A few thoughts

I wasn't going to post today.  Yesterday was a struggle, and today was even worse -trying to come up with something to write.  (Among other things).  I figured that even though I made a goal to spend one month out of every 3 or 4 months out of the year writing every day (So far it's been November, March, and July) I thought if I didn't have anything to write, I wouldn't write.  But, that's how I got in the habit of only writing a few times a month in the first place.

So, here's today's post.

I'm almost always reading a book (or two).  And, I've recently started keeping a list of interesting, funny, or thought provoking quotes on my phone.  It started because of book club, but I've started writing them down even if it wasn't a book club book.  Thought I'd share a few here.

"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

Sleep is like a cat it only comes to you if you ignore it.

"The Fault in our Stars" by John Green

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom.  And in freedom, most people find sin.

People always get used to beauty. 

"And the Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini

The say, Find a purpose in your life and live it.  But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.

More about yours truly

How many times have you been pulled over? 
Three.  The first time was a month after I got my license, expired registration.  (Had to talk to the city attorney to help with this one).  Once in Roy taking my little brother to the orthodontist.  I was speeding and made an illegal turn. (Attended a defensive driving course).  And once for speeding on Bangerter highway on my way to drop off my kids off at my aunts house.  (Just paid the ticket)

Last three books you read? 
I had a couple books on hold at the library that all came up at the same time, and a book club one, so I've read three in a very short time.  "The Kitchen Daughter" by Jale McHenry.  "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green and I'm half way through "And the Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini.

Have you ever run or rode in a race? 
Yes.  I usually do at least a couple of 5K's a year.  On the years I've been pregnant I walk them.

How do you (and how often) stay connected online?
On my phone I have the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Feedly apps.  I get on Facebook and Twitter every couple of days.  Instagram many times a day, same with Feedly.  I usually get on Pinterest a couple times a week.  I guess I also blog.

Have you ever changed a tire or the oil in your car?
Tires, yes.  A few times.  I tried to help a friend of mine change my oil in high school.  He got too frustrated.  I ended up just watching and handing him the stuff he needed.

What did you major in college?
Started out as Family and Human Development.  When I returned following my mission they added Consumer and a few more classes I had to take.  So, FCHD.  Family, Consumer and Human Development with a minor in Family Finance.  Which... meant I took a lot of really interesting classes and graduated without any real direction as to what I was going to do for a living.

Have you had any surgeries?
Three.  My appendix out when I was 10.  A nose surgery to fix a deviated septum when I was 24 and a... another one when I was 25 to fix a broken coccyx and cyst removal.

Are you allergic to anything?
Nope.

Have you ever bungee jumped or sky dived? 
No.  I was in Las Vegas with friends over my 21st birthday and three of us were going to bungee jump.  When we got to the place it was temporally closed because of wind.  I still don't know if I would have really done it.  I sort of had a crush on one of the guys we were with, so maybe.

Do you play an instrument? 
Yes.  Piano and organ.  I could probably still play a handful of songs on the guitar and ukulele.  Maybe a scale or two on the flute and recorder.

When do you fill up your car's fuel tank?
Before I married Justin I ALWAYS filled up at half a tank.  Justin is the guy that coasts into the gas station.  I didn't even know my old Subaru could hold 12 gallons until he left it on empty once for me.  I've taken on his bad habit and especially now that the van has an estimated miles left to empty display.

Are there any TV shows that you've seen in their entirety (all episodes)?  
Yes.  It might be an embarrassingly high number too, thanks to DVR and Netflix.  I know I've seen every episode of FRIENDS and probably Will & Grace.  Rescue Me (at least three times, the original run and two times afterwards.) and ER.  The Office, Parks & Rec... a few other newer ones that are still on. I've recently watched all of Sons of Anarchy (uh, more than a few of those I've watched twice too), and Justified.  Oh, and The Walking Dead.   Am I missing any good ones?  I thought of looking in The Shield and The Wire.

June 26-July 8

June 26
Aunt April taught Kate how a girl takes pictures.

27
Hyrum and his summer fling, Lily.

28
Hyrum's shiner.  I was exercising with hand weights in the living room and he walked right into one.  I promise.  My brother Matt taught him to say "You should see the other guy" when anyone asks about it.

29
Justin's uncle, Guy passed away.  This was his funeral/wake.

30
Justin texted and asked for a picture.  This was what I was looking at.

July 1
I'm not sure why I decided to take this picture.  I'd rather not have the memory of what it looked like before I cleaned it.  One of Hyrum's friends had an accident.  It wasn't pretty.

2
I hate paperwork and mail.  Justin loves it (mail, probably not paperwork).  Opposites attract.  I can't wait until he's back home and he get's to enjoy it all by himself again.

3
Jodi wanted to have a cousin sleepover.  Yes, 2 out of the 4 cousins are under a year, so it was basically my too big kids hanging out with Jodi.  But, I think that's what she really wanted anyway.

4
4th of July Family BBQ at my dad's office with a climbing wall.  Hyrum proved to be an AWESOME little climber!

5
Kid free for a bit.  Decided to go to the temple.

6
Still kid free. Went to the gym, got a massage, cleaned the house.  And it stayed clean for over 12 hours!  Amazing.

7
Kids came home from Grandma and Grandpa Lafeen's in time for church.  And in time for a quick swim, apparently.

8
A moment too late.  The Hulk and Princess were sitting quietly together watching TV.  By the time I opened the camera app they were up and yelling at each other.

Family BBQ

We had out semi annual July 4 th BBQ this year at my dads Scout Office. Meaning, the Petersens get together more often than not on the 4th and we've been at the office for a few of these get togethers. This year was a little different because it doubled as a goodbye party for my sister and her family who are moving to California this weekend. So, most of the Hardcastles, Petersens, and Flints were all there for food, fun, and the sun. 

It was a good day. Good food, water fun for some of the littles, a climbing wall for the adventurous, and a breeze and some shade for the rest of us. 

I guess it was not such a good day when we had to leave and say goodbye to Jodi, but that's okay. Man, I can't believe what emotional few weeks its been. I hope the rest of the summer is uneventful! 

Scrapping

Here's an article on what Justin is actually doing in Afghanistan.

Click here

Scrapping equipment key to Afghan drawdown

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Facing a tight withdrawal deadline and tough terrain, the U.S. military has destroyed more than 170 million pounds worth of vehicles and other military equipment as it rushes to wind down its role in the Afghanistan war by the end of 2014.

The massive disposal effort, which U.S. military officials call unprecedented, has unfolded largely out of sight amid an ongoing debate inside the Pentagon about what to do with the heaps of equipment that won’t be returning home. Military planners have determined that they will not ship back more than $7 billion worth of equipment — about 20 percent of what the U.S. military has in Afghanistan — because it is no longer needed or would be too costly to ship back home.

That has left the Pentagon in a quandary about what to do with the items. Bequeathing a large share to the Afghan government would be challenging because of complicated rules governing equipment donations to other countries, and there is concern that Afghanistan’s fledgling forces would be unable to maintain it. Some gear may be sold or donated to allied nations, but few are likely to be able to retrieve it from the war zone.

Therefore, much of it will continue to be shredded, cut and crushed to be sold for pennies per pound on the Afghan scrap market — a process that reflects a presumptive end to an era of protracted ground wars. The destruction of tons of equipment is all but certain to raise sharp questions in Afghanistan and the United States about whether the Pentagon’s approach is fiscally responsible and whether it should find ways to leave a greater share to the Afghans.

“We’re making history doing what we’re doing here,” said Maj. Gen. Kurt J. Stein, head of the 1st Sustainment Command, who is overseeing the drawdown in Afghanistan. “This is the largest retrograde mission in history.”

The most contentious and closely watched part of the effort involves the disposal of Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, the hulking beige personnel carriers that the Pentagon raced to build starting in 2007 to counter the threat of roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The massive trucks, known as MRAPs, came to symbolize the bloody evolution of wars that were meant to be short conflicts but turned into quagmires.

The Pentagon has determined that it will no longer have use for about 12,300 of its 25,500 MRAPs scattered at bases worldwide, officials said. In Afghanistan, the military has labeled about 2,000 of its roughly 11,000 MRAPs “excess.” About 9,000 will be shipped to the United States and U.S. military bases in Kuwait and elsewhere, but the majority of the unwanted vehicles — which cost about $1 million each — will probably be shredded, officials said, because they are unlikely to find clients willing to come pick them up.

“MRAPs have served us well in the current war, but we will not need all that we bought for Iraq and Afghanistan in the future,” Alan Estevez, the assistant secretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness, said in a statement. “It is cost prohibitive to retrograde and reset MRAPs that we do not need for the future.”

‘Gold dust’

Those MRAPs that the Pentagon has deemed unnecessary have been arriving by the dozen at scrap yards at four U.S. military bases in Afghanistan in recent months. Toiling under the searing sun last week at this vast base in southern Kandahar province, contract workers from Nepal and other countries in the region wore fireproof suits and masks as they used special blowtorches to dismantle vehicles built to withstand deadly blasts. It takes about 12 hours to tear apart each MRAP.

In another section of the scrap yard, a massive grinder gobbled slabs of steel, turning them into small scraps. The debris is packed into U.S.-owned shipping containers that also have been deemed unfit to return home.

Last month, the Kandahar yard produced 11 million pounds of scrap that was sold to Afghan contractors for a few cents per pound, said Morgan Gunn, a Defense Logistics Agency employee who runs the site. Afghans use the scrap mainly for construction and as makeshift spare parts.

“Gold dust is what they call it,” Gunn said.

Military officials have drawn little attention to the scrapping operations, mindful that the endeavor might appear wasteful in an era of contracting defense budgets and misguided at a time when Afghan troops arebeing killed at a record rate. But officials argue that the effort is part of a withdrawal operation that is being carried out in a fiscally responsible, carefully planned manner.

“One might ask: Why not give it to the Afghans?” Stein said as he toured the Kandahar yard. “It’s such a fast-paced operation, and most of it is trash. We don’t want to leave this in the battlefield.”

As they have debated how much excess equipment to shred or sell, officials have considered whether the defense industry would suffer if the Pentagon unloaded tons of used equipment on the market at vastly reduced prices. Additionally, Pentagon policy requires that allied nations seeking to take ownership of excess U.S. equipment travel to Afghanistan to pick it up — an onerous task that few nations are likely to take on.

When the U.S. military withdrew from Iraq, it donated much of its equipment to the Iraqis, who had access to cheap fuel, a robust defense budget and more sophisticated mechanics. The Pentagon also shipped a significant share to Afghanistan, where a troop surge was underway. But donating MRAPs to the Afghans would be more complicated and potentially counterproductive, military officials said.

“Frankly, in a lot of ways, the Afghan economy and military can’t absorb some of the things the Iraqis did,” said Lt. Gen. Raymond V. Mason, the Army deputy chief of staff for logistics. “We don’t want to give [the Afghans] a lot of equipment that they can’t handle and could compound their challenges.”

Military officials said they have spent billions of dollars equipping and building up Afghanistan’s security forces over the past decade, outfitting them with lighter tactical vehicles that are a better fit for the country’s rudimentary road networks.

A situation unlike in Iraq

The U.S. Army owns the lion’s share of the military equipment currently in Afghanistan. As of May, Mason said, $25 billion worth of equipment was deployed with Army personnel. After an analysis of needs and costs, it has decided to ship back no more than 76 percent. Transporting that much will cost $2 billion to $3 billion, the Army estimates. And repairing the gear that comes back will cost $8 billion to $9 billion.

Stein, the general overseeing the Afghanistan drawdown, headed the same process in Iraq, which turned out to be a far easier mission. For starters, the U.S. military had a relatively well-
organized system in place to hand over bases and equipment to the Iraqi government 21 / 2years before American troops pulled out entirely. Security was more permissive. And, crucially, the U.S. military could use its large bases in next-door Kuwait as a staging ground for items driven out of Iraq.

“Kuwait was a lifesaver,” Stein said, noting that there are no neighboring U.S. bases where equipment leaving Afghanistan could be easily stored. “It’s very hard to get our stuff out of Afghanistan. In Iraq, we could drive it out to Kuwait, and it sat there for a year or two until the Army decided its disposition.”

As the U.S. military reduces its footprint in Afghanistan from 150 bases to 50 by February, Stein’s teams are ramping up their efforts, finding more efficient ways of sorting through equipment to be shipped and drawing from lessons learned in Iraq.

Until a few months ago, the military flew out the vast majority of the equipment it was sending back to the United States.

In recent months, after Pakistan, a neighbor of landlocked Afghanistan, agreed to let the U.S. military use its roads to ship materiel out through its ports, most containers that don’t include sensitive materials or weapons are being trucked out by land. Shipping through Pakistan is by no means trouble-free — and officials recognize that the route could get shut down in the event of a new spat between Islamabad and Washington.

“We continue to get delays. There’s still corruption, taxes, tariffs,” Stein said. “But our equipment is getting through.”

In three's

"They" say that bad things come in three's, so I'm hoping that is right, because we hit our number last week. 

We attended Jeff's funeral on Monday.  It was a nice service at Colleen's (Jeff's mom) church house, followed by a luncheon and a brief service at the cemetery.  I told Hyrum about it that morning.  I didn't think it made much sense to tell him earlier.  He definitely understands as much as a four year old understands,  we've been through more than a few funerals in the last year or two.  He asked if Blake (Jeff's youngest son, 6 months older than Hyrum) still had a mom.  And he said he'd miss Jeff.  He's mentioned it a few times since then as well.  We went to the shop a lot and it was always "Jeff's shop".  

The next day I found out that a dear neighbor and friend who had been on hospice for the last couple of months finally passed away.  Shawna was an older lady in the ward who had cancer (for the second time) and was an avid gardener.  She lived in a corner lot across the street with her sister and had a huge garden that a lot of people in the ward helped out with and often received the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor.  

The day after that I received a phone call from Justin's mom, Lisa.  Her brother took his own life the day before.  I didn't know Guy very well, in fact, I had never met him.  But, we talked about him and his two boys, Ethan and Skylar, are a big part of our life and family.  It seems like Justin is a little off the radar when these things happen and it took until the next morning to get through to him.  I don't now how generations before me dealt with having a husband in the military, or even one that doesn't have a private room and access to the internet at all times.  

Guy's service was Saturday afternoon.  Just a small family dinner at Lisa and Dave's clubhouse.  There were a few pictures and Lisa spoke about how Guy often gave blood as an act of service for others.  

Two services for two men that left this life too soon.  It's nice to be around family and see how they come together during times of need.  It's just nicer when these aren't the reasons we're all coming together!

Kiwi's

Because I'm going to post everyday this month, and because this made me laugh (although it will most likely mean very little to any one reading this) I've selected a few of the more funny ones...

The 25 Hardest Things About Living in New Zealand

12. When you see people complaining about how hot it is in the June and July all you can say is:

14. And you’re constantly wondering who put the 12-year-old in charge of naming all of New Zealand:

16. And in charge of writing headlines:

21. There’s so much wildlife that it gets harder every day to tell them apart:

Source: =  /  via: apple.copydesk.org

22. Yeah, nah, you use this phrase way too much:

25. In conclusion: