The sunset, at 3.30 as we were leaving base.

Jordan and Kellie Pickler.

And again.

Kid Rock, again.

Kid Rock after the show, out back.

Here's Kid Rock. He was a really good performer. Actually, in this pic he's performing Picture (normally done with Sheryl Crow) with Kellie Pickler.

Kellie Pickler performing Red High Heels.

So, this is the beginning of the USO event on Lakenheath Air Force Base. It was scheduled to begin at 10.30 on a Saturday, so we showed up at 10.15 and here we were claiming our seats. Trouble was, it didn't actually start until 12.30. We didn't stick around and ended up with significantly worse seats. Still, it was a really good event.

Again, the Christmas party at Brown's in Cambridge. This is Nathaniel, who sits across from me at work and is a good friend, entertaining guy.

Some of you will have heard a bit about these work friends of mine. Maddy is on the left and Leah is in the middle. Ever since I started at Proquest they've been great friends of mine. Isabel is on the right. This picture is from our Christmas party this year (the company party).

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Christmas in Cambridge

The aftermath of our Christmas extravaganza! So many gorgeously great presents. We are so thankful for Christmas and the most important gift that it celebrates, the birth of our Savior.

We are also pretty excited about the prezzies we got and gave. Thank you!! Below is the footage (okay, not footage) of our day thus far. We love you and Merry Christmas.

This is the gorgeous earring Jordan gave me. It is kind of out of focus here, but it is a diamond encrusted hoop with a black pearl surrounded by diamonds dropped off of it. I love them!

This is the coat Ash got Jordan. Very handsome.

We love our coats, and dang do we look good in them. I adore my new hat as well!

We tried to get a shot of ourselves in front of the tree, but failed. This is the byproduct (somehow this is the best of the batch).

Breakfast casserole! No, this isn't a 9x13 pan, so don't judge us. We had a really fun time making it, better time eating it. Jordan actually burned his throat in his eagerness to eat it.

Some old ones.

Leaving Georgia and our next door neighbour friends, Broc, Katie, Molly and Jack.

Momma Jo and Kasey at Meggie and Stu's wedding.

I baked this heart cookie for Jordan when he was doing the Tanker Winter Games in February in North Dakota. SO glad they're not sending tanker people there anymore!

Aww, Annabelle, we weren't really selling you...the Bounds took you for free!

Jordan being goofy in the wildlife refuge in Oklahoma.

This is a happy memory. It was Christmas of 2006 and Jordan had just returned from a deployment. We'd missed each other tons and it was a special Christmas to finally be back together. The UK has been great for so many reasons, not the least of which is that Jordan hasn't deployed (touch wood, haha).

The Mohawk. We (he mostly) got some stares for this one. I thought it was really funny, kind of like an experiment to see how people who have mohawks or are with mohawked people are treated. Interesting to be on the other side (weirding people out as opposed to being slightly weirded out in a nice restaurant).

One of our favorites, this shot captures a lot. It was taken on the 4th of July in '04 at the Lakehouse. Gorgeous view and sunset and memory.

I have always loved this one. I was visiting Jordan in Georgia at his apartment. We used to grill steaks in the parking lot on his little camping grill. And, his old X-terra... this picture reminds me of falling in love.

Camping in North Carolina on our road trip before Jordan's August '04 deployment. I am not a camper and I remember I had to talk myself down from panic when he left me with the spiders to go get firewood that night. We also used a starter log to grill our first set of hotdogs, but thank goodness didn't eat them, as they would've been highly carcinogenic (we read the label after observing that they looked scary).

Given the upcoming Christmas Holiday, this one seems appropriate. It was taken in the summer of 2004 at the Redneck Olympics in Georgia. I suppose its value speaks for itself.

I loved this shirt until the sleevemonster had its way with it.

We all went late night to watch Clint's case.

At the drive-in, Maryville.

This is all for now, but it has been a wonderful trip down memory lane.

Bratislava, Slovakia

One of Bratislava's famous sculptures. http://www.travel-images.com/rosto.html

A great little tucked away restaurant.

Don't know why I put this up, just liked it. Perhaps it is the fond memories of our stinky sandals? Or maybe the relative tanness of my foot, I mean, our feet.

The downtown was so nice. We got prematurely excited from misreading a map that we were staying right in the 5 starish looking district. We were so pleased with ourselves until a half an hour later when we found ourselves hiking a massive hill with our backpacks. Oops.

The people were really nice, seemed to appreciate tourists as Slovakia is still off the beaten path in Europe. The weather was gorgeous and the people were much better looking (think about Petra Nemcova- okay that wasn't the standard, but still) than in other places...we'll leave it there to avoid hurting anyone's feelings.

The old city wall.

Practice at getting our self-portrait right. It's one of our things we like to do, capture ourselves in various parts of the world. There's a book or at leasta short essay planned for release in 2010.

Beautiful view, not just talking about the person...

Synagogue.

UFO Bridge. Quite a site next to the historic city.

Train travel is, usually, lots of fun (times when it is not as fun will be referenced in an upcoming segment of the blog, Budapest---->Ljubljana, not that that was terrible or anything).