A day off!

Hi everyone,

I got the chance to have a day off today:) I slept in a few extra hours and got some reading done. Then I came up to the MWR in our HQ and got to call Robyn for a little bit before getting online. I've just been trying to catch up on emails and the blogs and what everyone has been up to. There's a lot going on with everyone! Robyn has been a busy body back there making sure that everyone is taken care of for Christmas and working her little fingers to the bone to make everyone's presents. She did a little handy work around the house and fixed a problem with the drywall seems that we were having on in our house! How many wives do that?! I am just so lucky to have such a capable and independant wife and mother for Porter. She literally has done everything for the Christmas presents for everyone, to include my family and friends. I never have to worry about that stuff and I truly appreciate it. I don't think that everyone realizes all the time and effort she puts into it though...she shops throughout the year for Christmas and collects presents over time. She was done with Christmas shopping in November! The only thing she's been working on lately is just wrapping the mountain of presents for everyone and finishing up some of the presents that she has been making herself. I just hope everyone appreciates what she has been sending everyone:)

I have just been glad to have some new experiences working directly with an aviation unit here and learning a lot about the helicopters and everything that goes along with them. My job is essentially to manage information for them. I collect threat information and weather and consolidate it into a briefing that I give them before they go out to fly so they know what to look for. While they're flying, I manage the information they relay back and consolidate that for the next folks. I also manage other stuff for the unit here at large and make sure things are running smooth. As the Battle Captain, I pretty much run the fight for the Commander and update him on things as needed. I coordinate with other units in the area that might need support or be able to use the information that our guys gather and make sure that everyone is on the same page. It's a neat job and I get to work with some very interesting characters...most of them very nice:) Of course there's a lot more to it than the 3 sentence description, but that's the gyst of it! I hope you all are getting ramped up for Christmas and enjoying the holidays! Thank you so much to Robyn's parents and Megan and Aunt Dede and Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas for all the cards/packages/support that you have sent me. It's been very nice getting packages for the holidays with the little goodies in them:) There's more candy and snacks around the office from everyone's care packages now than we can eat! Everyone is going to be working it off in the gym over the next month trying to get back in shape before we come home:) I need to get going to grab some chow, while I'm on the subject, so I'll talk to you all again soon!