Hey everyone! I thought blogging would be an easier way to let everyone know what I'm up to and how I've been. I don't have a lot of free time here so sending e-mails to everyone would leave me with absolutely no time for myself. I suppose I should start at the beginning. I left for Kuwait on the 2nd of October and arrived very early in the morning on the 4th. It was very weird to skip an entire day. I think the whole trip, to include the bus rides, took about 20 hours. When we finally got to Kuwait I was relieved to hear that they were going to give us 2 days to adjust before they made us do any training. The training consisted of firing our weapons (which we only got to shoot 10 rounds), roll over training where they put us in a Humvee and made it roll over a couple times before stopping upside down and making us try to get out, and training on IEDs and all the various groups of people in Iraq and what not. In all the training lasted about 2 days. I was in Kuwait for 3 weeks. Needless to say I had A LOT of down time. I think I watched the same two movies 10 times each at least! I also got a lot of reading in. I got a Kindle for my birthday, which was only 5 days before I deployed. I didn't receive the Kindle until the day before so I didn't get a chance to put a lot of books on there. I had two books and the bible. Those two books didn't last me very long so I moved on to the bible. There are some very interesting stories in there. I haven't finished it yet. In fact, I'm not even close to finishing it. I don't even think I'm close to the New Testament! I made it to 2 Samuel before I left Kuwait. Another thing I did a lot of while I was there was go to the gym. I am determined to lose the weight I gained when I got out of the Army back in 2004. In the 3 weeks I was there I lost 10 pounds! I've lost a few more since I've been here in Baghdad. I'm almost down the weight I was when I met my husband. My goal is to be back to 135 pounds by the time I come home. I think it's do-able. So I left for Baghdad around the 27th of October. It was only a 50 minute flight but I got really motion sick. I had to ride in a C-17 and I was sitting on the side of the plane not facing forward. That may not have been so bad had there been windows that I could have looked out of. I don't think I've ever been that woozy. It stayed with me the entire next day. I started working the day after I arrived in Baghdad. I work 12 hours from 0700 to 1900 7 days a week. When I get off work I go to the gym for an hour to an hour and a half. After I shower I maybe have an hour of free time for myself before I have to go to bed. And then I do all that again the next day. I can't tell you what I do here or I'll get in A LOT of trouble. I do enjoy it most of the time though. The people we are replacing are leaving in a few days so any questions I have must be asked and answered before then cuz once they leave....that's it, it'll be all up to us. So, I spent all my free time catching everyone up. I hope you enjoy reading about my life here and I'll do my best to keep you all up to date and informed. I love and miss everyone!