HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!

I was so fortunate this morning... at a little after 1 a.m. and then a couple more times throughout the day, he called and we got to talk! He always sounds a little raspy and stuffy, but he says that's because of all the DIRT.

He said that he got two birthday celebrations! Yay! There were several other guys within a couple of days having birthdays, and so a whole BUNCH of them got together for a big feast. They got and killed two lambs, had chicken, rice, and potatoes. However, he said that it was mostly the thought that counted for this feast. It wasn't that great, I guess. BUT... he said that he and his guys (just a small group, mostly of corpsmen) had a "scrumptious" dinner. They apparently haven't eaten MRE's for a while now. They have been taking money directly out of their disbursments, and sending an interpreter into the local bazaar to buy food. They make a little list, send some money, and they cook and prepare fairly yummy meals for themselves! His guys even made him a double layer lemon cake. I don't know for sure HOW yummy the stuff is, but almost anything is better than bland warmed up MRE's.

The other reason I don't know exactly how great it is comes from the following statements:

He says that it's totally crazy there... because things that would NOT be normal, just are now. Like, for instance, cutting on dirty tables, and eating on dirty tables. Being totally dirty all the time. Ick. And "taking a crap off a plywood board into a bucket". Totally normal now. Not to mention the fact that he only gets a shower about once a week. Eeewww. And he has to do his laundry in one of the water-proof sea bags by filling it with water, putting laundry soap in, and then shaking it by hand. Lovely.

I asked him if he wanted us to do anything for him in his honor today, and he said... "watch football"! So, we did. We watched part of the San Diego Chargers vs. the Altanta Falcons game. I have to admit it only lasted just over half an hour, but I wasn't even expecting that long, so that was pretty good. We got to watch the Chargers score a touchdown! Yay! And when we stopped watching, the score was 21 to 10. Go Chargers! (I don't even know who won... how sad is that?? ;))

We're so grateful to have him as our Daddy! There are so many things we love and miss about him. But mostly, we miss, and NEED, his sense of humor back. This only Mommy funny stuff just isn't cutting it anymore! He always was there to make us laugh... even when we were totally upset, and sad about something. We look forward to his Drill Sgt. voice again, along with his dumb jokes, and Braeden will be so happy to have him back just for the sake of memorizing silly movie quotes. They also need their human jungle gym back. I'm not much fun for that.

The following are fairly current pictures. They are super crappy because he sent them to me in a pdf file that they put together with updated pictures from around the battalion, and I had to pull them into another program... not a photo program, print them out, then scan them and send them to one of my photo programs. AAAGGHHH! I could NOT for the life of me figure out how else to do it. So, if you want to see the MUCH better pictures, let me know and I'll e-mail you a copy of the file. And, except for comments in parantheses... I'll use the captions that were attached by them.

U.S. Navy Corpsman with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine
Regiment (1/5), unload a wounded Marine during a
medical evacuation at Patrol Base Jaker, in Nawa District,
Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Aug. 19, 2009. The
Charlie Company Marine, was hit by debris from an IED,
during a security patrol in Nawa.
U.S. Navy Corpsman with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine
Regiment (1/5), treat a wounded Marine during a medical
evacuation at Patrol Base Jaker, in Nawa District,
Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Aug. 19, 2009. The
Charlie Company Marine, was hit by debris from an IED,
during a security patrol in Nawa.
(Can you pick him out? He's in PT gear. He was just on his way to work out when this guy came in.)

(He explained to me about this photo, that his glove is actually caught on a piece of the guy's broken bone, protruding through the skin. Sad.)

U.S. Navy Surgeon Lt. Damian Liebhardt updates a
medical report while U.S. Navy Corpsman with 1st
Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (1/5), treat a wounded
Marine during a medical evacuation at Patrol Base Jaker,
in Nawa District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Aug.
19, 2009. The Charlie Company Marine, was hit by debris
from an IED, during a security patrol in Nawa.

Man, do we ever miss him! Happy Birthday, Daddy! We hope you at least get your package soon! We love you sooooo much! And we're so glad you're ours!

By the way... we're approaching almost half-way done! Only a couple more weeks for that! We'll soon be on the downhill! Yay!