Rejoice!

He's Home!!!!
On September 30, we welcomed home our rock, our solid foundation, my husband, and their beloved Dada. I immediately felt a sense of relief during that first hug. Ahhh, all of the stress of the year just melted away. 
Our family is whole again (minus Sandy and Murray...I miss them). My heart is whole again. And I am grateful, beyond words, that he is home.

Thank you for your prayers, support and love as we continue our journey as an Army family. Your support during this deployment is what got us through it. About half of the brigade is still in transition getting from Afghanistan to AK. We will continue to pray for their safety as they journey home. I also ask you to pray for their families as they are STILL waiting. Those last days and weeks are so difficult.

Afghan Bakery

Well, B-man will begin his journey home soon! It will be a journey, taking several days/maybe a week to get back once he starts. But every leg of the trip gets him closer to us and that's wonderful news to us. We're so excited that he'll be here sooner rather than later.  He sent us an email back in June about the Afghan military bakery. I intended to share it with you all back then, but never did. So, I thought, as we're waiting for him to get home, I'd share it now.


Instead of my usual stories of the military/conflicts/struggles, this time I thought I'd I tell you about something nicer.

The Bakery. The Afghans serve a 6-8 inch diameter piece of bread, called "naan" with every meal. Cooked in a mud oven, this is really about as home made as it gets. Naan is very good. The Afghan bazaar sells naans with cinnamon and sugar, similar to the "elephant ears" that we buy at the fair.

Most of the time I eat them in the ANA mess hall. You rip a bite-sized piece off, bend it to pick up some rice, beans, and/or meat, then dip it in your soup or yogurt and cram it into your mouth. Messy, but tasty.

I've seen how they prepare the naan before and it's pretty cool so I wanted to go see how they make them for the ANA. It turns out that the process is similar, except there is no cinnamon and sugar and the ANA cooks do it on a much larger scale. The official (ANA) bakery is in a standalone “qalat” (house) that is in a kind of out-of-the-way place on the camp. (They say this separation will prevent purposeful poisoning ... I disagree). I've been by their bakery tons of times, but yesterday I stopped in to see how they do it. This was sort of a personal visit, but also sort of official since my counterparts are responsible for the mess hall and bakery.

The ANA bakery makes thousands of naans everyday because they're serving 3000+ Afghans three meals each day. They have four boys shaping and pressing wholes into the dough. Then those guys stack their uncooked dough onto a tray, separating each naan with old linen and pass them toward the ovens. The ovens are quite large, tear drop shaped, made of mud, with a fire in the middle which makes them HOT! The cooks slap the dough onto a curved plank, one or two pieces at a time. Then they reach into the heat and slap the board onto the interior wall, causing the dough to stick upside down. The naans cook while sticking to the wall for about 30-45 seconds. At any point in time there might be 15-20 naans cooking in each oven. Then the cook picks up two tongs and starts grabbing the naans out of the ovens, throwing them towards a cooling table in between the ovens. As I watched, I estimated that about 1/3 of them missed the table and hit the dirt floor. No matter though - they're still used - the dough boys just pick them up, slap them on their leg (to get rid of the dirt) and toss them onto the pile. When the pile gets big enough they lay a sheet on the dirt floor beside the table and push all of the naans onto it. Then the dough boys grab the corners of the sheet and drag / carry it to a waiting ANA vehicle (AKA: Ford Ranger). Once the vehicle's bed is full, they drive them to the mess hall. Presto! You're naan is served.
They were happy to have visitors. As my interpreter and I watched, they gave us some and, of course, they served chai to drink.

One of the three ovens. Notice the pile of wood to the right - that’s their fuel. Notice the “table.”

The dough boy is delivering the uncooked naans. Notice the smoke marks on the walls / ceiling.

"Q" (my interpreter). Notice the ANA SGT collecting the bread on the floor. Notice dirt floors. You can also see some naan stuck to the oven wall behind Q.

Dough boys shaping and poking holes into them. You gotta love their tables!

I’m holding the bread they gave us. I’m using Q’s hat as a pad because that bread was HOT

Why Did the Moose Cross the Road?

Back on the Grid and Catching Up!

Oh. My. Goodness.

It has been quite a journey getting to this point...where I can sit at my computer and click clack away over Wi-Fi! I don't even know where to begin or what to tell you except that we're here. In AK. Three of us anyway. BeBe, Boo, Bit, and I boarded a plane on Aug 16 and arrived in AK on Aug. 17. Yes, the next day. Whatever you are imagining about how that might go with a 20 month old is exactly how it went. Ha! Luckily, she's cute!! 

Boo was a champ. He did really good except when he was really tired. Who can blame him for that?

Since arriving, we've moved into our house and are settled-ish. We've reached a livable state. All of the necessities are unpacked, but the garage and all things dealing with decor...not so much! It was a life saver to have BeBe here for 2 1/2 weeks. I don't know where we would be at this point without her. She left to go back to SC right before a major windstorm earlier this week. We had tropical storm type winds here and lost power for about 13 hours and internet/cable for 3 days! Yikes!!

But, we're back on the grid now and although everything is progressing in a one step forward and two steps back kind of fashion, we are making progress. Did I mention that there was a water leak in our new house and that I lost my ID card?? Oh, yeah. That too. Now you get the picture.

Boo started preschool today after schools were closed on Wed (his scheduled first day) due to the storm. He did great (minus a potty accident...too excited to stop and go). He was all smiles. 

The REALLY GOOD NEWS?   B-man will be home soon! Not super duper soon. But soon. I can say that two groups have already arrived, the advanced parties. B-man's replacements are in country now and he's been showing them around. All are major milestones to getting him outta there! Boy, do I have a honey-do list for him! Lol!

To all of my blogging friends, I've been reading your blogs via iPhone but pecking out comments on that thing is more than I can handle when I fall into bed at night to do my reading.  Just wanted you to know I've been keeping up with you. 

I never got around to showing y'all pics of B-man's time in SC. So, that's where I'll start as far as photos go.

Date night in Charleston!

Hanging out with my cousin and his beautiful wife in Chs.

More pics from our overnight date!

These two had a great time at Aunt R and Uncle D's while were downtown.

Pool time with cousin K.

Another date night!!
Double date with Uncle D and Aunt R!

At the first sound of thunder, Murray was in B's lap!

This is "their thing".
He combs her hair and she loves every second of it.

Coloring.

MamaLove and her great grands.

Dino Exhibit.

ROAR!

Lil Dinos

This. Is. Her.
This pictures sums her up perfectly.

Her first sweetgrass basket.

Off to the airport to see goodbye, again.

:)

I never could've pulled this stunt off!
Thanks to Dad though, launching into space and splashing into the pool is possible.

I'll leave you with that for tonight.
Sweet dreams!

Catching Up

Hello!! Anyone still out there??
It's been so long since I've been able to blog. I still haven't shared pics from B-man's leave. They are on my computer and we don't have Internet yet. I'm doing this update from my phone.

So, the babes and I are in AK along with BeBe! Thank the Lord she came with us!!! There's no telling where'd we be or in what condition we'd be in if we had tried to get here and moved in on our own.

We are living on post and are in the long process of unpacking. We've been working late into the night and crashing into bed. Our efforts have paid off because we are making progress.

Here are a few phone pics from along the way.

Here We Go Again

Well, B-man is back in country and the littles and I are starting to get ready for the move back up to the Last Frontier. I have pics to share from our time together, but my computer is in the shop so that'll have to wait a little longer.

Just wanted to check in with y'all. Have a good weekend!