Well, I believe I've made my final trip to Seoul before Tara and I make our way home for the Christmas holiday. I was recently there to attend a meeting of security managers and to get a brief overview of some new information. As I've said before, we'll be staying in Korea until at least May of 2008, so a lot of new responsibilities are being bestowed upon me, to include becoming an assistant security manager, among others.
This was, of course, after one of our greater feats: Pulling off a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people. Yes, we hosted a few individuals from my time at Huachuca, as well as the enlisted members of my current section for a Thanksgiving feast.Tara went to town baking, making a double-layer cake, three pumpkin pies, cookies and a vanilla/chocolate mixed cream pie. One of the individual from our shop, Pfc. Eric Day, worked hard on the mashed potatoes and corn. Tara also took care of the home-made yams and pitched in on pretty much all the other food. My primary concern was the turkey and trying to play host.
We got an unexpected twist thrown into our plans, when our last guest told us he probably wouldn't arrive for dinner until after 5 p.m. We were planning dinner for 4 p.m. So, we turned down the heat on Tom (our turkey) and kept basting him. He turned out fantastic, as the meat was so tender it practically fell of the bone. With all the food turning out better than Tara and I could have hoped, no one went home hungry. We also played a few card games and board games and watched some movies, but mostly we took time to talk and catch up and enjoy the holiday together.
And so now, with the holiday behind us and my final trip to Seoul out of the way, we're left to the anticipation of returning home. Fortunately some of our excitement for that can be stored, as we also have two more exciting events coming up. In early Decemeber, Day's fiancee, Natalie, will be visiting and spending a lot of her time here at our place, since we have an extra room. And even though she's not here to see us, she's our first visitor from the states and Day's already expressed a need to help entertain her while she's here, so we're excited. Then, just a week after her arrival, we'll all head to the Christmas Ball. Tara's had a dress made and she's been working on making her own jewelry for the occassion, so I know she's excited for her first military ball.
Other than that, we've been occupying our time getting ready for the holidays. With most of our Christmas shopping done, and with Thanksgiving past, Tara turned her attention to decorating. So, before I left Sunday afternoon to go north, we got a Christmas tree and she started the decorating process. I was pretty amazed when I got home and she had a little winter village set up, she had the tree completely decorated and she had some other nice ornamentations to brighten the apartment for the holiday. Now we just have to wait for the trip home and for Santa to come find us.
We truly hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving and you're planning a special celebration this holiday season. I also wanted to say thank you to Jesse "Smokey" Blankenship for shooting us an email just to wish us a happy holiday. I'll buy you a cup of coffee when we get home Smokey. And believe me, we just can't wait to get home for the holidays. Until next time, we miss you and God Bless.
(*A hard copy of this column will be run in the Nov. 29 version of the Standard Journal Newspaper)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment