Grover

Just recently it occured to me that some might want an update about Grover. :) I thought this would be the easiest way to let everyone know how he's doing.

On May 2 or 3 he arrived in Talil(not sure if I'm spelling that right) Iraq. For the first couple of weeks he had the CHU(what they call their rooms) all to himself because he arrived ahead of the rest of the 219th. During the first few weeks we got to talk a lot because he was just kind of setting up things and learning from the people they were replacing what they were going to be doing.

The last part of the month the rest of the 219th arrived as did his room mate and good friend Derek. Or Mac as we like to call him :) Grover is attatched to the 219th so I was really glad that Derek was going with him. It made me feel better to know a good friend was going to be watching his back. Though sometimes I feel like he and Derek have spent more time together the past three years than either of them have spent with me and Khirstin(Derek's wife) :)

So when the rest of the 219th arrived we stopped talking as much. He has been extremely busy and I'm sure it'll get worse before it gets better. He did email me a run down of his day. They are seven hours ahead of us, so it goes like this
4:30 wake up and work out(this is 9:30 the previous day our time)
Get ready for work and walk a half hour to get there by 7 am(midnight our time)
Lunch at the chow hall at 12pm(5 am our time) and it's a half hour walk there and half hour walk back
Work again until dinner at 6 pm(11 am our time) and again back to work hour round trip walk
Right now he's getting done with everything between 10-11(3-4pm our time)

Then we skype for as long as he can keep his eyes open(I normally try to make him get off before midnight his time and 5pm our time.) So not a whole lot of free time for him. He says that it will be different eventually. That they'll work half days sometimes so he'll have some time to do things. If I know G... and I really do kinda well, he'll never take a half day. He's a work aholic. He might leave a little earlier than he is right now, but that'll be about it.

We did find out that he won't be getting his R&R now. Not going to lie, that was a pretty big blow to me. The time line of all this started back on February 4th, and basically the whole month of February he was gone 20 hours a day and we barely saw him. Then he was off the first week of March and that was great but March 10th he left for Seattle for six weeks. He was home for four days over Easter weekend before he had to go back to Seattle, but that was an effing disaster because he had strep and we all got sick. So the last time we saw him was April 27th and it literally will be 12 months straight until he gets home. First three months we saw him sporadically, last 12 months he's a watercolored version of himself on skype. And we have 11 months more to go.

Good news is he is going to have 30 days straight off when he gets home and I will be planning the best family vacation EVER to Disney World :)

As far as what he actually does while he's there I really don't know. He's intel, so everything is top secret, but mostly he just says he prepares briefs and attends briefs and corrects briefs. Sounds fun. :)

That's about all I got as far as G is concerned. He seems really happy and like he enjoys whatever it is that he does. He is already listing things he's looking forward to when he gets home(which I honestly try not to think about because it seems too far off to even think about what I'm looking forward to). He is looking forward to real milk, and no sand. :)

Just keep him in your prayers, but also set your mind at ease because he really is okay! :)