer gut might have looked like this one.

Lauren is on her way!

Hey all, and happy Friday.

Lauren is on her way down to visit me this weekend at beautiful and scenic Fort Bragg, NC. We don't have much planned, but we will be spending Saturday afternoon evening with my old friends the Holmes's. I'll say hi to them on behalf of the whole Alaska crew.

Still, as I type this post at 5PM on Friday, Lauren isn't out of the woods yet--she has both Washington AND Richmond rush hour traffic to slog through before making it here.

So, let's all wish her great luck making it through, and look for me to show up again with fresh content this Sunday.

Love and sloppy kisses to all.

Highlights From (yet another) Awesome Weekend

OK, everyone, it's time for the run down. I'm back at Bragg after one of my patented Awesome Weekends with Lauren. Here's more or less how it went down.

Friday

7:30AM--After what most experts agree was one of the greatest staff duty runs of all time, I hand over the desk to my replacement. I've been awake since 6:45 the previous day, and I'm feeling fine.

8:15AM--I'm on the road, heading for Emporia, VA where I'll meet Lauren. Lauren's been in NoVA since Wednesday, and she's on her way to wisk me away to a weekend of errands, Harry Potter, and relaxing with my parents. Still feeling fine.

9:32AM--Feelings of fineness beginning to wane. Eyelids becoming heavier by the second. Must...get...to Emporia.

Fade to Black

1:13PM--I wake with a start, and forget for a moment where I am. Groggily I come to, and I seem to remember that I successfully slept walked my way through the rest of the drive, switched to Lauren's car in Emporia (leaving the CRV with the nice people at the Knights Inn), and had been zonked out for the last three hours while we drove North to Fort Belvoir.

2:15PM--Sitting at the Fort Belvoir Starbucks--that's right Every Other Post, Starbucks--and I get a call on my cell. Apparently the apartment we were going to move into in Alexandria won't be completed until September. This crimps our plans, and we officially enter the stress zone. I contemplate suggesting that Lauren might be able to find exciting, Venetian-Blinds-Optional housing at Fort Bragg, but hold my tongue.

3:45PM--After successfully signing Lauren in at her new post, we narrowly avoid rush hour traffic and arrive at my parents house in Manassas. Mom is thrilled to see us, invites us all out to the porch to relax with a glass of wine...and promptly locks us out of the house.

11:15PM--Dad eventually comes home, saving us from the out-of-doors. Dinner, conversation, and the rest of our bottle of wine follow, and Lauren and I head out to Woodbridge Borders to wait in line to pick up Harry Potter 7. Borders turns out to be a disaster, so we drive cross county to the Manassas Barnes & Noble, who has a grade-A operation going. We pick up our copies, head home, and promptly fall asleep.

Saturday.

10:30AM--Lauren and I drag ourselves out of bed, and set out to tackle the days chores. We would both rather be reading Harry, but attempt to slog through other stuff anyways. We quickly determine that the apartment situation has got us down, and must needs be resolved prior to moving on to happier tidings. As such...

12:30PM--I call the apartment complex and see if they have anything available sooner. It turns out that we can get in on the 9th floor, with a two month rent free discount, if we move in before August 1st. Only downside--not as good view of the Potomac from the lower floor. But for immediate move in and no rent for two months? We'll take it.

1PM--Lauren and I make a triumphant post apartment acquisition trip to my parent's neighborhood pool. We swim, read Harry Potter, and have a genuinely awesome time. We've got our apartment, and we're feeling fine.

I think the timeline routine is getting old for now, so I'll summarize the rest of the weekend. We had another nice dinner at my parent's place, then headed to Fort Belvoir to spend Saturday night with some privacy. Come Sunday we took Christine out to a birthday brunch, signed our lease for the apartment (hurrah!!) and met my mom for dinner at the Mac Grill, before Lauren drove me back to my CRV in Emporia.

Lauren and I said our goodbyes, and drove to our respective posts--Bragg and Belvoir.

Somewhere along the way, we managed to read the first 300 pages or so of Harry Potter. We rule.

Love to All.

A Great Weekend in Progress

Good news--Lauren was able to fly East, and I was able to get the weekend off from training (along with the rest of my class--no special treatment or anything). But, the bottom line is we're together, which was a pleasant surprise. At the start of the week we didn't think we'd be able to pull it off.

We're not doing much besides hanging out and enjoying one another's company, but as Lauren flew into RDU (Columbia, SC was too expensive) I got to show her around Duke a bit.

Now, as many of you know, Lauren isn't exactly the world's biggest Duke fan. So to deal with this, being the strong willed, no crap-taking Husband that I am, I laid down some ground rules. No more than 5 snide Duke-related comments per hour, and no more than 3 disgusted gestures/sounds/eye-rolls.

To Lauren's credit, she finished our 2 hour tour with a combined comment/look tally of 7--at least 2 or 3 of which were pretty funny, so no blaming her for those. Of course, I was being pretty generous--if Lauren was making one Duke Lacrosse joke, and that led to 2 or 3 more in rapid succession, before the topic of conversation shifted, I only counted that as one comment. And as the gods were smiling on Lauren this last day of June, Duke's lacrosse camp happened to be going on, so there was plenty of available fodder to work with.

I should also note that we sneaked into Cameron (the name of which we've assigned to the second of our two future-dogs) and saw Chris Collins, Wojo, DeMarcus, and Marty. Lauren even picked up an Iron Dukes brochure, and talked about how we should start giving money to become an entry level Iron Duke so that we'll be able to buy tickets down the road. Just goes to show, that jokes and "hatred" aside--my wife loves me and cares about me pretty darn much. I've picked a winner, no 2 ways about it.

OK everyone, time to enjoy one last night w/ my wife. Talk to y'all soon.