Last post from Afghanistan.

Yep, this is the last post I am going to write from here. I stopped flying a few days ago and am now getting ready to leave in the next few days. As you can imagine, I am pretty excited to be going home. I miss my family and can't wait to see them.

I can honestly say that I had a really good experience here. Everyone on my Flight worked hard and made this tour a success. The flying was the best flying ever. It is extremely fun and interesting to fly over such different landscape. As a supervisor I was faced with many new challenges and found it very rewarding. So overall, this was a very good tour.

Of course I can't forget my wonderful wife who has worked even harder than me at home, doing her everyday work at school and then coming home to our children to do the never ending chores. As she mentioned in her last post, I was at home for 6 months for two parental leaves. Of course it was easier because she came home at night and every weekend. I was never abandoned to do everything on my own. What she has just accomplished deserves a commendation for all of the time and dedication she has invested. I am extremely grateful to have D. I know that I am extremely lucky to have a woman who is willing to support me the work that I love to do.
Thank you D.
No, my nose is not brown! I am just trying to thank you for who you are.

How I Know He Gets It

I was going through the blog and found this post done by DH which reminded me that....yes, he gets it. The post if from July 11, 2008. I was working for an oil company and he was in the last month of the parental leave he took for J.:

As for myself, well I am really enjoying the time spent with my children. I have to admit that yes, it is hard sometimes. Man oh man, there is always something to do in this **&@** house.

O.k., he didn't do 5 months of it, he wasn't trying to work at the same time, he didn't have to run everything by himself since I came home in the evenings and was here on the weekends, and the kids slept later because they weren't going to a babysitter each morning and he wasn't completely exhausted all the time, but he still had a taste for what it can be like. Well, since writing that paragraph maybe I've changed my mind. I'm not too sure that he does get it........ Oh, it is so worth it though just to have my babies with me. I guess I can't get what he is going through either. Guess that's marriage.

It's Different Being Four

Today is E.'s Birthday. She is now finally 4 years old and loving it.

We spent most of the afternoon at an indoor playground. She LOVED it and her and her brother were a hoot to watch. E. was fearless when it came to climbing, sliding and trying new things in the play area. She has just blossomed over the past couple of years into this adventuresome, confident, friendly little missy who knows how to take care of herself rather than needing constant reassurance from mom. Incredible. It really hit me today at the play area that I am just so proud of her.

Anyway, here is her Fourth Birthday Interview:

Here are some pictures of her and her brother whooping it up in the play area:

Afterwards we went for 'drinks' and then headed home to answer all the phone calls that came in wishing E. a happy birthday. Daddy made a big effort and Skyped in even though it was something like 2 a.m. his time.

Happy birthday my sweet little missy. We love you and are so excited to see who you are becoming.

Four is Best

J. was very excited to turn 4 years old today.

For the next two days he really is the older brother....... he's the big brother....... he..... the man. He told me over and over again all day long that he was 4. 'I four now Mama, I four.'

We had a family birthday party (with my side of the family) this afternoon after naps. We actually celebrated both kids' birthdays today with the family. We'll have a 'friends birthday bash' once DH gets back from the resort.

I made an absolutely horrid looking birthday cake that the kids decorated with smarties. It was supposed to be Pablo from the Backyardigans. I started with good intentions, but after an hour of just making icing this morning I gave up the ghost and just slapped on what I had made and was done with it. The kids loooooved the cake and called it their Pablo cake. I'm buying their cakes from now on in!

Last year's cake. This year's cake.

Kids look pretty happy about it and they were proud that they put the smarties on themselves.

Happy birthday little man. We sure are proud of our four year old son.

A Day of Doing Nothing

O.K., I'm so over this being a single parent thing. Today I figured I did nothing, but I couldn't figure out why I felt so tired this evening. Reflecting back on today I realized that my definition of 'doing nothing' has become completely warped!

A day of doing nothing:

• Up at 6:30
• Breakfast at the counter - tea & bagels for mom; cereal - one with milk, one without - apple, milk in cups and half of my bagel for kiddies.
• Baths and hair washing for kiddies
• Shower and hair 'styling' (read: shoty blow-dry) for mom
• Throw a load of towels into the washing machine
• Strip beds
• Put new sheets on my bed
• Throw kids sheets downstairs to wash after the towels
• Watch Cinderella - for the 5th time
• Start load of kids sheets
• Watch taped episode of Survivor while listening to whinning about watching Survivor
• Make lunch
• Eat lunch
• Clean-up from lunch
• Dress kiddies into outside-appropriate clothes (No, you can not wear only daddy's T-shirt to play outside)
• Put sunscreen on both faces (god they love that :-( )
• Helmets on, bikes out
• 1 hour bike ride (They ride, I walk - not looking for a repeat of incident with E. careening down a hill into bushes last year).
• 45 minutes at the park
• Come home - the long way
• Take down Christmas lights
• Shovel last of snow off patio
• Convince kiddies to now go inside
• Make supper - a good one this time (pork tenderloin, noodles and veggies) - while trying to keep J. awake since he didn't nap today (He fell asleep while playing the computer as I was upstairs making supper. I hear him cry in frustration and say that he can't hear Reader Rabbit on the computer. I call down supportively, 'You're the one that messed it up son. I'm sorry I don't know how to fix it. You know you have to wait until dad comes home' (the speakers haven't worked for 4 months) Anyway, about 2 minutes later I hear E. call, 'Mom, J. is sleeping.' Yeah right. Whatever. 'He's just pretending,' I call, but go to look anyway. The kid is passed out on the keyboard of his computer......drooling! I am NOT exaggerating. He is out like a light.)

Anyway, back to the list:

• As supper is cooking, vaccuum the main floor area plus the stairs since going to the park means copious amounts of sand coming in from the front door - oh yeah and I dumped a bunch of grass around the house because I raked the front lawn yesterday wearing jeans with the bottoms rolled up and then wore those same jeans around the house for over an hour before I figured out where all the dried grass was coming from.
• Eat (an event, let me tell you)
• Clean-up from supper - while 'helping' (mostly nagging) kiddies to put on PJ's
• Pull sheets out of the dryer
• Go upstairs and make their beds
• Convince them to stop playing and come upstairs
• Brush two sets of teeth
• Wash one face (E. left and I didn't have the energy to make her come back - do you think her face will fall off during the night? - oh crap, I put sunscreen on her earlier....she needed her face washed - too late)
• Kisses and hugs and to sleep they go
• Oh, wait a minute....E. calls that she needs socks on
• Try to convince her that she doesn't (since she didn't wear any last night)
• She remains completely unconvinced
• Go back upstairs 3 minutes later because E. is having a tantrum about not having socks on
• Put the !#%^& socks on
• All is quiet
• Post on the blog

And that, my friends......was my day of.......doing nothing. What the heck is happening to me?

News from Afghanistan

Hello everyone.

I was talking to Dawn a few days ago and she mentioned to me that it would be nice if I wrote a little something on the blog about being here in Afghanistan. She said that many people had been asking about it and may find it interesting to read about it. So where to start?

I arrived here on December 19^th, yes, just before Christmas. At work, we had been training for a long time in preparation for this deployment. We didn't really think that we were ever going to come here though. Rumors had been floating around for so many months that no one believed them anymore.

Coming back from my parental leave with J, I said right away that I was interested in coming over and had my name put on the list. You must think that I'm crazy to want to come here don’t you? Well, I've always thought that if you are going to have to go somewhere, it is better if you have the right attitude and go headfirst. Being in my profession, I knew that I could be ordered anyway to come, so why not volunteer? I would probably come sometime soon anyway. Coming on this tour rather than on Edmonton's next rotation also likely means a shorter tour (4 ½ months) versus a nine-month tour next year. So I would say that this was a very good decision, don’t you think?

Before coming here I was nervous about the whole experience. Just like everyone else, I had heard a lot on TV and we all know that this can be deceptive. I did not know what to expect. So when I arrived, I was actually pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere in the camp. It's a huge camp that's about the same area of the city of Spruce Grove. The people in camp are very relaxed and we have many services that help make our life better while here in Kandahar.

Before talking about the good things though, I should talk about what is difficult about being here first. Eh….let me think……ah, I know. Well I work seven days a week, no days off. The guys that work for me do get some time off though. They get one day off for every eight days and they can have a morning or an afternoon sometimes depending on the flying schedule. When flying, my routine is fairly consistent. I go in to work to do the preflight inspection of the aircraft, we then have crew briefs and go do a mission. These can last anywhere from 3 to 8 hours of flying. We come back and do the debriefs, etc. A normal flying day is often twelve hours of work. We do all types of missions, but I can’t really go into them in detail here due to security, but if you have been listening to the news, you likely have a fair idea of what we're doing.

So days are long, we are busy and no time off for me. Hard isn’t it?

If I’m not flying, I go in to the office and do administrative work. That means doing subordinates' evaluations, arranging for the maintenance of our equipment as well as all the other little tasks that are required to make an organization run smoothly in a theater of operation like here.

I sleep in a big type of tent with seven other guys, Our rooms are divided by tarps. Not much privacy and lots of good odors. We also live close to a 'poo pond'. That's where all of the grey and black water goes. Mmmmm smells like…..

We live in a very dusty environment too where grass is absent. When it is windy, we see dust storms. If you can imagine seeing a snowstorm in Edmonton, a dust storm is very similar but the only difference is that instead of snow, it is sand. We get those once in a while.

We live beside the airport, so it's also noisy all the time.

Not much to do other then work, eat and sleep.

Of course I miss my family a lot! Being away from them is very hard and I miss being with them. (Nice, we get one line. )

Now, lets talk about the few good things about being here.

No cooking! No cleaning dishes! No laundry to do! I actually load my dirty laundry into a bag and they give it back to me 24 hours later nicely folded. Not bad! When my day of work is done, I’m done! No appointments, no running around for groceries or Walmart, no baths to give, no nothing. I can sit on my bed and read, go on the net or watch a movie. When I go to bed, I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night for anyone. Of course I do get up sometimes for an early mission but I usually have uninterrupted sleep.

In camp, my living quarters are close to a boardwalk where we have a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a Tim Hortons and a few local merchants where we can buy local crafts. We have a gym, a video store to borrow DVDs and a TV room where we can watch the news or sports.

So really, it is not that bad here. Of course we do work hard and long hours, but we also have time to relax. All those commodities, do help people to be able to focus and concentrate on what we're here to do. We do need to pay attention while flying and do need to be well rested all the time.

Flying here is very interesting. Looking around shows a very different landscape then what we are used to seeing. There is no modern construction here in Kandahar city. Everything is constructed of mud and basic materials. There is a lot of sand. The first time I saw a desert, I was very impressed. Man, that is a lot of sand. The sand dunes are impressive too. They're just like in the movies. There is some vegetation starting to grow now because summer is arriving. There are a fair number of poppy fields as well, grown mostly for heroine production. There are also lots of mountains in and around Kandahar. The elevation here is 3 300 feet above sea level and temperature can easily reach 50 degrees Celsius during the summer months and about -5 during the winter.

The average life expectancy for a person from here is 44 years old.

Since we're not allowed to leave the camp, every Saturday, local merchants come from the city and set-up kiosks to sell gifts and souvenirs to the military. It's like a flea market. It is expected that we will have to bargain a lot. A merchant will ask about 50 dollars for something and you should be able to leave paying only about 15 to 20 dollars. They sell local handicrafts and DVD's with all kinds of TV series on them.

Anyway, I could probably keep going like that about nothing and everything but it will be enough for today.

Our replacements have started arriving now and we are scheduled to leave soon. I can't wait.

As I said, we do work hard but I have to say that Dawn is working harder then me. She works and when she comes home, she is alone to do all of the other chores that need to be done. (umm, is that brown I see on your nose babe?) I can’t wait to be home to be able to be in my team again and do my share with the people I love and care about, home sweet home.

Talk to you later and see you soon.

J-P from Kandahar, Afghanistan.