More from Qatar!

Touring Dohu! It looks very Middle Eastern to me.

The city of Dohu.

Yes, there are even kitties in Qatar!

Qatar!

Kelly went to Qatar for his week long R n' R. He is still there, actually, and he is enjoying no work, McDonald's, free phone and internet, a bigger BX, touring the malls in Dohu, and hopefully going to see the sea.

This is a look inside a C-17 cargo plane. It's pretty no-frills, but was relatively empty, so we actually got to lay down on the floor and take a nap for a couple hours.

Here are some "trinkets" kelly bought at the mall in Dohu. One us a Koran holder, which is very Islamic.

He ran into his co-workers from utah, Michelle Sharpe and Scotty Andreasen. They were heading back to the states from Iraq. That will be Kelly in 2 months!

Thankful for News!

The internet is mine and Kelly's main source of communication during his deployment. We email each other daily, and Kelly can comment and post pictures on our family website. I can also send Kelly pictures via the internet. So, as you can imagine, we are on the computer a lot! Here are some recent happenings for Kelly in Afghanistan, and me in Las Cruces and Mesa.

Kelly said: I went to FOB Blessing in the Konar Province. I went there to have a short meeting with their intel guys, but was only on the ground for like 40 minutes before someone came and got me and told me I had to get on the flight out ASAP or be stuck there for the night due to poor weather. So, I didn't get any pictures there, but here are some from a place we refueled. Blessing was beautiful. It was on the hillside surrounded by huge mountains, terraces, and the viillage, but I didn't have time to take any pictures there. Here's one from the area though: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/01/afghanistan_slideshow200801?slide=2

This is me at Asadabad, waiting to get back on the Helicopter. In the background is an AH-64 Apache.

I thought this was funny. We had to get off the helicopter to refuel, and I thought I heard a baby crying. It turned out to be goats on the hill nearby. This one somehow managed to get on base and ran right by the helo. Earlier that day in Jalalabad, I saw a dog running along the runway.


This is looking into the city of Asadabad


This is the helicopter we flew around in. When I first got to Jalalabad, I saw these things parked on the side of the runway and thought they were broken and no longer in use, but nope, they are the workhorse of the army.

The guy in back has the coolest job. He sits in the back of the helo, dangles his legs over the edge, and mans the machine gun.

From Cassi...

The Suns v. Heat game on Black Friday. You can see our seats aren't great. Although we were disappointed Nash was out, the game was still lots of fun.

Big Hakes picnic on Black Friday. My old gang, minus Tash and Leland, and Kelly of course.

We took Hailey shopping with us. She is soo cute.


Kalli and I at the Carrie Underwood concert in Las Cruces on Nov. 3rd. Kelly is the one who introduced me to her music.




Halloween in Las Cruces with Sarah Palin and a beautiful witch.

A Tribute to America

Today I wanted to attribute this post to the good men and women who serve our country. I know what you're thinking, isn' that the whole purpose of the blog? Well, yeah, it is. But, when I got these pictures from Kelly, I thought two things:

1), is how grateful I am to live in America. The man below with Kelly, a member of the Afghanistan National Army, was so excited to talk to Kelly and other U.S. military members. Sadly, most of the people in Afghanistan have only known terror, and the rest remember what it used to be like. I am fortunate to have never experienced true terror, and for that I am grateful. I am grateful that I can practice and live my religion here as well. I am also grateful that my husband is willing to go help. He feels better about his service in the military when he is over there.

2), is despite our very different cirumstances, the people in other countries are not that different from me and you. I often forget this. They are also children of our Heavenly Father, which would make them our brothers and sisters.

It may have been the historical campaign results last night that made me feel patriotic, or maybe I just miss Kelly, but I wanted to post these things.

Kelly said: This is me standing at the perimeter wall. Where I'm at now is a little more mountainous and looks like the Southwestern US, actually. I like the nighttime because the base is completely dark and you can see millions of stars and falling stars.

Kelly said: I'm uploading a couple pictures I've taken here at Mehtar Lam. At the end of the day, I went to watch a pickup soccer game with the local Afghan National Army soldiers and some Americans mixed in. I took a picture and this guy saw my camera and wanted me to take one with him. He was funny. Occasionally other guys would come over to us and try to talk to us and show us their radios and guns.

NEWS FROM KELLY...

Later this week I'll probably go to FOBs Mehtar Lam and Kalagush. Mehtar Lam is supposedly the site of the tomb of Lamech, the father of Noah. I probably won't be doing much sightseeing though. Kalagush is up more in the mountains and is supposed to be really pretty, so I'm looking forward to it.

I saw some video from msnbc the other day that I thought was interesting. It was a series on the Korengal Valley , which is about 30 miles from here. I work at the Headquarters for the unit that is there and it is probably the most violent place in Afghanistan. To see the video, go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27304836 and then click on the "U.S. news" category and then "Military". It's the "On patrol in the Valley of Death" and "Seeing the enemy in Afghanistan". Fortunately, despite being physically close to the Korengal, the security situation here is a world away, so don't be scared for me.



NEWS FROM CASSI...

I wanted to show off my flowers that Kelly got me for my birthday. They are my favorite kind, lily, and favorite color, purple. He had them delivered to Columbia Elementary where I was acting as the kitchen manager for a week.

Things are going well. Kelly is a quarter of the way finished! We got to see each other on webcam twice now, which was very awesome! The guys in the video don't have many opprotunites to do that. We are blessed that Kelly is out of danger.

Life in Jalalabad Afghanistan and on the Homefront

I am posting for Kelly because he is having trouble getting on this website. This first picture is from his brother Chris. Most of the Wood family cars and Mom Hakes have a blue star flag on it, representing a family member serving in war. We have one on our car. If any Hakes sibling wants one, I know where to get them.

Below are some pictures Kelly sent from Jalalabad. The captions are also from Kelly. We get to email regularly and talk on the phone about every other day, which is better then we previously thought. He is in a public room everytime we talk, and he is using shared phones. The signal on the phone is great, however. He can get pretty much anything he needs, except for family. It is good to know he is taken care of.

This is the best picture I could take of my room. It's pretty much just my bed and a few feet of empty space to the side. Someone before me built those wooden shelves, so that's nice. The room also has an air conditioner, so that's very nice.

This is a bad picture, but I was trying to be discrete. This is the cafeteria aka D-FAC aka chow hall. Here it's all decorated for the air force's birthday. Generally they have a main line with turkey or pork chops or whatever, a grill with hamburgers and hot dogs, a taco or potato bar, salad bar, a bunch of fruit. Also, there are fridges with cans of soda and gatorade and lunch and dinner have a dude who scoops baskin robbins ice cream. It's run by KBR (aka Halliburton) and generally very good with good quality food. It's a thousand times better than the Academy cafeteria and much better than Ft Dix. I'm sure the Army is paying them a fortune, but it's free to us.

This is the place where I sleep. This one is on the end, so you can't see that there are dozens of these lined up real close together. There are 8 of us in here, but it's divided in half, so my part has me and 3 civilian contractors. I'm kinda lucky because my half has 6' high plywood walls in them giving us our own kind of private room. In most of the huts, people have to hang blankets from the ceiling to form makeshift walls. And like most of the base, there is a random pile of rubble.