An early Christmas gift...

Hello Everyone,

As you know, I have been on the road this past week and returned late Saturday night.

My early Christmas gift was getting to see my 8 year old daughter for 5 1/2 hours on Saturday afternoon as I passed through Dulles International Airport outside of D.C.  It was a wonderful feeling to be able to kiss , hug, and hold her again.  It is really impossible to describe...

Sarah has spent the last week with her Aunt and Uncle, who live in Northern Virginia, and is off to see Jodi and Chase in North Carolina today for a week long stay.  I know she is very excited to see Chase.  They get along so well and seem connected the way a brother and sister would be.

As an added bonus, I also got to visit with relatives Thursday night and bought some nice hand rolled in Tampa cigars.

As for my trip, it was great to be in Tampa but is a big investment in time to get there as I spent almost 30 hours sitting on a plane or in an airport.  On my return trip, I was routed through Amsterdam and I have never been there.

I went to Tampa for an exercise planning conference for an exercise which will take place in Egypt in Sept 2013.  We accomplished much more then I expected and have a good foundation to build on.  Bright Star has been an annual exercise in Egypt ever since I have been in the Marine Corps but it was not held last year because of the revolution.  I have never been to Cairo but will go there this upcoming Oct to continue the planning effort.

Ramadan is in full swing here but I haven't been in town to notice any big changes other then traffic was horrible last night as I was returning from the airport.  This is actually the first week of Ramadan so I think a lot of people were celebrating the "breaking of the fast" by going out for dinner late at night and just taking to the streets.

Well, back to the boring life of a staff officer...

Cheers,
Michael