Tiger Mountain

Today I realized a disturbing trend on post: we have seagulls in lieu of pigeons or grackles or any other normal bird someone might see when driving through town. Perhaps I think this is strange since I have grown up primarily removed from beach areas (should have gone Navy), but the seagulls are everywhere on Ft. Lewis. They mostly like to congregate in front of the PX and Commissary (Wal-Mart and grocery-store equivalents), and I cannot help but think that they really look like groups of hoodlums. What disturbs me most though is their size. Have you ever really gone beyond throwing bread at them on the beach (or mission trip to the MS coast) to see how big they are? They are huge birds. And now as I type and think, I have yet to see any pigeons here, which leaves the question of whether pigeons have never come here, or if the seagulls bullied them out of the area. I can only imagine that the seagulls scavenge off the random garbage soldiers leave behind, and in that case, I might attribute their size to the American epidemic of obesity from fast food. Makes you think twice about eating the stuff.

But in my exciting life beyond the seagulls, there is much to be said. Dereck celebrated his birthday last week, and per his wishes, we kept it a small affair. Apparently being the new guy and the birthday guy would have been too much, so I even had to keep his birthday a secret from the office. I did however convince him that no birthday would be complete without a cake, and so set about making a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and sprinkles (his request). The cake even turned out to be tasty, what with my oven finally being fixed and burning at an accurate temperature instead of 100 degrees hotter. At least I can feel better about burning so many things when we first came- legit excuse- broken oven. The best part of his birthday though was eating the cake before dinner. It was there, we were hungry, and no one could tell us no. I also made cookies that afternoon for our new neighbors and met another neighbor in the process. She was actually the one who pointed out that Dereck's balloon bouquet from his mom had a balloon saying "Happy Anniversary," and this alone would have been funny had the bouquet not also had a "Happy Birthday" balloon. Perhaps they just wanted to cover all the bases in case it was a birthday/anniversary celebration bonanza. Wednesday and Thursday I went to a "Welcome to the Army" class held by a group called Army Family Team Building. AFTB is something that my mom worked with in the past, and encouraged me to try here at Lewis, and at this point, I have nothing to lose! So, I went and ended up meeting the most interesting people. We had a combo of active duty, retired, and spouses young and old, so I didn't feel like the baby of the group. And, like most events, some of the topics were interesting, and some made me drool, like learning how to solve a problem. I thought I escaped those type classes after leaving college, but they seem to have escaped and followed me. The classes made me realize how much I didn't know about rank, unit structure, protocol, military pay, and acronyms to name a few. The Army loves to abbreviate, and I have to think that at some point all the acronyms stop being useful as short-hand and just become a headache. I even sat next to a sweet German girl who is a newlywed that is fresh to America, so I had at least one other person to sympathize with on all the new info. After the classes ended on Thursday afternoon I decided to take the next two levels, and then if I like those, maybe sign up to be an instructor or facilitator. One thing I like to and can do is talk, so I might as well put it to good use in the community. Just so long as I don't have to teach problem solving, like I have mostly likely jinxed myself with- but honestly, I would teach it too.

Like the AFTB class, I have been kicking around other ways to get involved on post, and am now contemplating coaching with the Children and Youth Services (CYS- see, I wasn't kidding about the acronyms!) My only hesitation is the weekend commitment to the kids, since that is when Dereck and I want to travel and go hiking. The form is filled out and sitting on my desk, but I haven't gotten the peace yet to go in and drop it off. I am hoping that over the weekend I can find some peace about the whole deal and know if it is a good way to get involved. Friday then rolled around, and Dereck came home early from work, which I can only attribute to God since he routinely gets home at late hours. So what does a young couple like ourselves do with such free Friday time? Find an outdoors store in which to buy Disc Golf Frisbees. People in Dereck's office like to play during lunch, and must have been talking the game up with Dereck because he was pretty pumped about the whole deal. The funny part of the whole ordeal was watching him debate color and graphic choices and then trying to find courses in the area. We knew certain towns have courses, but finding them is something of a challenge, the reward for searching them out. Sadly however, we had to cut our game short to attend a Hail and Farewell on post. Hail and Farewells are, like they sound, a chance for the Battalion to greet new members and say goodbye to ones leaving. Dereck was on the "hailing" side and so we got to stand in front of the entire Battalion and their family members to be introduced. Did I mention it was at a bowling alley? Dereck wasn't too big on the location, but I was secretly thrilled at getting to wear clown shoes and use neon-colored bowling balls. We had a great time meeting people and bowling with other LTs (people Dereck's rank) while sizing up the higher ranks. My favorite part though was meeting the spouses and kids of all the people Dereck works with, and seeing that they too have survived the Army life intact. There is hope for the Kennedys!

Saturday started off with grand plans and epic ideas of hiking that quickly turned into a saga of traveling in the car. We originally were supposed to be snow-shoeing Commonwealth Basin, until it got cancelled for lack of snow and participants. I guess Dereck and I were the only ones who thought it sounded cool, and snow shoeing in mud isn't all that appealing sounding. So, we decided to go hike in Mt. Rainier State Park, home of the mountain that you can see everywhere on post, and hit the road. I mapped out our destination and we got to the NW corner of the park in about 40min, ready to start the hike, when the ranger told us it would be $5 per person to hike. This is when angry Gena came out, and I was enraged that they charged you for hiking. I thought it was based on donations and people being tree lovers (no shortage of those around here), but WA stuck it to us and demanded money- cash only- guess how much cash we had in the car- $0! We then waved goodbye to the park in our rear view mirror, googled hiking around Seattle, and headed towards Tiger Mountain (about 1.5 hours away). Tiger Mountain, great name and all, was a good hike and, true to its name, a hilly mountain hike. Needless to say I was tired after the whole day of driving and hiking and was more than happy to hit the couch in the evening. Sunday Dereck and I went to church and then made my mom's delicious cheese soup for my military wife bible study. Every time we meet we have a food theme, and this week it was soup and salad. I must have been feeling adventurous when I put down cheese soup, but much to our delight after slicing, dicing, simmering, and "crockpotering" we had a great soup on our counter. Much to Dereck's great sadness it was destroyed at the study and all his hopes of leftovers for the fridge were dashed.

Finally, more craziness has gone down for the Kennedys this week, but the blog is getting a wee bit lengthy, so to that end I will put your reading to rest for the time being. And Dereck just got home. I couldn't have timed it better if I tried!