Celebrity Sighting #1

Dallas and Aaron Tippin (country music singer).

If you know Dallas like I know Dallas there will be many more photos with visiting celebrities and public figures....

Home Away From Home

Meet Piggy. I guess you could say Piggy is our family mascot. She has traveled with Dallas for several years now. She has been to many countries and on countless trips. This time she is keeping Dallas company while in Kuwait and Iraq.
Dallas and Piggy on the flight over.


They all traveled to Kuwait on a big military cargo plane. All of their supplies and gear were secured in the plane with them. The plane is basically a hollow shell and the guys and girls could walk around as much as they wanted but it was cold. They all brought their sleeping bags and ipods to help them make the 24 hour trip. I find it very interesting that they are all wearing their leg holsters in these photos. Do you really need your weapon strapped to your body when you are in the air for 20+ hours? Then again I guess they did not really want to misplace them before they even made it to their destination.

Then it was down to business.

These are the Pods (their rooms). Dallas’ Pod is on the bottom, second from the right. For the first two weeks they were all living in tents while their Pods were being prepared. And now for a look at the luxurious accommodations from the inside:

How lovely! The Pods are only about 7 feet wide. Piggy is hanging out on the television.

I see a coffee pot, peanut butter and Tabasco. So, with those three things I know that Dallas is doing OK!

Piggy takes a rest in Dallas’ bed.

They visited the U.S. Embassy shortly after arriving.

General Powell was recently in the area.

We speak to Dallas several times a week and try to connect by webcam at least once a week. With him being 8 hours ahead of us it is hard for him and kids to talk much. He seriously wanted me to send Lin-Ley to school with a cell phone so he could call her there. I told him I did not think that would fly with her teacher or principal. We have finally figured out a time in the mornings (before school) that they can talk. I am able to speak with him more often from my office. We can connect through Yahoo and talk for free or sometime we just instant message back and forth for a while. With technology it is a lot easier to stay in contact than it was in the first Iraqi war. Seventeen years ago it was letters and the occasional and precious phone call. Now it is email, instant messaging and webcams.

We have sent him a few packages of goodies and some Christmas decorations. It has been surprising that he receives our packages in about a week. He sends us cards and has recently mailed a package of Christmas gifts for the kids that he purchased on the local economy. They will be thrilled.

Lin-Ley always requests stickers in her cards. Dallas could not find stickers anywhere. He searched and searched but no stickers anywhere. So as a last resort he sent her some Christmas labels (To: / From:) that you would use on Christmas gifts. Well that worked – she loved them and immediately filled them out with the names of everyone in our family.

So Dallas is doing well! I just thought you might enjoy seeing a little of where he is and what he is doing. We will be updating his (and Piggy's) adventures again in the near future.

Fall Days

Happy Thanksgiving! It has been snowing leaves at our house all day. We spent the morning in the kitchen watching all of the leaves falling. So before lunch we took a stroll outside and took the time to play in the leaves and to take some photos of the pretty colors.


This is the view from our front porch.

Here is Tru looking out and waiting to scoot around in the leaves.

Lin-Ley was covered in leaves and it was just a matter of time before...











Wheeeeeee!

Then we strolled to the back yard.

Where's Tru?

After lunch with Pa-Pa Bill and Ma-Ma Shirley we took our traditional nap. The wind really picked up and when we woke up and looked outside 3/4 of these leaves were gone!

We spoke with Dallas before lunch. He was getting ready for bed but told us that he had a traditional Thanksgiving meal with turkey, ham and all of the fixings.

Birthday Fun - Day Two

The celebration continues. With a little encouragement (and a little help) Tru finally had some fun with his birthday cupcakes. Lin-Ley also thought it was fun "decorating" her brother with the icing.













And just for fun...we now take a look at the Yogurt Lovers:

Tru absolutely loves yogurt. He eats it at least twice a day and gets very excited every time he sees you take it out of the refrigerator. He is beginning to use a spoon now so sometime I just let him go for it. And here are the results:

And for a trip down memory lane... On November 20, 2003 (four years ago this month), after Lin-Ley's afternoon yogurt snack, I emailed these pictures to family and friends. She was 16 months in these photos.

Happy Birthday Dear Tru

Today was Tru's 2nd birthday. Since Dallas is away Lin-Ley, Pa-Pa Bill (Jody's dad) and I decided to have one big party at his school.
So after nap time we went to his school with the Elmo cake, plates, napkins and balloons.

Lin-Ley was checked out of school early today to attend Tru's party. She was very happy about that. I wrote her teacher a note that I would be picking up Lin-Ley at 2PM today. I arrived at the school at 2:02 and Lin-Ley was waiting anxiously in the office. As I walked around the corner of the office she smiled her biggest smile when she saw me.

Tru's classmates made him this birthday banner.

Pa-Pa Bill was in charge of the party supplies and he came back with this inflatable Elmo.


Once we were home we gave Tru his birthday present - a Tonka Truck scooter. He really likes it - especially the horn, blinkers, key (all buttons that make noise). He also likes getting on and off of it.
He refused to look up once he got on the scooter. I could not get any pictures of him smiling.




Lin-Ley had to get in on the action too. It was very hard for her to let Tru play with his toys without "help".

How would you get on and off (and on and off and on and off) of your scooter? Tru has his own very effective method:


Aunt Diane and Uncle Ted gave Tru a 100 count foam block set. Tru was fascinated with them and played with them by rearranging them in their container for while. Then he transferred them to the bottom shelf of the bench. Now it's time to place them on the top shelf.



He had the Tonka scooter on one side of the room and the blocks on the other side. Then he decided to go back and forth between the two. Notice that he decided the best place to play with the blocks was to climb onto Mom's stomach for a while:

Not So Fast & Not So Easy

Last Friday Tru was examined by Mr. Hopkins (the director of the prosthetic facility he was referred to). Super nice guy! After an exam and viewing the x-rays Mr. Hopkins said he did not agree with the previous doctor’s findings and did not feel that Tru could avoid surgery. He tried to get the doctor on the phone but was unsuccessful. Back to the drawing board. What a downer….

Then yesterday Tru saw Dr. Todd at Walter Reed. Dr. Todd had requested to see Tru. He was an extremely nice doctor – one of the rare doctors that will take his time, explain everything, and does not try to rush you out the door. Dr. Todd thought that we should try another approach – a totally different approach.

I will not go into specifics here but basically one doctor thinks we can save his leg and the other thinks we can not. Basically we have two doctors telling us that they would like to try two totally different treatment methods. There are more appointments, tests and scans to come before a decision will be made. The hard part is that eventually we (Dallas and I) will have to make the decision on which treatment we think would be best for Tru. We are thinking about what is best for the short-term and long-term. We want Tru to be up and walking as soon as possible. It looks like it will likely be around two months before a decision is made