Josiah, after 4 months of singing as quietly as possible and looking completely uncomfortable, has bolted from choir to band. Starting in 4th grade at their school, the kids have to be in either choir or band. His piano playing is steadily improving, but you can’t play piano in band. His band instructor wanted him to play baritone, so baritone he is. One of the first songs he learned in tribute to his mates, was Botany Bay. Early on, he had trouble with one note rattling until he accidentally pressed a new valve and discovered what a spit valve does. Abby also has moved over to band. Although she loves singing in choir, she wants to learn to play the flute. I went to her first flute lesson with her and heard all about ambeausher (I have no idea how to spell that word) and ee, oo. She can play some notes and is working on her air strength. Everyone can get sound out of the baritone however, even Zeke. Gabe likes all the noise the baritone makes, but when he gets into 4th grade, we are going to make him a drummer so he can make all the racket he so loves. I had been quite confident that because of the size of the instrument, Josiah would be incapable of misplacing it. However, he came home from his first band practice and informed me that he had somehow lost the mouthpiece.
When I went to brush my teeth this morning, only a small trickle of water came out of the tap. I tried turning the hot water on, but then nothing came out. I was then forced to use this meager flow of cold water to shave. I’ve grown quite fond of my luxuries in this high-class trailer park called MAO! I found out that the water pumps had frozen over because the temperature dropped to 25 F (-4 C) overnight! It eventually warmed up to around 50 F (10 C) during the day. I am still able to run in shorts, but I have started wearing the long-sleeved PT shirt.
Here’s a picture of Jim and Masuood from the Dahuk office, just about 35 miles north of Mosul.
When I moved from Diamondback to Marez last month, I literally moved to the other side of the tracks. As you enter Marez and begin driving uphill (above the high water line), you cross a set of railroad tracks. So I’m no longer on the wrong side of the tracks. It’s much noisier over here with all of the tanks and other armored vehicles constantly driving by. That’s a very good thing, because when they are driving by, that means that are either on their way to patrol or returning from a patrol. Fortunately, I can sleep through anything, so they don’t keep me awake at night!
All of the CHUs in the MAO camp are brand new. Here’s a picture of the living area in my CHU.
Now standing at the head of the bed and looking in the other direction, this is what you see.
The door on the left just before the wardrobe leads to the bathroom. Each individual has his or her own private bathroom with shower in their living area. This is quite a luxury that you don’t see in most camps. I started decorating mine recently by having Mugs send me a floor mat for the bathroom!
I guess that’s all there is to see in my CHU!
Today we took down all the Christmas decorations and hauled the tree to the curb. The tree still looked great. It was the nicest tree I’ve had in years. I love to go and cut down a tree for Christmas, but this year I decided that might not be the wisest idea. So, I bought one from the lot at the local nursery and was really happy with it. It had no spiders in it (An Australian decoration), and it had all it’s branches (Unheard of in Hawaii). We had a fun Christmas with my brother Mike, his wife Karin, and their children Jeremiah, Matthew and Madeline. Mike, thinking I ran my home like a military boot camp was surprised to experience game playing and candy eating at 2100. Life group habits are difficult to break. Christmas Eve is always my favorite part of Christmas. I was in for a challenge this year because Jeremiah doesn’t like chocolate cake. So, Jesus’ birthday cake had to be a new flavor. I ended up making a peppermint candy cake and everyone voted it a thumbs up. We attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service in which the Elder (Lars said he always wanted to be referred to as The Elder) instructed us to watch our children so that they didn’t tilt their candles and drip wax on the floor. The minute Zeke’s candle was lit, I watched as he tilted it and dripped wax on the floor. It is inevitable if you tell a child not to drip wax on the floor, spill that glass, run into that wall, touch that stove that they will. It’s just a part of life with kids. On Christmas Eve, the kids all played songs on the piano that they had been practicing for Christmas. We had Carol of the Bells, Rudolf, Deck the Halls, Zeke’s version of Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Hot Cross Buns (which technically is a Good Friday/Easter song. In Australia, we learned that Hot Cross Buns are essential fare on Good Friday). I thought that Dale was going to put the sound bites of the kids playing piano on the blog, but after no one complimented him on his convenient playback option, he got a little miffed. For revealing that, he’ll probably torment me with my version of Holly Jolly Christmas. I could be a reject of American Idol with that one. On Christmas Eve, we also had the Christmas story production from all the children. The production experienced a few technical difficulties and Josiah showed shades of his father when others began to tell him how best to print something out on the computer. A word to the wise: Don’t ever try to give computer advice to my husband or son. In the end, the Christmas play was a smashing success complete with multiple costume changes and sheep that looked like dogs. Josiah was the first to wake up on Christmas morning. He got up at 0230 and woke me up ripping open the wrapping paper of the present on his bed. I told him to go back to sleep, because he had 4 1/2 more hours to wait. On Christmas Day, I most enjoyed the first annual Manry vs Meloch kickball game. It was a beautiful 50 degree day and if our neighbors were hoping for a quiet Christmas, they were sorely disappointed. On Boxing Day, we went to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum. I heard all the languages of the world spoken there. With the dollar’s value dropping, I guess the World decided that it was a good time to visit DC. Whenever I go into a major US city, I always wonder why a Happy Meal costs 3 dollars more than it does anywhere else in America. Well, Christmas is done and we’ve put away all the ornaments that Zeke didn’t manage to break. In 2006, when I was putting away the ornaments, I was wondering where I would be unwrapping them in 2007. Hopefully, in 2008 I’ll be unwrapping the ornaments right here in Stafford with Dale at my side or at least in the room grumbling under his breath about Christmas lights that don’t work.
Dale missed all his favorite New Years Eve traditions this year. He was unable to participate in the creation of collapsing gingerbread houses and didn’t stand outside on the porch at midnight banging pots and pans and throwing confetti. He claims that being unable to participate in these traditions wasn’t too upsetting to him, but I missed him none the less. I had no one to argue with about gingerbread house structure and no one to convince that banging pots and pans really is a lot of fun. Every year for Christmas, I buy Dale a puzzle. It is one of those gifts that I really buy for myself. Sometime after Christmas, we usually start working on it. We had a puzzle from last year that we had never done, so I brought it up from the basement. When making a puzzle, I sort the pieces and Dale puts most of the pieces in place. This year, for the first time in years, I actually did the edge. The puzzle is a photomosaic of a hot air balloon. Abby has been a good trouper working on the balloon’s green stripe. However, I find myself looking at all my sorted pieces thinking: “It’s just not as much fun when he isn’t here to complete it or, for that matter, to complete us.”
