30 July 2009

Waking up early each morning gives me time to myself to write home, record stories for Jeffrey and generally go undisturbed by the radio I have to carry with me at all times. Later in the morning and on until the last hours of evening I never know when Assassin 21 can get a call. Waking up early on a consistent basis makes it easy for me to be prepared for early morning missions that come up on occasion.

I had a fun time taking the lead on a dismounted mission. I studied the map the night before of the places we would be visiting to get to know the terrain features to look for while out. I also put key locations in my Garmin GPS to give me extra guidance while out on the move. It is fun being the lead element because I get to choose how we will get to the objective and I have more to offer the LT when making decisions about where to go next and how to get there.

My two new soldiers did pretty well while out on the movement. It was a humid day; so much that I had to take off my eye protection, which kept fogging up on me. Both of them were drenched in sweat from boot to neck by the time we returned, but they managed to keep up with our pace and stay at the proper place in the formation as we moved through villages, farms, fields and streams.

After lunch, I opened up the scriptures and read from 3 Nephi 12, in which Jesus gives the people the Beatitudes. Reading through them, I reflected on what they mean to me as a military leader. I think that a good leader can be strong, even rigid, and yet be caring. I prefer to have a high state of discipline in my squad, but I do not like to obtain it through yelling, demanding or making others actually fear me. I have found an effective style of setting a standard and holding to it without resorting to a loud voice or berating others.

“And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.” 3 Nephi 12: 41.

There is a lot of information that I have to share with my team leaders and squad members. To keep everyone on task, and yet give as much freedom to my team leaders to decide who will perform which work, I have begun a new system of information sharing. Each evening I create a Word document with a prioritized task list, a calendar of upcoming events, and a detailed set of notes of general information to share. Rather than pulling everyone away from what they are doing, be it work or a hard earned rest, I only have to find my team leaders for a few minutes and hand over the printed copy of the document and let them go from there. At the end of the day we can come back together and collaborate to find out what was accomplished and plan the next day.

Just when I thought I was going to get an hour to myself a health and welfare inspection popped up. This is when the leaders go through the barracks and have all of the soldiers dump all of their bags out to ensure no one is hiding drugs, alcohol or other prohibited items. No contraband turned up, but I did find that my squad had all of their winter gear under their beds taking up a lot of needed room. When they put their rooms back together all of that gear will be going outside to the storage containers until they need it in a few months.

I put on the boxing gloves for the first time and took them to the gym for part of my work out. Just outside of the gym hangs a beat up punching bag that gave me a work out for 20 solid minutes. I had a fun time working on several short routines of punches, jabs, upper cuts and moving around the bag.

My silly boy...

So I conned Po and Sugar to come into town to go to Harry Potter with me. But they came to see us anyway! We got shirts to celebrate. Mine says Honeydukes Sweetshop and Jeffrey's said Weasley is our King. (And just so you don't think I took my two year old son to see Harry Potter, it was a delicatly constructed plan that involved a super short nap time and a super late show. He sat down, ate his popcorn and fell right asleep and didn't wake up until it was over. I'm pretty good.)

He was throwing a fit yesterday, and so we went to sit by the door to cool off. It took him 5 minutes to decide he was done crying, and the only way I did it was to take his picture and then show him.

I probably have the only child who think that a bandaid is the worst thing possible for an owie! When he skinned his forehead and the entire thing was bloody, we couldn't get one on him. When he was bleeding the other day he took the two I put on off. Well, he skinned he elbow when he fell a couple of days ago and wouldn't let me put a bandaid on it. I had to wait until he was asleep before I could get one with some stuff on it to heal it. He finally did notice the next day and asked me to take it off. Now he just has a bright pink scar. But he's a boy right?

Daily Gems

On my google homepage I get the church's daily gems quotes, this one was from Elder Oaks and I really liked it. It makes me feel like what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing.

“A familiar example of losing ourselves in the service of others—this one not unique to Latter-day Saints—is the sacrifice parents make for their children. Mothers suffer pain and loss of personal priorities and comforts to bear and rear each child. Fathers adjust their lives and priorities to support a family. The gap between those who are and those who are not willing to do this is widening in today’s world. . . .

“We rejoice that so many Latter-day Saint couples are among that unselfish group who are willing to surrender their personal priorities and serve the Lord by bearing and rearing the children our Heavenly Father sends to their care. We also rejoice in those who care for disabled family members and aged parents. None of this service asks, what’s in it for me? All of it requires setting aside personal convenience for unselfish service. All of it stands in contrast to the fame, fortune, and other immediate gratification that are the worldly ways of so many in our day.”

Disneyland March 2009

So this is going back in time a few months, but I needed to post these so Cory could see. I just got them from my dad.
This was the first day we arrived in Utah. Jeffrey was pretty pooped and fell asleep on the floor in the kitchen while I was chatting with my mom and Paige. It was pretty cute, a little sad but cute.

Our first day in California. I think we were all glad for the road trip to be over!

This was at the pirate dinner we went to. It was fun, we sat in the red part of the boat obviously. My mom has really pretty eyes in this picture.

Jeffrey wouldn't wear his bandana. He's a little picky sometimes. But I liked this picture of Cory and Jeffrey.

Our pirate had a little Jack Sparrow complex. He was interesting, but we had amazing seating! Front row. Jeffrey HATED it, he SCREAMED the entire time. All of the actors felt bad for us. It was pretty crazy.

The next day we did breakfast with Shamu. It was fun, we had AMAZING seats right up front! It was fun, the kids loved it!

Jeffrey loved the times when he could get out and run around the most.

Most nights we spent watching Lion King with the kids. I was told several time that Uncle Scar was scary. The kids all got sun and poor JEffrey was allergic to the sunscreen we were using but we didn't find that out until a couple of days after. So he just looked miserable most of the time.

YAY!! Disneyland! Whee!

This is Cory. What can I say, there's hardly a minute where he didn't find something to take an amazing picture of.

In line for the carosel. It was the only ride all of the kids really enjoyed. I think we read it several times.

See Cory in the background getting ready to take another picture?

He thought this phone was so much fun. It was hard to get him away from it.

He had a really good time!

We took him on the Jungle Cruise, he wasn't a fan, I won't lie to you, but look at those eyes. I love them!

Jeffrey and Sugar, who was really good about watching him when we wanted to ride rides.

Jeffrey loved the water stuff at the Bug's life part of California Adventure. I'm pretty sure he was soaked by the end.

This was pretty good food. Makes me hungry for something right now. OOOOH I remember this was the tortilla tour place. They had amazing tortillas! Yes!

It's weird to see him with pics of his bink now, but we wouldn't have made it without it.

Watching the parade, too bad we missed the beginning, he really liked it!

I'm not sure what he was saying, but he was pretty intent on saying it. Hehehe

Demo Pay

We had to dispose of some ordinance that we came upon, so we made the morning into an opportunity to practice our demolitions skills. Along with disposing a grenade by placing a block of C4 on top of it, we used other demolitions to have some fun. For our three hours of trouble at the range we earned an extra $150 this month as combat engineers are authorized to recieve demo pay for each months in which they handle and use explosives. Nice.

Lagoon Pictures

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here's a montage of our pics from lagoon last month for daddy to see!

A Weekend with Sugar and Po

My parents came out this weekend to visit, we had such a good time with them! Jeffrey loves them so much!
Last night we went to the Flying W chuckwagon dinner and show. Jeffrey liked the music but got a little restless at the end.

Here we are enjoying ourselves!

They have a town that you can wander through ahead of itme. We got there a little late to enjoy all of it, so I'll have to go back again some time to see it.

Earlier in the day we walked around Old Colorado City. Jeffrey's favorite part was the Corna, Corna, Corna or popcorn. He is ADDICTED to the stuff.

Before walking around the town we walked through Miramont Castle in Manatou Springs. It was a pretty cool place (I'd been there before with Paige and Sam) but my mom wanted to see the miniatures that were in the basement.

We had a pretty good time! I'm glad they were able to come out and visit!

A Long Story

So inspired by my sister in law’s blog where she talks about a lot of tough things I am going to share my story with all of you mostly so I can get it out. You can take it and do with it what you want, but I think it proves that you can’t always judge someone by the façade they present. When I had Jeffrey I was so happy, it was my dream come true. I loved him and I loved that I was a mom. It didn’t take too long before I felt overwhelmed. I was in a hospital in a foreign country I was in pain (by my own doing…I did go natural) and couldn’t communicate with anyone. My roommate hated that I had a healthy baby and Cory always had to leave the room for half an hour when she wanted to go to the bathroom, they never brought me the right lunch, and for all the promises that someone would always be able to speak English, quite often no one could. To top it off I couldn’t figure out how to breastfeed my son. The nurses weren’t much help, since they didn’t speak English they would just tut-tut about how I was doing it and just hook the baby on. I wanted and did cry every day I was in the hospital. After two days I begged the TriCare liaison to ask the doctor to let me go home. I couldn’t handle being in the hospital anymore. They said that they were hesitant because of all the stitches and the fact that I was a new mom trying to learn to breastfeed. At the time I didn’t care. I just had to get out of there.


Things didn’t improve much at home honestly. I was exhausted and emotional and still couldn’t figure out how to feed my son. I cried a lot then. All the time thinking that it was just part of the post labor recovery that everyone had warned me about. I was so frustrated by the whole feeding thing and just feeling like such a failure that I could handle a natural birth but couldn’t feed my own son without bawling. We switched to formula which made me feel like I was even more of a failure as a mom. I got a mild infection a few days later and didn’t even want to hold my baby at all. All I wanted to do was lay on the couch and sleep. Thankfully my mom was there and held him for a few days while I just laid there in pain and misery. I felt even more like a failure when Cory would come home from work and I wouldn’t have the house clean or dinner ready, I think for the first few days he thought it wouldn’t be so hard, but he’s a good man and soon realized that life was going to change.


Time went on, mom went home and I felt like I was just struggling to get through the days. I was always so exhausted; I didn’t feel like doing anything. Unfortunately our house suffered and so did my poor husband. I had energy to take care of the baby and the desire to do little else. I was always on the brink of tears and cried more often than I care to admit. Cory’s work schedule was horrendous; the only good thing about it was that he wasn’t deployed. Not that I saw him all that much anyway with 14 hour days and then a couple hours of homework at the end of the day. I remember telling him I couldn’t do it anymore, that I felt like I needed more help. Being the amazing husband and father that he is, he cut back his school schedule putting his education on hold while I struggled to try to do it all.


I got into a routine with the baby and was starting to feel halfway normal. I was still always tired and still had little desire to do much beyond the necessities. I felt judged and criticized by people who I thought should have accepted me. I was blessed with a very loving and understanding husband though. He would take up the slack when I couldn’t or didn’t, he cleaned, helped with dinner, bathed and put Jeffrey to bed every night. He always said he was sharing the load but I felt like I was still a failure. We made it work though, taking care of our baby, our home and ourselves. But I still didn’t feel normal.


After Jeffrey turned one, I decided that if I hadn’t gotten back to normal yet, that something was wrong with me. Looking back, I should have gotten help much, much sooner. I had post-partum depression that went untreated for a year. I was embarrassed to talk to the nurse about it. I didn’t want to admit that I felt as bad as I did. I spent so much of my time trying to prove to everyone that I was just fine and nothing was wrong. But she asked me the questions and gave me the help that I needed. I hate to admit it but I feel like I wasn’t the best mom that I could have been for my son that first year.


He’s two now and I can say that I am feeling more at peace now that I have in almost three years. It’s taken me two years to recover emotionally from the effects of childbirth. I finally feel like I can handle things and I want to do things just because I want to, not because it’s a necessity or there’s no more clean clothes in the house. It surprises me that I am feeling good now even with Cory away. The few people that I talked to while I was going through this were very supportive, I just felt like people would judge me if they knew that I was having problems. Knowing all that I’ve gone through I can’t say that I am overly anxious to have another baby right away. I need to be the best mom I can for the son and for me right now that means just focusing on that. I am grateful for a husband who loved and supported me even when I was a little nutty. Things are so much brighter now and I feel honestly happy.


You get 5 gold stars if you made it through my whole story. I think I just needed to get it out for myself. It was very therapeutic.

A Big Boy Bed!

Our landlord and his wife called a couple of weeks ago and asked if we would like their bunk beds. They were getting new beds for their girls and wanted to give them to someone who could use them. Jeffrey was very helpful as we were assembling it and was very excited to hop on when we were finished.

So we tried our nighttime routine in his new bed now. We took a bath and put our toys away and then read a few chapters from Fablehaven. We'll see how long he stays in his own bed tonight. But it's a step in the right direction right? Let's just hope I don't get too lonely all alone in my bed tonight.

Ready for a Run

This is me ready for a run around the track that goes around the outer edge of our FOB. We always run in groups and never after dark. There are not many soldiers that like to run in this company, so it can be hard to find a partner, but I have managed to get out a few times.

I have learned a lot about myself since I stepped on the plane that brought us here. My squad leader from last deployment used to tell us that being on deployment for one year was equal to three years of training back in a field environment at home station. I believe it. So much can happen in one day. I always plan my own day and give as much direction as I can to my soldiers, but a dozen monkey wrenches always find their way in. Tasks come up. Equipment breaks. Priorities of higher bosses change. Murphy’s Law is in full effect over here.

I am also learning life lessons that will serve me well back in home town, USA. Cartographers used to draw dragons and sea monsters at the edges of the known world to give warning to sailors not to stray too far from the known. I feel like I am past the colorful warning symbols and off the edges of the map itself. It is out here on the fringes that life gains a sharpened meaning. The definition and value of life never changes upon location, for it is fixed, but life can reveal its intrinsic value when becomes apparent that it is possible to misplace or lose it. You may take your car keys for granted until you misplace them.

I am so glad that I have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with me as I travel through this long and wide world. It will not allow me to be tricked by circumstance or situation as to our purpose here upon the earth, the value human beings have for each other, nor which of all the many roads will lead us back to our Heavenly Father and bring peace and meaning to our lives.

Turf and Surf Friday

Each Friday we have turf and surf (steak and sea food). The DFAC always puts on a great spread, but it was not until this last Friday that I saw a little of the work they put into it. One of the cooks was out on the grill for several hours cooking 200 steaks. On an already hot day and no shade over the grill it was a long and hot job. I enjoyed my meal a little more knowing that a lot of work had been put into making it.

Dinero

I picked up a few bills at the bazaar that visits on Thursdays. It is not worth anything, but I can put it in my money collection Tricia and I have going from the places we have visited.

Clean

I was excited to hear that our mechanics received a new pressure washer. I sent two soldiers to grab our vehicles and send the engines and undercarriage through the wash. I received a few strange looks and questions about how long this can really stay clean. No matter, I am in charge so it got done. I can see that some just do not understand that as you clean dust and grime built up off equipment that hidden cracks, bends and tears reveal themselves. There are those that feel I am over zelous for cleanliness and order, but if this equipment is going to last 12 months and capable of passing on to the next unit, it is going to need some TLC through the entire deployment.

Listening for Hours

Our vehicles have headsets that allow the driver, vehicle commander, gunner and passengers to talk to each other over the noise of the vehicle. These same head sets are used for radio communication between the trucks, but by far and large the majority of the talking time is done right within the truck itself. I spend hours listening to soldiers go on and on about the most ridiculous things. Believe me, these conversations are not intellectually uplifting and mind engaging. After hearing a ridiculously out of proportion story rehearsed about exploits of the past, never have I heard anyone say, “Wow, I have nothing to compare to that. That bit of history you just related to us was unique and I have no experience similar to it.” Rather, I have a truck full of food, water, and one-uppers.

I used to turn the head set off just to get some silence, but then I thought better of it. I cannot afford for someone to spot something outside of the vehicle and I not be aware of it as soon as everyone else. Thus, I am forced to endure hours of storytelling.

I do end up learning a lot about my soldiers through this. Not just that they talk about themselves directly, but in telling stories of whatever type their inner character and thought process comes out.

A Yard of Our Own

One thing that may shock some of you is that I am not much of an outdoorswoman. I know shocking right? So guess what job I am looking forward to the least with Cory gone. The yardwork. The put in our sod about a month ago and since I dilligently watered it three times a day for the first several weeks it was growing quite well.

It was in desperate need of a mow though, it waved in the breeze and when Jeffrey was playing in it today he was almost swallowed up by it. I couldn't get our lawnmower to work when Paige was here. We spent at least an hour on it and were both so discouraged by the end that we gave up.

The teachers quorum said they would handle it for me, but I didn't have a way for them to with no lawn mower, thankfully our neighbor who is in the ward offered to do it for me. I can't tell you how much I HATE asking for help or admiting that I can't do it. That may be what I have to learn on this deployment.

We were out playing earlier and I was talking to my mom when JEffrey told me very clearly that he was all done. Do you want to know why?

This creepy caterpiller guy...

and this lady bug. They freaked him out! The caterpiller was pretty creepy but the lady bug was cute. There were TONS in my yard! Isn't that a good luck thing in Germany?

Here he was telling me all done and signing it for reinforcement. (He's wearing his cute "My Daddy Wears Combat Boots" shirt).

So today I am thankful for neighbors who really mean it when they say the want to help and for an air conditioner that finally works after two weeks!