Thursday, 25 Dec- Christmas

On Christmas we got to serve in the Dining Facility (DFAC) just like at Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun so here are some pictures from it.

This one is from the week before Christmas and goes with the video posted on the Christmas for Kids entry. This little girl was so cute with her reindeer antlers!

This was at the Christmas Eve service for church. We had a Night of Carols so it was pretty fun. Craig and Amanda joined the choir before Christmas so this is the picture of the Three Amigos.

This was Amanda and I with one of the guys that runs the DFAC. He is one of our favorites!

Part of our Christmas dinner. No take out! We also had the traditional turkey, ham, prime rib, etc. I still just ate turkey cut up and mixed in my mashed potatoes with gravy on top. Oh, and a roll (not as good as Grandma Bert's though).

Here is a picture of our office. Well at least the people that work there. It's not that great a shot but you get the idea.

I think that pretty much covers my Christmas experience. It really was a great season and super busy just like at home. Of course it wasn't the same being without friends and family, but luckily I have some temporary replacement friends and family here!

Talk to you soon!

Take care and God bless!

Love, Me

Thursday, 25 Dec- Christmas for kids!

About the week before Christmas the Christian church here in Baghdad rounded up a bunch of kids (the total congregation is about 2,000 people so we only had a fraction) and brought them into the IZ for a Christmas Party. We went to a park and played games all day and then took them to meet Santa and get gifts. This video is of the kids singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". They learned it in English for us, then sang it in Arabic as well. The visual is not great the the sound is amazing (just the song they sing really).

Love, Me

Wednesday, 24 Dec 08- Promotion

This was the day I finally went from 2nd Lt to 1st Lt. Normally I would be wearing my service dress and we would do a "pinning on", but since we are in the iRaq, we improvised. Notice the awesome sharpie we used to color in my gold bars black. Since we are in an Army command, everyone wears black rank anyway so no one really noticed that I wore those around for two days. The people "pinning me on" were Craig (see blog post Thankful if you don't know who that is), my old boss Lt Col Allen, and my new boss LCDR Schlise. CAPT Rice (Navy O6 in charge of my unit) did my oath for me. We did it on the patio of our building before I turned everyone loose for the Scavenger Hunt I organized. Everyone had a really great time and it was a good way to celebrate the holidays.

I will write again soon!

Take care and God bless!

~Love, Me

Monday, 22 Dec 08- "Wetting Down"

So the Navy has this tradition called "Wetting Down" (my boss is a Navy O-6). When a officer is getting promoted they throw a party and pay for all their nearest and dearest friends and co-workers to eat, (mostly) drink, and be merry. Part of the ceremony involves throwing the new promotee into the sea. Luckily for me Baghdad has hardly any bodies of water and the ones it does have I need my M-16 to access. Below are some pictures of the party. Of course thanks to GO#1 we could not have a proper party (no alcohol) and even worse the espresso machine was broken at the pizza place. I did manage to get some yummy bread and hummus- oh yeah, and get drenched by about 15 people throwing liters of water on me. Enjoy!

My friend has some really good ones of what I looked like after it was all over so when I get those I will post them as well. If you can tell I am trying to catch up here so look for the actual promotion ceremony, Christmas, and my 4 day pass to Qatar in the near future!

Take care and God bless!

~Me