new old way of life

Well we have had a lot of helicopters flying around, and they come down so close so fast they shake the ground. They have to combat land so that the bad guys can't shoot at them, it just basically means they have to nose dive. They come very close to our roof and this is a probably a 10 foot ceiling. I have picture of some of them, these aren't close at all, I think these can just come straight down, so they don't have to nose dive.

The next picture I have is of the inside of the plane that we took from kuwait to here. Not exactly a made for its beauty, and there weren't any complimentary beverages, but up at the front they did have a big orange cooler full of water. I almost forgot, it was REALLY hot in there, there was something wrong with their air and it must have been about 140-150 in the plane, it felt good outside where it was only 110 when we got off.

I'm finally here

Well we finally made it! This place is great too, I know that after awhile its going to get boring, but right now we are all very happy with our living conditions, it is a thousand times better than it was at any of the training sites. We even have flushing toilets!! Small victories. The pictures below is of our living area inside and out.




The bed with the blue blanket is mine the messy one is Jens. We have a little kitchen area and Jen bought a tv, it quite nice. I will be giving updates, but I don't have much time right now so until tomorrow, I wish you well.



Sorry my hair is crazy, I just took my hair out of some braids.

free time

As you may have noticed, by my ability to post something every day, I have had an ample amount of free time of late. As a side effect of free time soldiers sometimes do silly things, let me explain, I'll let you know when I get to the silly part. Yesterday one of my friends here decided to re-enlist, her name is Jen and she has decided to dedicate another several years of her life to the protection and freedom of our country. As a thank you, along with generous monitary consideration, the army gave her a piece of luggage that is quite large. Jen came back yesterday from swearing in and she said, "yeah and they gave me a bag that Julia could fit in." Us being bored, and soldiers, we had to try it out to make sure she was right.

We had her put her head all the way in too, there was extra room. I think we could go ahead and pack her in there with enough snacks and water to last her till she got back to her husband. Anyway I hope you enjoy my picture have a lovely day.

sand storm

Well today we are having our first real sand storm since we have been here, not so exciting as you might think. First off its never a good idea to wear chap-stick or any other kind of lip product during this sort of thing. The wearer may have a little trouble with a sand paper like feeling on their lips about 2 seconds after leaving the inside area. I got some pictures to put on here.

This one is right outside of our tent, went for a little walk over to the px during the storm, stupid soldiers! We got all dressed up.

We were talking about all the places we had gone the other day and that is seems whenever we go anywhere there is some kind of natural emergency, like tornado or hurricane. We had a tornado knock down tents in South Dakota, and a tornado ran through our sleeping area in Texas we even had the tornado sirens go off. Also the day we got mobilized is snowed in Iraq. At least here this kind of thing happens all the time.

your change is a dollar even

They don't have change in Kuwait. I don't know what else I can add to this sentence except maybe they have change and it isn't american, or maybe they have it just not here, but there is no actual metal change. Instead the army has devised another way for us to get our change.

Julia calls them pogs, you remember pogs? Those little discs the kids used to collect? Well now they really are worth something, granted its only pocket change but still. You should have seen the look on Julia's face when she got them back, like what is this? Don't think just because I'm small I'm going to let you get away with giving me card board instead of real money. I gave them my money and they gave me these, is this worth anything at all. Well anyway I just wanted to let everyone know they are giving our troops fake money over here...Until tomorrow. :)

my husband

Well I have realized this past week I have been somewhat remiss in introductions, this is my husband steve. We have been married for 4 years.

I know he looks a little strange in this picture, but I can assure you that is his, why are you taking my picture you already have pictures of me look. That one was taken when we were on my four day pass right before I left. That is a signature steve look that I love. He has been doing fine since I left, keeping busy with school and now work for the summer. Right now he is working with his daddy on a house that his father owns, I think he may also be getting a summber job sometime in here at a deli where he worked last year. When I am home we live in a huge house that also houses three other guys, they are crazy and loud but I love all of them and I miss them.
Well I was going to go and put on another picture but my internet is too slow I can't get it to load. So I will describe it for you, the other one has steve with a beard, a red beard. He seems to pick up more and more pigment in his hair the further down his face it is. I'm sorry I think I said that wrong the way I said it makes it sound gradual, its not. The hair goes from being white blonde to bright red in 1 milimeter, the change is amazing. As you may hear again I am not fond of facial hair, so for my birthday every year he shaves it off. Well this year I pulled the Iraq card to make him shave it for a little longer, and I think he might keep it shaved. Some people here say he doesn't even look like the same person with a beard. I'm here to tell you he is.
So I have a little story that will either make you laugh or be gross to you. A few years ago I made something for dinner that had a lot of cheese in it, Steve ate it and enjoyed it. Later that night I was snuggling with him and I said "Hey your beard smells like cheese". It stuck and I started saying it kind of often because I didn't like the beard, well my army friends heard my say it one time and they started saying "the cheese beard" too. Its funny because it is an orangey kind of color. Well now there is not a cheese beard, so its ok. Alright I have nothing left to add today, excpet that you can go and see this post my Mom did about Steve on her blog last year: The Snowman Post.

what's this?

Today we got up at 2 am and wandered out into the middle of the desert to ensure that our weapons still worked even in another country. Yes, one and all, that is what I put up with on a regular basis. We really did drive an hour out into the desert fire 20 rounds and drive back. But anyway, today I was able to get a picture of some of the beautiful foliage they have out here.

Isn't that about the sadest little...thing you have ever seen? The ones that I saw as we came in were worse, they didn't even look a little bit green. Well to be fair Kuwait is having a drought right now, but even taking that into consideration there is not shell of an old tree or anything but these and there aren't any where we live.
While we were out in the desert today I decided to also get a picture of the desert, because it is hard to fully appreciate when you don't get to see it. For fun I went ahead and stood in the picture so that you would have something, anything to acually look at. The lady in the picture with me is Jaanna.

back?? front??

These are my Front door/Back door pics for the photo meme my Mom has going on her blog. You just step outside and take a photo from your front door and then from your back door. Well today I have some back and front pictures that might seem a little bit different to everyone. Yes people this is another country and it does look different.Also regarding these pictures I am not sure myself which is the back and which is the front we call the first one the front, but I am not sure which the army considers to be so. The pictures of the back and front were taken at a little bit of an angle otherwise it would have been a straight on view of the tent right across from us.

The other pictures I am putting on today are of some of the painted barriers, I guess when units come through here they have some artist in their unit paint a barrier with their unit things. Some of them are a little rudimentary I have included some of the ones that are a little better. Hope you like them.

We moved

So we are in a new living area and country now. We are staying in new "barracks" it's really like a big tent thing and the new country would be Kuwait! So far I have noticed that dry heat isn't fun at all, the way they say it is. To be fair to those that say so, it isn't 130 degree's most of the time in the states. Also there seems to be quite a bit of sand, amazingly, it blows into your eyes, so I bought some lovely goggle-sunglasses that are very hot! And I mean hot in every sense of the word. I have a few things that I have pictures of that I want to show. So we are going to be here for a while longer than I thought we were going to be. But this installation isn't so bad, it has quite a nice dining facility, which I will talk more about at another time, starbucks I was amazed by, taco bell, burger king, a nice sized px (army wal-mart), a beauty shop that gives massages, among other things. We will also have these things where we are giong next. Also we have internet access here in our living area which is very nice, it doesn't work very fast and we have to pay $12 a week for it, but its still here.
Well the showers here are short and I mean really short we are allowed 15 gallons per shower, I take very fast showers but that is crazy short. We also have no flushing toilets, that means we get to use port-a-potties, now I don't know if many of you have used a port-a-poty during the day when its 130 degrees but its not much fun. I am hoping the next place will have something in a flushing toilet.
New subject we will talk about males over here, WOW. They aren't so bad in our unit although they are getting to the staring phase, but these guys in the other units are to the random talking to you phase. Example? We were walking around the px and we separated because we all needed different things, and when we went to leave we had all experianced the same thing, they will just walk up and start talking to you. They aren't to the hitting on you stage yet, but it is a little crazy that they are as far as they are because as you will see no one looks good in this amount of crazy (army wear).
Well I think that is all I have to say for now I will be bloggin more in the next few days.
PS one and all we are 7 hours ahead of you on the east coast, the rest of you may adjust accordingly.

Packing up

Well people, as you can see, today we are packing up. I was a little worried that everything wasn't going to fit into my bags, they only let us have two. I guess that might sound normal unless you realize we are packing our whole world into them. Well anyway I found I had plenty of room, apparently my whole world is quite small if you don't count Steve, my husband. Also you may notice that packing indicates leaving a lot of the time, even though I am not allowed to say when, wink wink. I also wanted to let you know I probably won't be able to write for awhile because we won't have electricity. The pictures are of some of my friends relaxing after the worst packing of their lives. We were talking about it the other day, and we discovered that this past year, with all the training we have done, we have all become great packers. The first field exercise we did we were living in a mud pit so we had to pack all our stuff everyday and put it on our cots during the day to keep it from getting wet when it rained, we were in South Dakota. Then we went to Georgia, then California, then Texas, then back to Texas, we have gone camping a lot this year, but even when you go camping with your family and sleep in a tent you get that little nylon bottom the army doesn't believe in that. :) A lot of it was really fun, and I got to see a lot of the world, I hadn't ever been to South Dakota or California. Well I better split. I want to thank everyone who left a kind comment, I am happy to be doing this - after all I volunteered.

Day two blog

Well today we are getting ready for another country again! Everyone that knows me knows where, but I am not supposed to say. Today we have had a lot of free time, and our first formation wasn't until 9:00 am which is a first for me in the Army. This afternoon we are supposed to have a picnic, that is supposed to be pretty fun, and they may be doing runs to the px. I have little else to talk about so I will put up some pictures hope you like them.

my first blog

I don't have much to say yet I just wanted to start one of these for fun.