Kuwait a minute...

Hello again friends!

To answer a few questions you may or may not have been wondering about...   Yes... I am still alive, I still like long walks on the beach, and I have been somewhat busy over the past month.  If you want to keep reading I promise to update you all about the latest Desert Lizard shenanigans and maybe even throw in some good ol' Christmas cheer!

Life here in Kuwait has been interesting since my last post about a month ago.  (Actually it was more than a month ago, but I'm trying to make myself feel better about the fact that it's been a while... so bear with me.)  Let's see, I escaped from my camp to play in Kuwait City, had the chance to volunteer at an animal shelter, we celebrated Thanksgiving, I went to Germany for a week for training and hung out with my brother in law, Army lost again, I hung out with Josh, and am now getting ready for Christmas.  Well, there you have a summary of the past few weeks so you don't really have to keep reading if you don't want to.  However, if you keep scrolling down I promise there will be really cute pictures of puppies!  And everyone likes puppies!!

Since this post will be full of lots of adventures, I think I might break it down into a few different posts.  Plus, it's also getting pretty late here and I'd like to try to get some sleep tonight.  November saw the approximate half way point of this deployment and preparation for the upcoming holidays.  It was a quiet celebration of the 4 months down and about 4 to go mark,but still felt like I almost accomplished something.  It was a welcome point in the midst of being far away from home.

Our medical family

Thanksgiving here was an interesting experience.  We had a huge feast for lunch and they really went over the top with decorating and good food.  It wasn't the same as being home, but we really did have good roasted turkey with most of the trimmings.  The broccoli cheese casserole and some more of our usual homemade dishes were missing and it was really odd to just show up and eat.  I'm used to being in the kitchen most of the day either cooking or helping, so it felt a little weird to not do that this year.  We all ate with our units and families here and enjoyed the hard work of the many people that work in the dining facility.  There were amazing decorated cakes, ice sculptures (!!), and carved fruits that made the DFAC (dining facility for you non-Army types) seem like home.  There weren't any leftovers for dinner though...

Decorations everywhere!

Lots of carved fruits and veggies

Thanksgiving rolled right into the aforementioned trip to Germany which was absolutely amazing.  I really hope that our next duty station sends us overseas there.  It was the perfect time of year to visit to really feel like I was in a Christmas wonderland.  There were cute quaint villages all over, snow on the ground, and Christmas markets in every city.  I had the chance to spend some time with Joseph (my brother in law) and visit Europe for the first time.  Oh... and I actually did some Army training while I was there.

Leaving on a jet plane... to Germany!!

To be continued....  Bedtime in Kuwait!

And as promised...
Armfuls of puppies!!!