Merry Christmas from Iraq!

Dearest Family.

I wish that I could tell you all how things are here in Iraq, but we are restricted to what we can say, so I will tell you that I am doing great. I am happy to say that I can not wait for Christmas to be here and gone. I will be coming home for leave in a few months. I wish it was here already.

Here is a picture of Steph and the kids that I got the other day. I will try to get more pictures up if I can.

Stay in touch and I will continue to pray for all of you.

Jason

After Thanksgiving Hello

Hi to everyone! It sounds like you all had a great Thanksgiving. Ken and I did, as well, even though I didn't get to spend time with my little brother (in Mexico, yahoo!), nor my daughter, son or grandsons. Ken and I decided to go to a Casino about 85 miles from our house. Ken loves to gamble (so do I, but I don't tell anyone that). We had a great Thanksgiving buffet and even WON (don't fall off your chairs) some money. It was pretty nice. Sean spent Thanksgiving with his friend's family in Seattle and Becky spent the holiday with Patrick's (grandson # 2) Grandma Little in Mt. Vernon, WA. I am not sure if Patrick's dad was there or not.

I can't even believe it's time for Christmas, I've done no shopping. YIKES! I am cooking Christmas dinner this year, as Steve and Dave are going to Dave's parents. We should have a good time, Aunt JoAnn and Uncle Leo will be here from Arizona. They usually don't come home for Christmas so this will be great fun! Steve and Dave will be missed, but maybe I can talk them into coming over for dessert. Of course, Sean, Rebecca, Dare and Patrick will be leaving early....Sean has a 5 hour drive to get home and he has to work on the 26th of December.

It was snowing here earlier today, so Steve made a wise choice in going to Mexico.

Wishing you all the best. I haven't decided if I am doing Christmas cards this year. I might have to send them to the Aunts and Uncles, since they aren't doing this Blog...no computers for most of them...LOL :)

Happy Holidays to all of you!
Debbie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just got home from Eric's family Thanksgiving, here in Lincoln. We're going to York on Sunday to have Thanksgiving with Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa after I attend a baby shower for my friend Carrie. We had some fun today, played a little classic Rudolph Monopoly (from the movie you all should remember). And I won with 6k! :) I don't think I've ever won Monopoly in my life, besides on Nintendo. Also had some great food, conversation and iced tea.
Always the best.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well; sounds like going to Mexico and being a couch potato would definitely qualify.

Let the official Christmas shopping season begin.

The Harmon Family Blog

The Harmon Family Blog
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
I'm at home alone as we had Thanksgiving last Sunday. Dave is at the River cabin hunting deer and elk. We have pictures of the elk on the motion cameras but he has not seen them face to face yet. Mom and Dad invited me for lunch but I'd just as soon stay home and be a couch potatoe. We had 20 for dinner Sunday and enough food for a small army so I still have leftovers if I'm so inclined.
Happy Holidays have offically begun, enjoy!
Love, Sherry

Thanksgiving 2006

Hi Everybody!

Dave and I are off to Mexico. We're looking forward to a great vacation away from Oregon's cold and rain. It's a normal Thanksgiving for this part of the country but it's still wet and cold.

Unfortunately, we've had to send our oldest baby, Stella, to a boarding kennel this trip. She's 18 years old and gotten very sick lately. Last week we thought she was actually ready to go, but after three nights in two different clinics we've got her home and she's beginning to regain some strength. We've had to cover the entire tv room with plastic and towels to protect the floor and couch from her accidents. But she's not suffering and still wants to sit on our laps, so we'll board her with Dave's vet in St. Helens while we're away. Our normal cat-sitter, Heidi, just can't take care of her with all of her needs. She has to be given a pill every night (not a terrible burden) but she also has to be given fluids twice a week subcutaneously. The vet showed me how to do it and we'll take charge of her fluids when we get back but it takes two to do it and Heidi would find it difficult. So the vet is the way to go.

We're going to miss the family Thanksgiving get together but we'll see everyone at our Christmas party in December.

I want to thank everyone for joining our little blog and hope we can entice more of the family to join. Thanks to Sherry for the idea. Thanks to Jason for your hard work and sacrifices for the rest of us. We're proud to have you represent the family in Iraq. Suzi and Annie - thanks for writing and letting us know how everyone is doing. Thanks to Gary and Deb for keeping the family blog goiing.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Steve and Dave

The Harmon Family Blog

I Did It!
Suz

The Harmon Family Blog

The Harmon Family Blog -- Finally got a few moments after work when I can play on the computer, have read all of the previous postings and hope I'm in the right place to get mine in the blog. This is all new to me but really fun! I'm keeping busy with True Value, making jelly and picked up a new job on Thursday mornings soldering circuit boards for a new oil well pumping unit that one of John's friends developed and is trying to market. One more craft fair this Sunday and the jelly will be done for the year, phew. John just resigned as transportation director for the school district on Monday (had been that since February- worked for them the last couple years since the market in Lincoln closed), going to work tomorrow for a construction company here in York to keep busy until something else comes up. The bus garage was good, some of the people not so -- sanity and health come first. Mom and Dad are good, Dad keeps waffling back and forth on getting a computer -- I told him he needed one now to get on the blog!
He spends and hour or so at the coffee shop six days a week keeping on top of things and Mom plays bridge, belongs to a china painters group, and tries to go for a walk most mornings. We try to have Sunday dinner with them each week.
Will end now, see if this works, and head home for my fuzzy blanket and book! Suz

Hello from Iraq!

I miss you all!

Hello All!

I miss all of my family! I am in Iraq, but can not tell you where. Yes, you all my send me anything that you want. My address:
SGT Jason Parks
734th Trans BN
APO AE 09391

I will take anything that reminds me of home. Over here I am an IMO / IASO (Information Management Officer / Information Assurance Security Officer). I work on everything from basic hardware and software to fiber installations and completely rewire projects of buildings. I manage about 900 users with a team of 4 people directly under me. Then a staff above me that I answer to, I have never done any job like this. It keeps me very busy. I live in a small 10 x 15 room with another guy. I sleep on bunk beds to make our room a little larger. We try to play cards a lot, video games and workout. We have a movie theater and many eating establishments that we have back in America. We have Popeye’s Chicken, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and some local eaterys.
My family back home is good. We all miss eachother. Ethan is in 2nd grade and Madelin is in Kindergarten, both at St. Agnes Catholic School in Scottsbluff. Ethan is active in Cub Scouts and Soccer. Madelin is active in jazz, tap and ballet. She really is a beautiful dancer. This year is going to be very hard, but we will get through it.

Pray for us and send goodies.

Parksy

Welcome to Everybody!

Had a great phone conversation with Suzie. Hope to be able to recycle some of my mysteries to her soon. Trying to purge my collection of books. Promised Dave I would do it since we've basically run out of shelf space. I've got books on every conceivable flat surface in the house with some threatening to tip over.

Oregon's a mess right now. Rain and more rain. Houses are dropping into rivers. Farms are flooding on the coast and our basement is a real mess right now. Trying to keep it dry but the walls are permeated with water and drip constantly. We're expecting another huge storm this weekend with some respite next week.

Hope to hear more from everyone soon. The foto is of me and Dave on our last trip to London. It's the most current photo I could find.

Love from Steve

Checking in...another Nebraskan ;)

Hello everyone!
It's Annie(Suzie's daughter) from Nebraska. That's me and my boyfriend, Eric in the Omaha Lied Jungle at the Henry Doorly Zoo. I'm currently still in Lincoln; this is my fourth year living here. I thought this was a really cool idea(good job, Sherry & Steve!) and I just got a new laptop, so this gives me something else more constructive to do! And of course while keeping in touch with family I rarely see. This is great. I'm not always a big talker at get-togethers, but I do like to write.
I just wanted to introduce my first post ... it is getting past my bedtime already - I get up at 4:30 a.m. to work at 6:00 and am in school, so I'm trying to cut back on the playtime :)
Will post later! Glad to hear everyone is well.

Annie

OK - We Need the Other Nebraskans

I'm going to contact the other cousins and aunts and uncles by phone if I have to so that they can join us on the blog. Sherry, if you have emails for others that you want to join, you can give them to me via email. I'll send it.

Hugs and kisses to everyone.

Oregon Steve

Hey I'm finally here.
I no more than asked Steven to get this going and my computer crashed. It had been having strokes for a year or more but the last one took it's life.
By the way this is Sherry. I can't believe no one else from Nebraska is enjoying this yet. Where are the cousins and the second cousins?
I have been in Blair, NE taking care of Amy, my daughter, for a week. She had a hysterectomy on Wed last. It's been a week now and she is doing better little by little. I came home to O'Neill last night after the trick or treaters stopped coming. Her husband Archie took their two kids, Derek and Delaney out and after he got home Ethel and I packed up and came home. Ethel is my long time companion (Golden Retreiver). She and I answered the door and handed out treats but I couldn't figure out why the little kids were so stand offish. Finally we realized they were afraid of Ethel; she was trying to get her nose into their candybags. It was so much fun spending time with their family. It was almost as good as a vacation except we didn't eat out much.
Jason is in Iraq. He has been over just a month now. His wife, Stephanie and Ethan and Madelin, the kids, were here for an early Thanksgiving Oct 20 weekend. Amy and her two kids came so they could all be together. What a time we had. Mom and Dad came out and Dave's Mother.
Jason assures me he is safe. It is still a war. And he is still a million miles from the USA. He is a computer repairman of some kind. I think maybe he maintains a server. I don't know enough about these blogs-- should I print his mailing address here or not?
Mom and Dad (Butch and Lois) are slowing down. Dad is having a few heart problems and is taking medication when he will let Mom give it to him. He also still battles the chronic back pain that he has dealt with for 20 years. He and Uncle Raymond go to coffee almost everyday and to auctions whenever they can find one. Mom is really having a hard time with knee pain. She did the injections that are supposed to rebuild the cartlidge but it did not work. She will go tomorrow AM to have an MRI on it and then we will go from there.
Enough for now I'll catch you up on Dave and his many projects in the next visit.
Love to all,
Sherry