We graduated!

We finished our security training, turned in our final written assignments, met with our "coaches" and accountability partners, and had one last party with everyone going to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) before our commissioning ceremony on Wednesday, Dec. 13th.


Kristin reads a little Christmas ditty she penned for our enjoyment.

Our party consisted of a wonderful pizza dinner (away from the cafeteria!) and then back at one of the quads for desserts and a few games. We loved getting to know the others going to CEE with us and look forward to seeing them again in April and June.


Cile works on a puzzle of the Parliment in Budapest.

Kari and Joanthan gave us this wonderful puzzle as our early Christmas present, and we saved putting it together until our Christmas party. The neat thing about this puzzle is that Kari downloaded a picture from the internet while she was in France, and emailed it to the Walmart in Marietta for them to make it into a puzzle for us, and then she picked it up from the Walmart when she was in the U.S. in September! Isn't that cool! Great gift idea! Thanks Kari and Jonathan!

Close-up of Parliment building in Budapest puzzle

After our 7 1/2 weeks at ILC, we loaded our bags, said our good-byes, turned in our keys and went to visit with Kate and Chris in Maryville for two days. We brought them to Marietta with us and then took them to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport (more commonly known as the Atlanta airport) where they caught a flight to France to visit with Kari and Jonathan for 2 weeks!

While Chris and Kate are in France, we are babysitting their dog, Shadow, and as you can see, he is a very loving Golden Retriever. Shadow misses "his mom and dad" but is having a good time playing with Cile's Dad's dog, Tundra. He also is enjoying walks in the local park and chewing on Tundra's dog bones.

Chris & Kate take a few presents to Kari & Jonathan.

Hurry, hurry, hurry, now let's wait! If you'd like to see pictures of their trip and hear all about it, you can go to their blog's and follow along! Go to www.candkborders.blogspot.com and www.jkmassonfrance.blogspot.com

We got word from the IMB today that our plane tickets to Budapest for January 7th were cancelled because our visas haven't arrived yet. (The IMB has to cancel reservations a certain number of days before the flight to not lose any $ on the tickets, and the IMB won't purchase the tickets until the visas have actually been received.) At this point, we won't be flying out as scheduled on January 7th and we won't have a revised departure date until we actually receive our visas for Hungary. We'll let you know when we know something more. We are excited about getting to Hungary, but every day that passes that we are still here in the U.S. is ONE LESS WINTER DAY!