It's my what day?

As I contemplate my 34th birthday I have come to realize that really it's just another day. Another day added to your life, another year, and another decade in the works. Being part of the military adds an interesting dynamic to this, for example my first birthday spent in the military was when I turned 28 in basic training, two years later I spent my 30th in northern Iraq, my 32nd was spend in northern Afghanistan, and today I'm in southern Afghanistan with almost a month down in my 3rd full deployment. There's no dinner plans over here, no parties, no phone calls to get (unless you actually call back home) it's just another day really. I don't like the fact that I'm away from Renee and the kids but as a husband I couldn't ask for a most amazing supportive wife while I'm over here and I'm so thankful for that. Renee and the kids are the best present I could ever ask on this day, I am truly and rich man and I thank God for such an amazing blessing. I don't lament being over here, after all nobody has forced me to join the military and I love my job in the army! It's not all glamorous and exciting but it's important and I know it's making a difference even if it's not always evident. So if my math is correct I will be deployed again on my 36th birthday but I pray that hopefully we will get a longer break than a year (I hope). I thankful to be able to serve but I'm more thankful to be able to take care of my family even if it means that I have to sacrifice being away from them a year at a time. I love you baby and all my Special Ks.

Starting a routine.

When you're deployed you develop a routine, you go to work, you go to the gym, you talk to your loved ones and so on. As for me I'm working the graveyard shift from 11pm to 7am so I get to see pretty much the dark side of nothingness. It's no so bad actually I find it to be peaceful but eerily quiet at times. Seriously there's nothing making any sounds out here at night! I guess that's a good thing right? So my routine consists of getting off work and eating breakfast (dinner for me), talk to Renee for a while on chat (since skype is pretty slow and frustrating right now!), go to sleep for about 6-7 hours wake up, watch whatever TV series I maybe into at the time, go to the dinner (breakfast), go the the gym for about 45 min, shower and go to work right after grabbing a light snack for work overnight. Pretty exciting huh? Ha! Once you get into a groove it makes life easier out here, you know what you need to do and that makes more bearable when you know what's coming next. As for work well things are pretty slow right now but I would imagine as we begin to fly more and have more missions things will pick up at work. Overall we have a pretty good team in our shift, we all get along pretty well and we are all very mellow, well all of them except for me when I get all wired up on coffee. Haha!

In one of these past morning walking back from work I made it a point to take some pictures so you can get an idea what I'm looking at over here. I find this place very beautiful in some ways but I'm quickly reminded that there are very dangerous people out there and that I can't forget why I'm here. Enjoy the pictures!

I will try to upload more pics later, the internet is way to slow to upload them on here for some reason.