Another Update from Afghanistan

Update from David:

It is starting to get colder and feel more like northern Afghanistan should, I guess. I'm still doing very well. We have received many care packages from people we don't know. In them there were many letters that people across the country wrote to deployed soldiers. I found one from a 3rd grade class at Mountain View Elementary School in Marietta and have started correspondence with those kids. I have a pen pal (I guess multiple pen pals)! It's pretty neat to see people close to home reaching out to those of us over here. I also have been receiving care packages and letters of my own, which I am very thankful for. I want to say a special thanks to the Bishops for their kind letter and my parent's Sunday school class for a care package. Thank you all for the continued thoughts and prayers for Claire and myself. It's hard to believe that I've already been gone for almost a month. Time seems to be going by pretty fast here so far. I hope everyone is doing well back at home and has a wonderful Christmas season! Merry Christmas.

And here are some pictures he sent for the blog:

These are the planes they fly (when weather permits). It sounds like they're going to be able to fly today. I imagine that the wings end just outside of the frame of the picture, but it's a lot more fun to imagine that they go on a lot farther.

David's Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures that I took a couple days ago.

We are living in tents like these. There is a mountain range that is quite a view when it's not foggy. There is even some grass (no trees that I've seen) growing from the snow melt. They have us living 10 men to a tent, so it's kind of tight quarters - pardon my mess. Things are continuing to go well out here. It is real foggy in the mornings and it usually has been clearing up in the afternoons. We also got about 15 care packages for our soldiers and contractors from an organization. That was very generous of them. It had one entire box full of letters and cards to the troops. I noticed that some of them came from Atlanta which was pretty cool. I think I'm going to respond back to one letter in particular that came from a 3rd grade class at Mountain View Elementary School. I didn't recognize any of the writers, but it was really nice to see people close to home taking the time to write over here.

I hope everyone is doing well and that you have a wonderful week!

Thanksgiving and More...

We had a great Thanksgiving although we missed being with all of you. Seung Hwan was off all week and Benjamin and I got spoiled. Tomorrow will be a hard day. We had the Boney's for the first part of the week - which was so fun... but we did not get any pictures, and Claire for the 2nd half. We had so much fun with Claire. We ate too much, visited Aunt Marty and Reid and Kim and family, went to the mall, decorated for Christmas, and played and played. Here are a couple of pictures...





Alice went to Claire almost as soon as she walked into the door.



This Santa sings like Alan Jackson... Benjamin was amazed.

And because I am so behind in blogging... here are a couple of pictures of the little monkey...

Arrived in Afghanistan

Hello Everyone! I don't have any cool pictures to post yet (I need to eventually since the mountains here are beautiful and covered in snow - it's just real foggy and they're hard to see at times), but I wanted to let everyone know that I got over here safely. After many long hours of travelling, I eventually made it into Afghanistan and to my unit. It has been snowing and freezing cold out since pretty much my arrival to camp marmal. I think I'm finally getting accustomed to this time zone, which is 9 1/2 hours ahead of Eastern time. They have us living in tents, so I've got a bunk bed and about 10 square feet to myself cordoned off by a couple of hanging blankets. The food has been much better than I expected, and the German food in particular has been pretty good - a nice break from the run of the mill American food. They do serve a variety of different dishes, which is nice, and I was even able to celebrate Thanksgiving with all the trimmings.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving back in the states. I wish I could have been there with everyone. Also, thank you for all of the prayers for Claire and myself. They are greatly appreciated.

Vale's Thanksgiving Play

Check out our little Indian.

Halloween Video

Thought you might like to see a snippet of our Halloween in motion.  Check out how small Beck's outfit really is and how fast that Buzz can move to get some candy...

Up next, some videos from Beck's last dance creative movement class.  Nothing super exciting, but cute nonetheless.

Oh, and there's a certain little monkey that we're all dying to see pictures of.

Heritage Tour

Last weekend as part of our trip to Doug Starr's daughter's wedding in Lexington, NC, we made 4 side trips.  They were to Regi;s, Miriam's, dad's and my homeplaces.  It was a very special trip.  These are a few of the pictures that we took.  Hope that it brings back some happy memories.  I regret that Melissa, Seung Hwan, and David did not ever get to Greenville. (And David - not even to Hartwell).  Although these pictures can't capture the whole "feeling" of home, they sure did make John and I to relive some happy times.  Enjoy!