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Thanks for the advice about the ecinacha. I have been taking it, but not in such big doses. I've only been taking 2 pills every morning. Once this sucker is gone, I'll do that for the next one. In answer to Monica's question, yes, since I started working, I've gotten sick each time Jean-Pierre has gone away. It just takes me getting a little (I mean a very little) run down and boom it hits me again. It has always been like that whenever I start teaching at a new place. It will pass and (if history repeats itself) next year I should be as strong as a horse.

So, we got the official word yesterday. Jean-Pierre (well, and others) leaves for his trip in about two weeks. Hopefully it will only be for 4 months. The timing is actually not so bad. I mean, yes, he won't be here for Jay-Jay's first Christmas and his one year anniversary of being in our family, but he should be back for the really good parts of the year like summer holidays and the kids' birthdays. The birthdays part is likely going to be touch and go because Jean-Pierre will be one of the last guys to leave at the end as he'll have to do the hand-over to the guys coming after them.

So, as Jennifer mentioned, since we knew it was likely coming, we are not totally surprised. We thought they would have a month's notice before leaving, but after having been involved with the military for 14 years now, nothing surprises me and we pretty much know how to roll with it now. This is not nearly as stressful as being moved to a different province, totally out of the blue, when you are in the middle of an international adoption. Nope, this is a piece of cake compared to that. But, we know that this is Jean-Pierre's job, it's what puts food on our table and clothes on our backs so we have to take the good with the bad.

Jean-Pierre is happy to be getting the chance to put his skills to good use and he is looking forward to seeing for himself what is really going on over there without the spindoctoring we see in the media. Take just this mission for example. On the net, some articles give the impression that Canada is sending over the Griffon helicopter to attack targets. They have been called 'Gunships'. The mission for the Griffons is to protect the Chinook helicopters that will be carrying our guys and their equipment from place to place. The idea is to keep some of our people off the roads, where they are vulnerable to attack, by flying them through the air instead.

Here's the really ironic part..... Since Jean-Pierre will have access to the internet, I'll likely be updating the blog a lot more often so he can stay up-to-date with the kiddies :-)).