I told this Marine this picture was going to be my Christmas card.
Look for it in the mail and consider it my holiday gift to you.
Howdy Ruers,
It was a busy slide into mid-December as we wrapped up the week with Mr. M's firm holiday party and a trip to the U.S. military base in Landstuhl, Germany.
Nice Stones!
(That's how one congratulates an opponent in curling. Try working that into normal conversation like I like to do.)
First, the holiday party: If you know anything about this crew, it's that we can't get together without playing, at some point in the night, a game. We must have winners and losers, yelling and trash-talking, point counting and, apparently, a broom.
Kirstin leans on her broom during team play. Even with the sticks for stability, everyone took a fall or two and had the bruises to prove it the next day.
This year was no exception as we spent the night at Curling Club de Geneve to learn how to play that Olympic-caliber sport, send some stones gliding down a long ice lane and sweep them right past the hog line. It was really fun to learn a new sport, and since everyone in this household was on a winning team it was given the full double Rues thumbs up.
Marc's nearly-perfect shot ... he was a natural.
The Curling slideshow:
Next, our trip to the U.S. military base and hospital in Germany: On Friday, after Mr. M put in a long day at the office, we loaded up any remaining space in the old 'Buru and started the 5.5-hr trip through the Black Forest. As I've briefly mentioned here before, Marc and I went to Landstuhl, Germany with Democrats Abroad as guests of the 10th Mountain Division and part of the Wounded Warriors project.
Earlier in the week, an impressive amount of money and gifts from people all over the world had been wrapped, ribboned and loaded into three of the cars making the trip into Germany. Even our Subaru didn't have room for a 3rd person, as every inch was filled with donated goodies, and I was wondering if Santa spent a lot of time paranoid about something happening to all of the gifts in his sled and being directly responsible for ruining Christmas. I mean, I guess the elves could always make more toys, but then you'd have to pay them overtime or something.
Here's a little trivia for your next office party game: Mr. Marc was born on a military base. I'll give you a point if you can name which one, or even the state. Here he is enjoying some American football.
Wait, what was I saying? Oh, right, into Landstuhl. Saturday was the actual base/hospital visit -- my first time on a military base -- and after a slow start our group was guided through to the dorm-like outpatient rooms and the in-patient hospital rooms. The facilities were really nice -- each hospital bed has a flat screen TV with a built-in DVD player -- and the nurses would go ahead of us to check if the patient was up for visitors. Sometimes the group split up, sometimes we went in all together but each time there were so many great gifts that we could overload the patients with chocolates, DVDs, clothing, etc until they were like, okay, enough crazy people. As the hospital commander explained to us, there were months where nearly 600 soldiers came in and out of their facilities, and even though three planes had come in from 'down range' that morning, the beds were fairly empty. The big push, we understood, was to get those who could go home back to the States for the holidays.
This soldier -- one of the first guys Marc and I talked to -- tore his ACL and after 7 surgeries may get to go home in January. He told us that Kid Rock had come through the hospital about a month ago. Also, the following day was his birthday, so he got lots of presents.
By the end of the day we unloaded what was left in our Santa bags on tables in one of the main rooms and soldiers would come by, choose a few things and talk to us for a little bit. They were all soooo nice and so thankful even though they were a little shy about taking the gifts.
Democrats Abroad had also raised enough money to donate two foosball tables, which were awesome, and late afternoon we gathered in one of the halls to see the inaugural games. I got to play a round and was, like always, on the winning team (and, like always, my contribution was minor save for the trash talking, at which I am extremely talented).
We also had the good fortune of being sovereign American soil during the annual Army v. Navy football game broadcast from back in the States. After dinner at the USO (Mexican food!) we were pointed to the base's community club (read bar) to watch the game with a heavily pro-Navy crowd. And by "pro-Navy" I mean "In The Navy" and we saw some touchdown push-ups, heard some Navy songs and got to drink cheap American beer while watching American football while technically standing in America. That was cool.
Maya, left, gives her full support to Navy with a T-shirt purchase during the Army v. Navy football simulcast.
In fact, the whole thing was really great because we could show support both on the individual level -- sitting and chatting and saying thanks -- and on the larger level -- all the donations from essentially anonymous people.
I didn't take a lot of pictures of soldiers for privacy reasons, but here's a few from the weekend.
Landstuhl slideshow:
Sunday morning we awoke to falling snow, so we got on the road and headed back home fairly early in case it was super-slow going. After a while the roads cleared and now Mr. M and I are back in the Geneve apartment, tapping at the laptops to wrap up Sunday evening. He travels every day this week and after close of shop tomorrow I will be technically done with the semester. And by technically, I mean yes, I should have been working all this weekend and not playing foosball, and also that my semester doesn't end until my committee tells me semester ends. So, I will see you at the finish line. Nice Stones!
