Deployment Day +95

I know you may look and think I've lost track of my days, but here in Germany it's already past midnight so we're officially on day 95 of this deployment. It's going by tremendously fast, I'm amazed really.

Chad called me today during naptime. Our 2 yr old thinks anytime we get into bed is playtime...party time baby. To say I get flustered,frustrated, and just plain angry during this (it's truly become it too) FIGHT is putting it lightly. Well, Chad called and could hear him singing, talking, and just making noise in general. I was about to the end of my rope. Chad asked me to go into their bedroom and put him on speaker phone and he proceded to talk him to lay down NOW. What's that stinker do.......

"ok Daddy, nigh-night". Part of me wanted to celebrate, the other part wanted to strangle that child! God love him is all I can say. I told Chad, "that's just not right" lol. I have to say THANK GOD that even with him in Iraq, he's still so willing and just truly desires to step up and parent, even thousands of miles away. If that doesn't tell you the kind of man Chad is, I don't know what can!

I miss him so much right now. I just really want to feel his arms around me, holding me. Time is going by quickly, but you know it's not quick enough. Everyday without him over all just sucks. I really don't like that word, but it's just the only word I can find in my head tonight to describe this feeling.

He did tell me that the internet cafe that he used to go to and hook up his laptop to and have his webcam on is opening back up!! YES! They redid it, gutted the building. They put the 9 computers back in and now instead of 3 open slots for soldiers to bring in their personal laptops there's 11 slots! (I "might" have those numbers switched around, but I think I got it right!)...so hopefully in the next couple days he'll be able to get in and online and we can all see and hear each other! He also said that in the next couple days (he's hoping for tomorrow) that one of his soldiers is going to carry his digital camera with her and take pictures of him throughout the day, so we can see what he does, what the camp looks like, etc. He already has a lot of pictures to send, but he knows how important it is to us to be able to see HIM in those pictures and if he's the one always behind taking them he can't be in them quite so easily! I'm hoping he can do this tomorrow and maybe tomorrow night if he could get online he could email them! If so, I'll be able to load some up and put them on here!

Chad's been working a lot. He's a little frustrated right now with a couple of his soldiers who have been 2nd guessing him when he tells them to do something (they don't want to do it the way he tells them). Chad's a very humble man, but let me tell you what...he knows his stuff. He knows how to do things RIGHT and how to be able to get them done as quickly as possible, without taking shortcuts, etc. Well these two soldiers managed to make a task that if they'd done it Chad's way would have taken them max 1 hr he said, possibly less. They didn't think his way would be faster so they did it another way and almost 3 hrs later they finished up. This is what they do there...these tasks. They rarely leave camp which is nice, truly helps with the whole knots in the stomach issue, but at the same time why anyone would opt to do a task for 3 hrs vs 2 hrs less is beyond me. He said they've done this a couple other times and so he's finally told them that they're going to be working together, because he's not going to waste his time doing things the hard way when he's been doing this job, knows his job, does it well, and can get it done correctly and faster than they do. So for now him and his other soldier (the one who'll be taking pictures) are working together and the other two will get their orders from Chad and if they want to do it his way or their way, he's leaving it up to them.

Now, see it's a good thing I'm not in the military, well not like he is anyways. I'd have chewed them up and spit them out, told them MY WAY OR NO WAY and since it was an order...it would be my way. I just have so littler tolerance for arrogance and stupidity and it sounds like these two have both going on right now. I told Chad to pull rank on thier butts. He said if it was really a big deal he would, but so far the tasks are still getting done and all they're really doing is taking away from their own personal time. Of course to me what it says is that Chad and his soldier are probably doing twice as many tasks as these other two are, because they're being so foolish. Chad's a hard worker though, and he does love his job. It's amazing really. Although he's frustrated with these two, he still said "they're not bad soldiers, just making foolish choices". Good man I have!

Oh before I forget!! Chad has a slightly different address now. If you're someone who is or wants to send Chad  a letter or package please email me (especially if you already have his address). The way things have been is that all the mail is flown into the camp that he's at, but since it's just been him and his 3 soldiers the mail personel would send the whole companies mail down to where the rest of them are, then his company would sort through all the mail and they'd have to send a convoy back up to them with their mail...so sometimes he could have packages that had actually gotten to his camp 1-2 weeks before he ever actually had them in his hands. Well, now he has an address for the basecamp he's at, so when the mail arrives there he'll get it immediately! Yahoo!

He's recieved some packages. One was from a John and Judy (I can't recall the last name he gave me) it was over 40 lbs, had tons of snacks in there...if this came from you, PLEASE email me (My3gifts@aol.com) so I can figure out where in the world this came from. I'm pretty sure he said the address said Texas on it too! Either way, he said the package was AWESOME! He's shared everything in it and everyone's loving all the goodies!

I can not tell you how amazing all of you are who's been sending him care packages! The kindness means so much to Chad and me too. Tonight when I went to pick up my own mail, there was a package that had came to me, that's being shipped onto Chad...it was Popcorn! :) Betty that was you right? Well, let me tell you if I had no conscience I'd have kept that wonderful smelling treat! LOL But...they're going to ship it onto Iraq  (it had my zip code instead of Chads, which I have no doubt is my fault for giving the incorrect one). The mail room is going to hold onto his package until tomorrow when I go up there though and they'll put his new address on it and it'll get to him sooner!

God Bless all of you and have a wonderful day!