AFGHANISTAN BOUND

Well, the time is almoset t here, Dave has told me that they are expected to be in Afghanistan on November 2nd.  Here is his address for once he is there, if anything changes, I will let you know!

LTC Dave Updegraff begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting
HHT/1-113 CAV
2/34th IBCT
Bagram Airfield
APO AE 09354

Back to Mississippi!!

Well, Dave and his guys are back in Shelby MI.  I posted pictures of the rock they painted before leaving California, if you didn't see it, go take a look. It is so cool!  I would love to just go there and walk through all of the rocks.  If I get any more, I will post them soon.  A week from today, the kids and I are heading down to Mississippi to visit Dave.  Everyone got a four day pass and they have been taking the leave in stages...Dave's ended up next week.  At first he just wanted me to go down and see him.  He didn't want to have to deal with the emotion of saying good-bye to the kids again.....BUT I really struggled with that, he wanted me to just not tell the kids where I was going.  It isn't like I take off on trips all the time, the kids would ask questions, my friends would talk about it, I just didn't see that working out well.  SO, we decided that we would all go down for the visit. (This was decided even after I got yelled at for 20 minutes by my sister Terry....she thought it would be great to just have a couples trip without the kids, and put her to some use taking care of the kids while I was gone, since she is staying here with us...I have found many other ways to put her to good use, such as painting, mowing, cleaning, cooking, driving someone to the ortho, etc, etc...so, no problem there!!)  Anyhow, Dave found a two bedroom beach house to rent for the week not far from the base.  They were only allowed to go 300 miles from the base.  The kids are so happy about it.....Dave said we would go out deep sea fishing, so Jack hasn't stopped talking about that, he loves to fish!!  Katie is happy that she gets to skip an entire week of school!  Dave's dad Tom is going to join us for a day from Atlanta too!  I will fill you in on how it goes, and post the many pictures I plan on taking!  It will be a rough ariplane trip home for us, (ME) so hopefully we will have had enough fun there so we can ride home on the high of that, not the low of Dave's shipping out! Wish us luck!!  :O)

After completing the training at the National Traning Center in CA,, it is tradition for each unit to paint a rock...check out Dave's unit!!

There is a tradition after finishing training at the National Training Center in CA. you paint a rock! This is cool!!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Dave's (_) birthday!  Wish we were there with you to help you celebrate!  We will celebrate doubly next year!

Love ya, Cindy, Katie, and Jack :O)