Christmas VIP Visits Blogged by N8

With the approaching Christmas Holiday, it is tradition for the USO to have celebrities visit the troops who are deployed overseas. So, we had a recent visit from a few celbrities this last Sunday.

The first one I got to meet was Anna Kournikova. I was really excited to meet her because she used to date my favorite hockey player of all time, Sergei Fedorov.



The next one I met was Dave Attell. He's a comedian famous for his show on Comedy Central "Insomnia".



I had never heard of this next guy before, but he was really nice. His name is Nick Bollettieri. He's a famous tennis coach.



The biggest celebrity there was Billy Ray Cyrus. He was a lot taller than I thought he'd be.



My favorite person there, however, was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. He is the former Chief of Naval Operations and now has Colin Powell's old job. He was super nice and even gave me a coin. I think that is the most valued coin in my collection, so far.





On my way back to my apartment, I swung by my office and my boss Chaplain M was there. I htought it odd for him to be there on a Sunday, so I asked him why. He said the Secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, was coming and he told me to stick around so I could meet him. So, he came in and we talked about the Wounded Warrior Center for a while. When he left, he thanked us for our service and gave us each a coin! So, I got coined twice in the same morning!

'Tis the Season - Blogged By JME

Tis the season to be busy, and for me, at this time of the year, busy is good! It's really helped time fly and helped me be able to deal better with the holiday blues and feeling down about N8 being gone through the holidays. I've had a lot of fun shopping, going to family parties, going to work parties, playing secret santa at work, having lunch with friends, and many other activities that have helped me stay busy and not feel so lonely without my better half.

Here are a couple things I did this year that I'd never done before, but might be some fun, new traditions.



Shan, my new sister-in-law, and I got together and made some really yummy popcorn balls. They were amazing, and best of all, they were super easy. I thought they would be a lot of work but they came right together and the clean up wasn't bad either. Shan and I had a great time. The recipe ended up making 12 balls all together. In the end, Shan and Cub got half and I got half. They ended up being great treats to give the sisters that I visit teach and also for gifts at work.



Here is the recipe if anyone needs a good treat idea:

Our Favorite Popcorn Balls:

Mix Together In Large Bowl:
* 4 quarts of popped popcorn
* 3 Cups miniature marshmallows

Bring To Boil & Simmer For 3 Minutes:
* 1-Cup Butter
* 1-1/3 Cup Sugar
* 1/2-Cup Light Corn Syrup
* 1-teaspoon Vanilla

Blend hot mixture into popcorn and marshmallows; put baggies on hands and use to form balls. Enjoy!!!

Another fun thing that I got to do this year is go to see Zoolights with a group of friends. From left to right there was Em, Linz, Jen, and me. We had another friend with us but the person who took this picture didn't really know how to use a camera and she ended up not being in this group shot.



They had all sorts of lights that were shaped like animals and they had them work so the animals looked like they were moving.








It got pretty cold there at the zoo. Luckily, they had a lot of those warmers all over the place. When our fingers would get numb we would stand right below the warmers and put our hands up next to the heat. I'm suprised none of us had our gloves start on fire. T is the girl standing between me and Em and is the friend that got cut out of the first picture.




We saw what we guessed was a Turkey Volture that looked pretty cold too. At first we couldn't see its head and it looked like a turkey with its head cut off, but then we saw it was snuggled up pretty tight with its head tucked in to stay warm.



I had a blast with that group. Em was quite the entertainment. He could dance so well and danced all the way down to the zoo to hiphop music. We didn't see a lot of animals out because of it being winter time. However, we did get to go into the reptile house and the monkey house. We also saw a snow leopard that came right up to us. Em thought maybe the snow leopard liked him. I told him he probably would like him for lunch. Em didn't appreciate my humor very much and I got the look. We were also able to see the Tigers. There were three baby cubs that were very active and playful. It was so fun to watch and they were so cute. I wanted to hold one, but I'm sure it would have eaten me up. When we left, I told Em to say goodbye to the Tigers. He said, "Adios, Diego," which cracked me up since Diego is the sabertooth tiger on 'Ice Age.' What a cute kid.