Tis the Season

Tis the season for so many things. At the beginning of the month, a few very important events occured. As with the beginning of so many months, we will promote Soldiers and while all of these promotions are important, some are more special than others. This month we had the occasion to promote one of our own. We promoted him to E8, which, if we were in the civilian world, would be the equivilant of going from department head to management. A very special day indeed and we are all very proud of his accomplishments.

As with most promotions, there is cake with the tradional sword.......

a closer view.............

and the ceremonial cutting of the cake......

December also marks the beginning of the Christmas season and we took the opportunity to spce up the place and set into the spirit. In case any of you were wondering, all of the decorations we sent over by HH6 and the rest of the section's families back home. It was a wonderful surprise and made us all feel a little brighter.

The decorations included something to attach either to a window or the fridge.......

Strings of red and green.............

A few hats.........

Decorating in progress.......

and I even took the opportuniy to spruce up my room. Some may look at this as the "Charlie Brown Tree," but I look at it with happiness and love. HH6 sent it with love and I look at it every day and think that this seperation does not conquer the spirit of family.

Finally, as we are in the penultimate phase of this deployment, I saw this and thought that it was very appropriate, that the moon is setting, signaling the end is near.

We are doing well and looking forward to coming home soon. We will get though Christmas and New Years and then we will be home. Almost done.

Once again, thanks for everything.