Happy Birthday Pop Pop!

My grandfather is turning 90 this December!
My extended family is celebrating with a party in Oklahoma, but we -unfortunately- won't be able to make it :(

In lieu of our physical presence, we decided to send our love via .... what else... the Internet!

Happy Birthday Pop-Pop!
We love you!

Settled in Tennessee!

Hello again!  

We have been in the new house for over a month now.  After living on air mattresses for a week, unpacking, ordering new furniture, painting, painting and more painting, we are finally settled in our new house.

We had great visits with all of the grandparents too!  Bubba and Kiki were here just after the movers arrived with our stuff so they had the pleasure of helping us unpack.  Bubba discovered that I (Patrick) had not put the lid to a paint can on securely, which promptly ended up all over him when he tried to take the can off a shelf.  

Then we had a visit from Opa on his way to Dallas to start working for the FAA.  His trip was followed up by a visit from Oma and Willow on her way to their new house in North Carolina.  Hayden did a great job taking care of Willow (unfortunately, my plan to make him walk, feed and pick up Willow's poop backfired and didn't scare him off from wanting a dog).

Katy and Hayden started school at Moore Magnet this week too!  Katy is teaching 5th grade Language Arts and Social Studies and Hayden started 1st grade.  Brennan is in daycare for the first time in his life and seems to be enjoying it.

Since I am assigned to an airborne unit, I am required to jump once every three months.  I haven't done it since I went to Airborne school as an ROTC cadet in 2003!  I decided to go big on my first jump in 9 years, so I went on a UH-60 Blackhawk jump.  It was a great time and I hope to do it again.  Below is  a link to a video from youtube of a UH-60 jump from the view of a jumper (he is in the exact seat I was in when I jumped today), but this is not of my actual jump.  If you watch the video you can see everything I saw! Enjoy.

Visitors are welcome at anytime!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ERuiV8R0f8

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

As many of you know, we're in the process of preparing for our first official Army PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.  So far, our checklist is looking good:

• We've found a house in Clarksville, TN, about 40 minutes north of Nashville;
• Patrick has met his new unit, the 5th Special Forces Group, and is looking forward to the new job (more on that at a later date);
• Katy has her first official teaching job: 5th grade language arts & social studies;
• Hayden gets to tag along to Mommy's school, which is a bonus since it's a STEM Magnet School (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math);
• and Brennan is just along for the ride

The {little} boys and Mommy have been organizing, cleaning, and reorganizing the house while Daddy gets to "play" at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California.  Basically, the Army gets to beat you down in 100+ heat so that when you eventually deploy to the Middle East it doesn't seem so bad in comparison!!

Unfortunately, we haven't had much communication with Daddy while he's "in the box" (making this whole moving thing a true adventure), but did recently come across a Facebook post from the Brigade about Patrick's NCO I/C, Sgt Davis, and the specific training for the Brigade Legal Team... 

4th Stryker Brigade paralegal on fourth NTC rotation but still learning

by 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at 12:01pm ·

Sgt. Christopher M. Gaylord

5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

FORT IRWIN, Calif. – Riding through the sand in a Humvee away from an entry control point on the National Training Center June 11, Sgt. 1st Class Charles Davis embraced one of his most cherished sentiments.

“There’s always something you can learn,” said the 6-foot-2-inch senior paralegal for Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, as he left the point of entry to one of his brigade’s notional forward operating bases set in the vastness of the Mojave Desert.

Davis, currently stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., has served as an Army paralegal for 15 years, he’s deployed to Kuwait once and Iraq twice, and he’s been to the expansive training center four times now.

But still, he said, he’s doing things that, even in the bulk of his extensive career, have never much crossed his path.

“I’ve predominantly punished Soldiers who have committed offenses,” he said of the past decade and a half he’s spent in the courts martial facet of military justice.

But now, he’s learning to deal with Afghan locals – role players from the country who offer units at NTC a realistic experience. His main focus: pay them compensation if the Army damages any of their property or kills any of their farm animals.

“Accidents happen,” said Davis, a native of Williamston, N.C., still early into his brigade’s month of prep training for a fall deployment to Afghanistan. “We have a lot of vehicles, a lot of Soldiers on deployments for the first time that may not have the experience driving vehicles and things of that nature.

“But when those things happen, we have mechanisms in place to compensate for them.”

The scenario in this case: pay a local 10,500 Afghani – amounting to 217 U.S. dollars – for damages to his vehicle after Soldiers in a convoy accidentally ran into it.

It’s an unfortunate situation and perhaps a costly mistake by U.S. forces, but to Davis, it’s more about the way a mistake is dealt with than the mistake itself.

“It shows our maturity and responsibility,” he said. “If we were just destroying stuff, and we weren’t owning up to it and actually compensating people for it, I think that would be a worse thing.”

“We’re that face of the Army that says, ‘the Army messed up,’ ” said Spc. Elisabeth Barnett, Davis’s driver and assistant for his June 11 mission and a paralegal herself. “We want to make right with the public, so I think that’s awesome.

“The legal system is the face to the public.”

Barnett held Davis’s rifle as he met peacefully with the role-playing Afghan local – one of his first real encounters with the traditions of Afghan culture.

Afterward, he talked about some things he could have done better, noting that he should have returned the local’s traditional greeting, “As-Salamu Alaykum,” because even for someone from small town North Carolina, the little cultural nuances are important.

“It’s kind of small-minded to only view the world from your point of view,” Davis said. “To be a better well-rounded person, I think we should embrace all cultures, because I think we all have something we can learn from one another.”

But to Davis, who admitted his original reasoning for joining the Army at 24 was simply to earn a college degree; it’s more about helping others than anything else.

“Somewhere along the line, the ability to serve outweighed the college benefits,” he said. “I grew up in a fairly religious community and family, so a lot of my upbringing dealt with helping others.

“It’s all about helping your fellow man.”

In previous rotations at the training center, Davis has never dealt with claims for local nationals, and while at JBLM, he said, civilians handle claims for residents of the surrounding communities.

But here he has some time to work out all the kinks before the brigade’s Afghanistan deployment.

“With any job you do, no one ever knows everything,” Davis said. “There’s always something you can improve on, that you can learn to make you a better person and add to your toolkit.”

That’s especially the mentality out here, where curveballs are thrown, missions can change at a moment’s notice and the learning never ends.

Sergeant 1st Class Charles Davis, the senior paralegal for Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, provides compensation to an Afghan role player in the form of 50,662 Afghani – or 1,050 U.S. dollars – at the National Training Center on Fort Irwin, Calif., June 11 after Soldiers in a convoy notionally hit the local’s vehicle. The 4th Stryker Brigade is currently prepping at NTC during most of the month of June for a fall deployment to Afghanistan – the brigade’s first deployment to the country. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Christopher M. Gaylord)

Sergeant 1st Class Charles Davis serves as the senior paralegal for Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. The 4th Stryker Brigade is currently prepping at the National Training Center on Fort Irwin, Calif., during most of the month of June for a fall deployment to Afghanistan – the brigade’s first deployment to the country. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Christopher M. Gaylord)

Yes, we've been rather delinquent in our blog postings recently.  And by recently, I mean the past 4 months.  Here's a quick recap:

Washington state experienced Snowmageddon.  We all laughed when school, work, and basically life was cancelled on Monday. By Tuesday when there was actual snow covering the ground, we realized that the Evergreen State simply isn't equipped for the frozen variety of rain.  Snowmageddon (and my cabin fever with Hayden's cancelled school) lasted an entire week.   

Uncle "Oh My Gosh" Josh came to visit with his girlfriend Kasha.  "The Muscle" and "The Mouth" (as they were dubbed by Josh), aka Brennan and Hayden, had a blast exploring Pt Defiance Park,  Commencement Bay, and the Seattle Aquarium.  Most fun = Uncle Gosh teaching us how to toss pizza dough!   

Unfortunately, Daddy's been pretty busy, so Mommy & Brennan took the party to his office!  A picnic lunch on the office floor sounded like a great idea at the time.  Sadly, it ended in countless wet wipes, an office smelling like peanut butter, and  Daddy making a b-line for the vacuum once we left.  Ahh, good times.  

Last, but certainly not the least entertaining, spring is sports season around these parts.  Patrick is coaching Hayden's t-ball team.... and I use the word "t-ball" loosely.  It's more like a group of kids who like to hit things (not necessarily a ball off a tee) and chase each other around (not necessarily around bases... in order).  Hayden, on the other hand, has actual potential.  He might be the best on the team, if it wasn't for the 5 ft tall girl who claims she's in kindergarten ;)  On the Brennan front, Hayden has taught him the fine art of being an NFL kicker.  See video below.