You're a mean one! Mr. Grinch!

The Grinch was present for Christmas this year. I was not here to experience it, but as you can tell, Rory had Max to spend time with. Boomer was so upset because he was missing the Grinch to go with his outfit. His Grinch was about 8,000 miles away in Iraq. I spent Christmas day the same as any other day in Iraq. Woke up, patrolled to the entry control point, and began normal operations. We did however bring some music as we waited for the Iraqi Police to show up. Unfortunately, the Marine that brought the music wasn't aware that he only had Country Christmas Music. So we spent the morning listening to Randy Travis singing "Have a holly jolly

Christmas!" As you can tell, it was a wonderful

day! I was very surprised however to find that

the Iraqi people celebrated Christmas as well.

They passed by the entire day saying "Eid

Saied!" which is Arabic for "Merry Christmas!"

That is how my Christmas was. Rory spent

her day with our friend Jessica Oxford's family.

The holiday season was not the same as usual,

but it came just the same. We are looking forward to no longer being apart during the holidays and being able to begin our own traditions. The best gift that either of us had this season was being back together! We are hoping and praying that it is a gift that we will never have to get again! Our family is now back together and hoping to never be seperated again. I left a few things out of the last post, and one of the things I left out was pretty big. We have a new addition to our family! We have a little girl now who is very cute! She has been very loving and gets along with Boomer very well. Within a few hours of being home she was already comfortable being around me and knew who I was. She loves to sleep in our bed at night although Rory and I try to keep her in her own bed. Unfortunately, she starts to cry and eventually ends up in our bed anyways. Her name is Sprite Brosius and is a few years old. Rory rescued her at our apartment complex when they had a shelter come by and were offering a waived fee for pets if you were to adopt a pet. She has been a very good addition for the family. Rory scared me when I called and said that she "had a surprise for me!" She told me she got another addition for the family! I instantly thought "It's a CAT! NO!" Thankfully it was a dog! It was a very cute dog who was a perfect addition! As you can tell from the picture, it's like brother and sister. They often act like brother and sister when they chase each other around and drag each other by their collars! Boomer has been a very good big brother by teaching her about household manners. He taught her about going outside, going to her house, and what to do when told about treats! That's about all that I have for now, but I will write more later! Thanks!

Reunions!!!

A lot has happened since the last time anything was posted on our blog. Rory has a new job working for Big Brother Big Sister which she started in March. She loves it and is, as usual, doing very well! Rory and I have spent a lot of time apart due to my job. I left, shortly after the last blog entry, for a month of training at the Armpit of the earth, 29 Palms. I arrived home on September 12th, 2008 just in time for our anniversary! We celebrated by going on a dinner cruise on the San Diego Bay a few days later. On October 5th, 2008 I was deployed to Iraq where I spent 6 and a half months. I was scheduled to return on the 5th of May, but the date was pushed up a few weeks and I returned home on April 14th. As you can see from the picture above, Rory and I were once again together. During that time we definitely felt the love that exists between both of us. Nearly 7 months apart and the only change was our love had grown. We had grown together. Knowing that nothing could separate us far enough for our love to fade. Now we are back together and spending as much time together as possible. While on deployment, Rory took surfing lessons so that we could surf together when I returned. We bought surf boards 3 days after I had been back and have been surfing periodically since being back. It was really cool seeing her stand up on a wave the first time we went out. I began my post-deployment leave on Memorial Day weekend. We started the leave by taking a trip to Virginia for our friend's, Amy & Jeff, wedding at Virginia Tech. We were happy that we were able to attend and be there to see them both. That was basically a quick overview of what we've done since the last post, maybe we'll be able to keep up with it this time. There is less going on now, so we'll see! Thanks for reading!