Days Like This

We were released early again from work today. Once our work was done and we could do no more there was no use in us sitting around looking at each other. Days like this balance out the others when you are required to stay late or come in extra early.

Jeffrey was not interested in noodles for dinner. He opted to eat a pile of shredded cheese after which he fell asleep. His daily afternoon nap time routine is over. Giving him a nap began to mean he would be up very late so we decided he is big enough to go through the day with no nap and go to bed at a decent time.

When my homework was done I watched an hour of America the Story of Us with Tricia on the History channel. It is a great series worth checking out. It is times like this that on demand TV is worth it. We can sit down together when we are both ready to watch a program rather than scheduling our day around the broadcasters schedule.

I stepped outside for a few minutes and was reminded how great a view we get from our front and back yard. Being up as high as we are the weather overhead is usually dramatic and we get a panorama view of most of the valley.

Up with Jeffrey

This is what it is like to watch the movie Up with Jeffrey.

Image and Place

My new photography website is up and running now. It will be both a web gallery I can refer people to for viewing my work, a place to refer people who want a photo taken, and the home of a photography blog I will be posting to. There are still steps to go before the website can be called done, but it is far enough along that I can let people take a look at it now.

Image and Place describes the type of photography I will be specializing in as a business, that is on location portraiture. 

If you are wondering what host I am using for the site, it is Square Space. They offered a low cost way to put together a great website.

Happy Birthday, Jeffrey!!

I first thought I would be working late today, but as luck would have it I ended up coming home early in the day. Tricia and I spent our time with Jeffrey in celebration of his third birthday. Wow, we were back in Germany at the Klinikum Weiden in the delivery room three years ago! Our first act of celebrating his birthday was to clean Mommy and Daddy's room along with the living room down stairs. A clean house is a happy house.

Grandparents sent several packages to Jeffrey along with our own gifts. We broke the gifts up by their respective senders and allowed him to open each set throughout the day to prevent the excitement from going out like a big fire cracker and to ensure that he had to time to realize that the gifts were from different people.

You can also see that Tricia decided to step up our blog a little more with a great new header and changed the color layout.


As a side note, I learned today that yet again the flight returning our troops have been pushed back. This is partly due to the volcano and partly due to changes that just happen any way. Several families traveled across the country to be at the welcome home ceremony only to find out when they arrived that their Soldier would not be there. This is why Tricia and I sometimes do not tell family and friends what we know about our own plans when it involves the military.

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts

While Tricia and I were driving in the car a few days ago the subject came up about how glad we are now that we are renting a home in Colorado Springs rather than having purchased one. When we arrived here in the Springs one year ago it was a prime time to purchase a house for first time buyers with all of the assistance the government was willing to offer. In order to take advantage of the prices it is of course necessary to have a steady job so that you know you can make the payment each month long into the future. We certainly have that since I plan to stay in the military for the next ten years. We got a lot of good advice from family and friends who did not want to see us waste the housing allowance I am given each month get throwing it away on a rental when it could just as easily be used as a morgage payment. We did not feel good about jumping into a house having just come from Germany and knowing I would be leaving soon on deployment. With me looking at changing my job in the Army now and going in a totally new direction for the next ten years it is possible that we may be sent to a new post. If we felt chained here because it is so hard to sell homes now, the new direction I want to go with my military career could not be possible. As for this house, we do not regret renting it at all. It has been a dream house for us. What a find, Tricia (she did all of our house hunting on line from Germany before we left).

A few minutes after Jeffrey jumped into my arms when we met each other at the redeployment homecoming he gave me an Ellie Badge. I did not understand the Grape Soda bottle cap with safety pin at the time, but that is because I had not seen up. Once I had seen the movie with Jeffrey I put the badge on my suit coat and have received many comments about it from people at church.

I have found a great trick to get Jeffrey to brush his teeth. I used to have him brush his teeth after a bath which was right before bed. I asked him a few days ago to brush his teeth along with me in the middle of the afternoon. He was excited to do it and could not get to his brush fast enough. He has followed this pattern for the last few days and has given me no trouble brushing. I thinks this works because now brushing teeth is no longer a step before bed. Besides this, since he is excited to brush teeth with Daddy, he sees how I brush and is doing well to copy how I brush front teeth and molars differently.

Daddy's Homecoming

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I could be;
Clap my hands and shout for joy, and climb upon his knee,
Put my arms around his neck, hug him tight like this,
Pat his cheek, the give him what? A great big kiss.

Every day when I come home from work Jeffrey greets me just like the song. It makes me happy that Jeffrey is excited to see me each day when I return and not just for a quick minute. From the moment I make it in the door I feel like the best thing since cookie dough ice cream. When I do arrive home I have more to accomplish than flop on the couch and watch TV for the rest of the night, so I cannot spend all of my entire night playing with Jeffrey, but I can ensure that my attention always goes to him first.

Jeffrey is also in the habit of spontaneously saying I love you. I am sure he gets it from me and Tricia as we say it to each other and to him at random times, but it is very pleasing to hear it come back from him. Even when Jeffrey begins to get out of hand when sleep or a toy is getting the best of him, but our living room rough house to distract him usually go from a wrestle to a giggle.

While Tricia was away Saturday for the Dance Festival I spent the day with Jeffrey. The nice weather that is coming around brought out the dogs next door that Jeffrey loves to play with. The are very friendly and our neighbor is good about letting Jeffrey interact with his dogs. We went outside where Jeffrey found several tennis balls next to the fence but on our neighbors side. He quickly figured out that he could reach his small hands through the wire fence and lift up the ball one hand at a time until was over his head when he would throw the ball to the dogs. When it began to rain he put on his rain coat and got out his "umbalella" from the closet. 

The Dance Festival

So last July/August I went to a friend's house for dinner. After dinner I was helping her clean up and we were talking about stuff. She found out that I was an Irish dancer and was pretty interested in it. I didn't give it another thought until that weekend when I got the strangest call ever. It was a guy in our ward asking if I was an Irish dancer. Wow! Random, but yeah I dance. He said he was so glad someone had told him because they needed another teacher for the Irish dance for the stake dance festival. What?? My friend totally ratted me out, but I'm glad she did. He explained that our stake was holding a dance festival this year for the youth. They would each learn 4 dances from different cultures around the world. He had been through the MDT program and BYU, did the whole folk dance team thing and wanted to include Irish dance in the show. Interesting. I took dance from the teacher who started the whole Irish dance program at BYU, Tina Shelley! But he knew her by her maiden name since she wasn't married at the time. Isn't it a small world?

So I was called and set apart as a choreographer and teacher for the stake dance festival. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it with a deployed husband and a two year old, but I told them I would do it. A long time ago when I called my friend Cori to be my counselor in the Primary presidency and her husband was deployed, she said it was just going to be an opportunity for the ward to step up and help, and thanks to amazing friends Jeffrey always had someplace fun to go! So now almost a year later and countless hours of practice time later we are opening the show tomorrow night. My fellow choreographer Heather and I have taught 100+ miamaids and teachers the basics of Irish dance. I'm proud of my dance group, they have worked hard and I think they are one of the best numbers in the show!

The Administrative Process of Return

I attended the Soldier Readiness Process (SRP) which turned out to be an all day event. 425 soldiers moved from station to station in the SRP building to process all of the administrative data with doctors, dentists, legal, finance and others to ensure that the administrative side of our return was up to date. The process moves quite smoothly until you get to the last station which can take up to 20 minutes per soldier, and with 425 soldiers, that adds up. I spent nearly three hours waiting in that line. 

We did our first real PT session. The altitude at Carson is kicking my rear. What would have been an easy day of PT took my breath away and left all of us light headed. It is going to take some time to get used to this altitude again when it comes to aerobic activities. 

After PT our small group of Aco soldiers went down to the company to see how it had been remodeled while we were away. Wow, what an amazing change took place. From floor to ceiling the building has been refurbished and brand new furniture has been placed in each room. I have never seen a company level building look so nice. I checked out my own office where I will be working at the battalion and was not disappointed.

Years ago SRP used to take place in a hot gymnasium where doctors and administrators would have to set up tables and chairs. Now so many soldiers are constantly going from here to there and back that whole buildings have been erected just for the purpose of SRP. 

In my communications class we are studying how people from different cultures can communicate. I need to write an essay based on a story presented in a film. Tricia rented Dances with Wolves from the Blockbuster for me. I do not have time to watch the film all at once in one sitting, so I will take it to work with me and watch it on the laptop at lunch. It is a good thing that we have such conveniences to make the best use of time. 

Jeffrey In the Pantry

This is a short clip of some of Jeffrey's typical antics through the day. I will be making more of these short videos for the blog. I have had a video camera for many years now and utilized it very little. Since we still live far away from family and friends I thought it would be a good way to stay connected.

Spagetti Dinner

Tricia had me take the lead on making dinner tonight. She has purchased a recipe book that shows how to make ordinary foods more healthy by adding ingredients that bring more nutrition. Our meatballs were made with butternut squash puree. It was a contest to get Jeffrey to eat. He gets some healthy snacks though out the day, but when it comes to sitting down to eat he can be a pill. I had a good time cooking dinner and it was nice to be with Tricia while we worked and laughed together.

A New Face

I noticed that some new features are available on Blogger. After looking into them I decided it was time to give the MacNeil Family Blog a face lift. It took some convincing for Tricia as she was the designer of the last look and was fond of the personality it showed. The wider column will give us more room to write and allow for display of larger photos. For those of you that use Blogger yourselves, the there is a new post editor available that I have found has greatly improved the ease of setting up a post, especially when it comes to placing a photograph in just the right spot. Also, misspelled words are now immediately highlighted during the initial writing of the post.

 

The insert jump break allows you to mark a place at which Blogger will initially halt the display of your post until the reader chooses to click on the read more button which opens the rest of the text that was hidden. Now you can add the location to post to let people know where you were when you wrote. This would be great for writing about a family trip. It appears as a link at the bottom of the post which takes the reader to a Google Map of the location. Lastly, the post editor can now be sized to fit your screen so that you can take advantage of having a larger screen when writing your posts.

We also celebrated Mother's Day in our home with a great roast dinner after church. One of Tricia's very best roasts I might add. I am usually not a fan of left over roast, but I could not stop nibbling on this one. Jeffrey crashed out after church and gave Tricia and me some time to spend together. Once he woke up though, it was game on again. Jeffrey build the Eiffel Tower in our living room. I was amazed at how high he was able to stack the blocks before they finally toppled over. 

The Greatness of Ordinary

While shopping for groceries with Tricia and Jeffrey (it is great to do ordinary things with the family again) we picked up a copy of Avatar. I saw a bootleg copy in Afghanistan and thought it would be fun to see it with the family back here on a genuine DVD. We folded clothes while the movie played (ok, I am not ecstatic to do all ordinary activities again).While at the store Jeffrey was my shopping buddy and went every where with me. As I selected items from the shelf I would hand them to Jeffrey who gladly ran them back to the cart and tossed them in.

When Jeffrey saw me with my tripod he expressed a great interest in wanting to play with it. I thought he might just want to see how it adjusts, but he already had a game intended for it. He used it as a telescope to see the air planes fly around our house. In the midst of our game an air plane was heard above us and it added a great effect to the fun. 

Jeffrey is also non-stop with his Up antics. He quotes lines, reenacts scenes and can turn anything we do into a play game based on the story line. He did so with me during the entire Saturday we spent together while Tricia was away at a dance rehearsal. 

It is great to be back for the ordinary activities of life.

First Days Back

Jeffrey has been nonstop entertainment for me since I returned. I opened an item yesterday that contained a set of instructions printed on a tightly folded piece of paper. This morning Jeffrey wanted me to help him find his snake paper. I thought it was a made up item until he found the instruction set and carried it all over the house all day long and kept calling it his snake paper. I have a set of master locks that Jeffrey can recall from before I left for Afghanistan that I keep in my top drawer. He was excited to get me to let him play with them. Those locks have been a source of hours of entertainment for him already.
Jeffrey has a lot of funny sayings that he suddenly says at all times of the day. Tricia had me watch the movie Up with him, which is his new favorite, so that I would understand many of his cryptic sayings. Jeffrey has whole scenes of the movie memorized that he will act out. I am amazed at how much Jeffrey is talking now and how much he is able to say and express.

We all went out today for our first day of yard work. We pulled a few weeds growing among our plants, evened out the mulch, and I even got the lawn mower going so that I could cut half an inch off of a few of the taller spots of grass. It felt great to get outside.
We have begun to read a new book as a family. I have had the three volume set of War and Peace for many years now and decided it would be a fun family read. I enjoy the dialogue that takes place in the book as well as the omniscient narrator telling about each person.

I took Tricia to dance on Wednesday. She was excited to be able to begin the month dancing as she has had to miss for a while since there was not someone to watch Jeffrey.

I did put my two new lenses on my camera and tried them out along with a few light shaping tools I saved for while away.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

It took almost a week, but I have finally made it back home to Colorado. Most of my journey consisted of stop and go at different bases along the way while my group waited for helicopters and air planes to pick us and our baggage up. In all, the process was smooth and well organized. The 4/4 Brigade thought well ahead about what had to be done to get everyone, their equipment and personal items out. A police escort took our buses through all the red lights from Peterson Air Force Base to Fort Carson so that we could go through a quick ceremony and get back to our families. It was awesome to see Tricia and Jeffrey run up to me with their welcome home sign. Channel Five News did a short interview with us just before we left for home. We got Chinese food on the way home to celebrate.

Jeffrey was all over me from the moment we got back together. He probably said Daddy 500 times since last night.

I will give a call to family and friends during the next three days that I have off to say hello to everyone. Thank you to all of our family and friends that have supported us in so many ways while I was away on my adventure.

A Little Humor!

Google Chat -- Posted again for Cory

I had another video chat with Tricia and Jeffrey this morning. We used to use Microsoft IM when we lived in Germany, but connecting to family had a lot of problems. After a while problems were so inherent that we eventually fell away from IM chats. Tricia and I have been testing Google Chat, a recent addition to having a Gmail account, and have found it very reliable and easy to use. It does not have some of the fancy frills of Microsoft IM, but reliability is number one for us. Of course, both parties have to have a Gmail account, but that is a plus anyway since Gmail is hands down the best email account to have.

Jeffrey has a lot of fun interacting with me on camera. He held up his toy Woods to the laptop screen for me to pull the string on the back. He also put a popcorn bag up to the camera to show me that he had reserved a bag for me. With all of the WiFi available I could go to the Library on FT Carson during lunch with my laptop and chat with him at noon. With either Google Chat or Microsoft IM, I will be allowing family back in UT to stay connected to Jeffrey in a way that lets them hear and see both ways.

Camp Fire

Mr. Silvia, our Law Enforcement Professional, invited Carl, the Afghan Security Guard manager and me to an evening by the camp fire outside of the qualat walls. Carl brought potoatoes and tin foil from the dining facility while Mr. Silvia and I got the fire going. We spend two hours by the fire talking about our adventures in Afghanistan and talked about our future plans. We had a great time together and enjoyed the potatoes with butter once they were tender. Simple times like these become the most memorable.

After the party broke up and the embers were burning low Mr. Sivlia and I did not feel tired so we went to the USO and watched two movies together. It was 0300 before we finally felt tired and both went our seperate ways.

Fire Mission

"Fire mission! JAF is under attack!" SSG K shouted from the FDC corner. "This is it! Go get the commander!" I shouted from my corner of the TOC. SPC D awoke with a jolt from the big cushy chair he had fallen asleep in at the back of the room. He sprung out of the chair towards his desk where the radios and computer were awaiting him to man under just such conditions. SPC D took one step forward and immediately fell to the floor.

Everyone in the room had a good laugh.

SSG K had noticed SPC D fall asleep in the back of the room and asked permission from me to tie his foot to the chair. I consented and watched SSG K low crawl on the floor up to the pair of crossed ankles dangling near the feet of the chair. Slow and stealthy moves allowed him to thread a length of 550 cord around one boot and gently secure it to the chair. Once everyone was in their places we gave a signal to each other and set off the prank.

Night Shift

This night shift is beginning to wear me out. I am going through a continuous cycle of getting good sleep from exhaustion day and not being able to sleep during the day the next. I am glad that this will be over soon. I have only had to bear this for a short time compared to others that have been in the TOC at night for nearly the full duration of the year.

Random Ramblings of the Sergeant

My posts have been far too infrequent for too long. I challenge myself to get back into writing, not only for family and friends that check in periodically to see what the MacNeils are up to, but also as my own journal of my adventures; be they around the world or just around my own neighborhood. If I could blame anything for discouragement in frequent writing it would be the repetitiveness of the routine I follow each night as I come on shift through the morning. No excuses from me though, I have just been lazy in taking time to find what I can report about in the events around me.

I was eating lunch at our picnic tables with one of the platoon leaders when we heard gun fire very near to us. He thought it was quite close, but I assured him it must be the noise from the range. We heard another burst of fire and again he thought it very close. He used the radio to call the TOC and found out that no one was on the range. Just then another platoon leader came running into the inner walls and let everyone know that the gun fire was just outside of the walls. Everyone grabbed their helmet and vest and took up guard positions. It turned out that two Afghan Army soldiers were in an argument earlier and one decided to resolve it by getting an AK-47 from their arms room. One ANA died and the other is in the custody of the ANA that came to get him.

The summer time weather has opened the passages to Pakistan where the insurgents flow in from during the warmer times of the year when the snows have melted. The summer time surge brings an increase in IED and trained fighters who have spent the winter practicing their skills over the border. No one has been hurt from an IED yet, but we have expended several million dollars replacing vehicles that only cost a few hundred to destroy.

I have already been informed that when I return to the US I will be sent to the battalion to work as the S-3 Schools NCO. In that position I will be responsible for ensuring that all of the soldiers in the battalion get into the schools that they want to go to, such as Sapper Leader Course, and into the schools for the roles their companies will need them to fill, such as Equal Opportunity Representative. I do not expect this to last long as I myself should receive a school date soon for changing my job in the Army.

I have been reading the General Conference reports on the church website. I have heard the speakers so many times in the past that I can hear their voices in my mind as I read the talks. When I get home I will download the MP4 and watch the conference on my iPod. Technology is awesome.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 will be out soon. I plan on making the purchase down the road, but I have found that I feel good about avoiding the hype of having to get it the day it comes out. Looking at its features there are some good reasons to get it. Photoshop allows for third party vendors to create software that adds on to Ps to do even more or better things than it already does. Some of those additional programs cost a lot extra. Ps CS5 will remove the need for many of those programs by having native programming ready to do those tasks. Rather than get wrapped up in a proposed need to have it right now, I am willing to wait until the time is right for such a big purchase. I do not need anyone to convince me that somehow my photography is lacking if I am not using the most up to date Ps to perform digital retouch. Actually, if I wait a little while I can save a lot of money and time. It may take some patience, but the University of Phoenix should offer it at a student discount, which is very significant. Also, when the program is first released it will take a while for photographers to really figure out how it is different from CS4 and leverage those new tweaks. Rather than spending hundreds of hours learning myself, if I am patient, I can let others do the testing and spend tens of hours reading a book and working through some practical exercises. It feels good to be satisfied and not haunted by want.

Jeffrey likes to cuddle!

Jeffrey fell asleep on the couch and kind of did the pretend wake up and then went back to sleep on my shoulder.

He's wearing his new favorite thing "SkippyJon Jammies". In SkippyJon Jones Lost in Spice he wears a snow suit that's a space suit, this is Jeffrey's interpretation of that. Too bad he's outgrowing the two he has.

Jeffrey looooooves seeing himself

Here's a couple of short videos of us today for Daddy. Jeffrey was singing while we were chatting online and he wanted to hear him so I tried to see if I could get it on video. He really likes seeing himself on the camera, especially when I asked him to show us his 'bills' or belly. Silly Kiddo!

Ramblings of the Dancer

So, I really don't know who actually reads our blog, but I'll post a few odd thoughts here.

So Paige and I used to watch Shear Genius every Wednesday night...Um last night's finale? FAIL. I did not care for Brig. Nope.

I've had a few of Jeffrey's friends over lately (their mommy's have let me watch them since they've all done HUGE favors for me lately!) and his bunk bed slide is the big winner. Every kiddo loves it. Some are braver than others and will go down by themselves (Jeffrey will only go on his tummy because it is such a fast slide) and others holler down the stairs "Help me Jeffrey's mommy" and I hold their hand when they slide down. Some don't ever want to leave when their mommy comes to get them. Score one for Jeffrey the cool kid.

The Office still makes me happy. I've seen every episode like a million times and it still makes me happy.

I am getting sick, the elephant who sometimes lives on my chest has returned. Ask me how thrilled I am about that.

The dance festival practices are going great! I am one of the choreographers for the Irish number and we have probably 75 kids who have never danced before who can now do something that vaguely resembles Irish dance. Some of them have little coordination but I am amazed at how they keep trying each week.

I miss watching and laughing at the ghost shows with Cory. It's just not as much fun to laugh at them by myself.

That is all.

Distracted (Posted for Cory)

It feels good to pause for a moment, close my eyes, and meditate. It is easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of the day. Often times I find myself enamored with a project or task that begins to take a disproportionate amount of time that it deserves. This is the trap that steals my away from the ordinary but meaningful times with my family. “Hold on a minute, Tricia. I just need to finish retouching this photo.” It is easy to get lost in my selfishness. “I will get you a juice in just a minute, Jeffrey. I just need to finish reading this page.” That is when I exchange the valuable time with family for the worthless currency of self absorption.

The remedy is easy. I need only take a moment to close my eyes, take in a few deep breaths, and the frenzy that is within me blows itself out. In this balanced moment I can make decisions without the false weight of excited emotion which throws off the scales of my life.

Marking the Scriptures (Posted for Cory)

Ten years ago while I was in Spain on my mission I stepped into a office supply store and purchased two architect pencils. One had red lead and the other blue. I have been using them ever since to mark my scriptures. Reading quickly helps me to get a feel for the story at large in a short time, but it is going back to the beginning of the chapter and taking my time to read and mark that has sunk me deep into the personal meaning of the scriptures.

Lately I have been following all of the footnotes contained in the chapter and found myself all over the standard works just from reading Genesis from the Old Testament. When marking, I use the blue for events of interest and the red to mark the words of people that make me stop and think.

Chess (Posted for Cory)

I played my boss in chess last night. He knows a lot about chess. Actually, he is a champion player. He knows the abilities of each piece. He knows how to plan a defense. He knows how to launch an offense.

The only thing I know is that after he moves I have to move.

As we played last night, I began to think to myself, I hope we are not over here making blind moves against an opponent that knows more than we do. Are we planning and conducting missions because we have a known end state to reach and an effect to bring upon the enemy, or are we just moving because he is?

How to Fix Your Camera (Posted again for Cory)

The Silly Things We Do (Posted for Cory)

I have been reading along in the Old Testament with the assigned reading for the Sunday School class this year. The Old Testament is one my favorite books to study because of its great variety of stories, extensive history, and the external history that can be learned about the time period and location.

In the assigned reading for this week the Israelites have escaped the clutches of the Egyptians only to complain that they wish they were back there now, if only to get one good meal. I cannot help but think to myself, don't these silly Israelites get it? Don't they appreciate the amazing things they have witnessed and of which they have been a part? How can they be so inconstant?

Before I can be too critical of them, I have to ask myself these same questions. After all, this is why their story ends up in the Old Testament. It is not that Moses did not have anything else to write about so he told tales of the double minded people around him. He shares with us these stories so that we might inspect ourselves and see if we too do not have some of the inconstancy of the moon and tide up our shores.

The Israelites have a distinct culture and customs from most modern day Americans. However, they are not aliens from a strange world in another galaxy. They are not inter dimensional beings whom we have recently discovered and now study with jaws agape at their foreign behavior. They are just people. Their foibles are not indicative of a weak kind; rather, reflective of the weakness human kind.

This may just be a small footnote to place in the margins of your mind; the scriptures are not about an ancient people far away and deceased. That would make them just another history book to reference when writing a report for school. The scriptures are about you and me (mostly me). Now the questions can be rephrased. Don't I get it? Don't I appreciate the amazing things I have witnessed and of which I have been a part? How can I be so inconstant?

Daddy I need your help!

Hey Daddy, we need your help. The batteries in Jeffrey's camera died and he told me we needed to talk to you on the computer about it. So Daddy we need your help!

Sharing is Great

So I sent an Easter package to Cory a few weeks ago with a cookie making kit in it. This is what he came up with. He said the 1SG wondered if he had an easy bake oven in his room when he took cookies around. Love you Daddy!!