Painting Katie's Room

We finally got around to clearing out the extra bedroom so we could paint it. The color is a little deceiving on the pictures here. It is a very soft-shade of sea-foam green. It appears a little darker here than I think it actually is. It matches some of the items in Karen's sea/beach theme she is working on.

We are accumulated some nice clothes but we need to get moving on furniture! We have the crib, an Under The Sea Carpet, a Kick N' Play, but we don't have any dressers yet. We need two but the BX only has one left. We may need to go into the alley to get that made. The shower is scheduled for this Friday, which we have off.

What else is new? Well the job at Miramar Brig opened up and I did apply for it but it sounds like the chances of me getting it are zero. I have been told I can not get out of my DEROS (date eligible to return from overseas). Even if I am the only person that applies, the Air Force will select a nonvolunteer before they give the job to me.

We have almost been here 8 months already! Every now and then we talk about what we think the remainder of our time will be like here. I think it will go pretty quickly. Karen will be heading to Germany in June for Storknesting. I will follow shortly after. Katie is due on 18 July. Apparently we will spend a busy ten days after Katie is born working on a passport for Katie. Then when we get back we will have one year left and only nine months left until we find out what our next assignment is. Plus, Octonodecembuary will begin just two months after we get back with Katie and we know how time flies during those months.

Well, as usual we are in the library as I post this. I actually here thunder outside - we may get a little rain. We will make sure pics are taken at the baby shower and are trying to find a new digital camera on-line. See you all on-line soon.

Mama Took My Kodachrome Away

Our digital camera took a crap! It seems to still function and a flash goes off when you push the button, but there are no images displayed on the screen - it just remains white no matter what button you push or setting you move it to. We are trying to get a replacement but will have to wait for the end of March and order on-line. All the cameras for sale on base are around $300. Walmart, Target, and some others have much better on-line offers. We will probably borrow one for Karen's shower on April 4th. Then should have a new one fairly soon after.

We bought paint for Katie's nursery yesterday. Karen picked out a soft, lime green. Kind of the color of the water along the Emerald Coast in Florida. Hopefully, we will paint next week. We bought the paint at a store in the mall called The Praktiker. We got around Adana fairly well. We found the mall on our own for the first time, then we went to McDonald's which is only about ten minutes from the mall but took us over an hour. I wasn't sure how to cut across town to get to McDonald's so I wanted to come back the base and take the road I was sure of. But we missed the base turn-off and ended up another 30 miles down the road before we could get turned around. I think the freeway sign said Ceyhan was only 19 miles from where we turned around. There are very few places to turn around on the freeway in Turkey. We finally figured out that every 5 miles or so there will be an opening in the left side guard rail. But even with that only 1 out of every 5 of those is actually open and the others are sealed shut. Then we missed a right side turn off. Finally caught a left-side guard rail opening as we approached Ceyhan - and then went all the way back to McDonald's in New Adana. McDonald's never tasted so good. It was packed. They had full upstairs seating and downstairs plus about 50 tables outside on a grass lawn that were full. The Turks love the McDonald's - at least in Adana they do.

Also put the Master Sergeant stripe on officially on March 1st.

Radio Days

I like to check Mike Anderson's Saint Louis media site every now and them. When i was younger there was a time I thought I would work in radio all my life. Although I'm glad it didn't work out that way, I sure had fun working for KIX 104FM from 1987-1990. Mike runs a web site in St. Louis that covers St. Louis media news. I e-mail Mike every now and then. When I e-mailed him from turkey he actually put a small blurb up about me on his web site. I can' figure out how to link to a specific date on his site but his site is: http://stlmedia.net/ and the feature he did on me is on 02-24-1008. He put a photo up of me that I can't copy over - but here is the story:

02-24-08 Got a great weekend email ... from former KIX104 Promotions Assistant Pat Dwyer. Kind of a wild man back then (I remember the altercation he got into with the soon-to-be Mayor of Maplewood over a bumper sticker incident), Pat's become an Air Force success story. He's married, and he and his wife, Karen, are about to become parents in the next few months; Pat will become Master Sergeant Dwyer in the next few days and he's a just a few years away from retiring from an honorable Air Force career as a senior non-commissioned officer. Read about his military time here. On AF retirement, Pat and Karen want to come home to St. Louis and he intends to go into accounting, a degree toward which he's been working while in service. When young Mr. Dwyer left KIX, he left a vacancy that was never adequately filled...he was missed. I'm glad to see that it was clearly the AF's gain. Say hi here.

BABY KATIE NEWS: Karen has now felt Katie "doing something" in there. I ask, "Did you feel her kick or was it movement?" Karen says, "She's doing something!"

Thanks to all the recent e-mails/comments from Jackie Rangen, Gittan Grondahl, Tracy Breece, Jeff Pixler, Mom, Kori Smyth, and probably many I am forgetting. I only have 15 minutes left before my time here is up. Besdies Karen needs to be off for "high tea."

Find me on Facebook. It's a great way to stay connected to all your friends and family everywhere simultaneously. Some of you need to get your pictures on there (Mom, Jan, and Jeff).