"The Incredible Little Car Who Shifts for Himself!"

Things with Josh are going well. He greatly appreciated everyone's birthday wishes from 1/2 way around the world. As many of you know, since you participated in it, there was a little drive to see how many birthday cards he could receive. We don't have an official number as of yet, but he stopped counting at 300!!! They kept pouring in. He even recieved 21 cards in the mail on his birthday! We'll count them once he returns home! Perhaps I will even post a picture of them all displayed, though I envision setting them all up and a dominoe reaction occuring before we ever get to the end.


I missed my usual monthly milestone for the 19th of the month! Wednesday was actually a pretty long day, but it is worth mentioning that November 19th brought us to the double digits of Josh being gone -- 10 months! This is exciting because his deployment is supposed to be 12 months, so we are inching our way closer!


The good news is that the holidays are just around the corner, which again, means Josh's homecoming is not far off either. It's been a long year for sure and we look forward to the new year and everything it will bring!


I was blessed with two great phone calls from Josh this week - which is (unfortunately) a rare treat (the number of them that is!). He is doing well and looks forward to coming home with each passing day. Safe to say, the 7 by 7 plywood room has lost it's luster, in addition to close living quarters within the hut. He continues to stay busy by car shopping from afar. This week's online discovery... Reconditioned Beetles from the 70s...

Josh love his beetles. He dressed up as Herbie when he was a little tyke, around age 5. Did you know that it took about 100 vehicles to make the Herbie movie? Each vehicle was specifically made for each of his stunts, i.e driving backwards meant the chasis was turned around, a sports car motor was installed for it to do wheelies, etc. Amazing what it took to produce a movie before special effects and computer imaging! No, I did not know this little fact. Josh certainly may have, but I did not! A local car salesman buys replica cars from movies and his latest purchase was a HERBIE complete with the 53 and stripes! There was an article in the local newspaper about it, so I learned some "fast facts"!

On the other side of the world... I have been staying busy by Christmas shopping, though it was a rough start. I went last weekend on Friday and Saturday to different locations and only had some minor luck on Friday and nothing was checked off the list on Saturday. Thankfully, this week, I was able to accomplish quite a bit. I am even close to making the list of what is left to get and where. Yet in comparison to last year, I am a quite a bit behind as I had all presents purchased and wrapped, with the exception of a few things that had to wait. Hopefully a few more trips is all it will take! At times I do miss the spirit of shopping in December, but the leisurely approach and stress-free experience that I had this week makes it hard to not want anything but doing it in advance! I have been sending Josh links to everything I have purchased for everyone so that he can see it all in advance. We have exchanged a lot of "idea e-mails" and this gives him an opportunity to weigh-in on the gift, just as if we were in the mall together. (Except it might require a return trip. Thankfully though, I am "batting a thousand" so far!)