Back to the 'stan

Yep. It's cold here.

This is my Bhut after a night of wet snow.

So, in case you didn't already know, I'm back in Afghanistan fulfilling my service obligation. Leaving the family was pretty tough, but I felt a little better this time because of several reasons - primarily because I knew where I was going and I had a pretty good idea about the job I was going to perform as it was essentially the same thing I did for a year on the last tour. Additionally, I was definitely more excited about being on just a 6-monther vs the 365 our family endured from '09-10.

The only surprise awaiting me ended up being serendipitous. See, I was expecting to go to Kabul again and work out of a camp in the downtown area - one I had spent some time at before. After leaving Manas AB, Krygystan, my wingman and I arrived at Bagram AB and shuffled our hundreds of pounds of gear from the fixed (airplanes) terminal to the rotary (helicopters) terminal. Thankfully, we were able to sneak on to a couple of UH-60 Blackhawks that flew us straight to a compound not far from our new home. Upon arrival, we waited just a couple hours before our predecessors showed up to drive us to our new home for the next six months.

I spent the next day settling in to the office (I would be in temporary open-bay billeting until a room opened up in 4-6 weeks) and the next evening my boss' boss shook my world a little by advising me that he really needed me at Bagram instead. I was really enjoying the setting and getting comfortable with the turnover but that doesn't really matter much in the military - so I saluted smartly and found the first trip to Bagram.

A few days later, the office dropped me off at Kabul International Airport and I was able to make it to Bagram that day. Interestingly enough, whereas a room was at least 4 weeks out for me in Kabul, the new team I was joining already had an available private room open for me! That improved my situation greatly and so here I am, at Bagram Airfield, engineering the future for the Afghans once again.

Highlights of the last 3 weeks

The top left picture is of the kids in a model of a space shuttle at a museum here in PCB. The top right is a work of art. The finished picture can only be seen when a light is on and the shadow becomes the rest of the piece. Can you tell what it is?! Bottom left is David and me being silly. Bottom right is Hannah raising the sails and me driving the boat on a sunny winter day when David was home from training.

We are Alive and Well

I just got an email from a friend from college whom I haven't spoken to in quite a while. The subject line of the email was "Rachel, are you still alive?" After I laughed, I read the email and she pointed out that we had only posted a couple of updates on our blog in the last year. With David deployed again, I think that the usefulness of the blog will present itself again and we will use it a little more often!

The picture on the top left is Hannah Joy caught red handed getting into an itty bitty spiderman tackle box! Top right is Andrew and his friend Andrew, both in Cub Scouts now. Bottom left is Andrew and our new pet, Goldie. Our neighbors moved, and she needed a home. Bottom right is beautiful Elizabeth.