Life on the Vine

I didn't want yesterday's big event to go unmentioned on my blog. Yesterday Tom and I closed on the sale of our house in Saint Louis. It was almost 5 years to the day of us purchasing the house. This is a picture of Tom and me standing in front of the house on signing day - April 15, 2005. When we found out I got the job with U.S. Africa Command in Germany, Tom and I discussed what to do about the house. After being an absentee landlord with a house in Georgia for nearly 10 years, Tom did not what to rent the house. He preferred to try and sell it. Also being factored into the decision was the fact that we don't plan on returning to St. Louis. Neither Tom nor I are from the Midwest, and aside from some very special, dear friends, we don't have any family in the area. So, in mid-August we put the house on the market and since early September it has been sitting empty, ever since the movers came and packed up all our household goods for overseas shipping and l

Last month I traveled to Liberia for almost a whole week. The main purpose of my trip was a visit by GEN Ward , commander of U.S. Africa Command. I was there to provide public affairs coverage of his stop in Liberia, which was just about 24 hours. While there I was able to attend the first U.S.-Liberia planning conference, where U.S. military representatives discussed upcoming plans for training and other support with the Armed Forces of Liberia. Knowing I would be traveling to Liberia, I reached out to U.S. Coast Guard Commander Jennifer Ketchum, who is serving on a 2 year assignment in Liberia, providing guidance and support to the new Liberian Coast Guard. I thought the story of the Liberian Coast Guard was something we needed to share. Well, it took several weeks but I fin ally got the story done. It is posted on the AFRICOM website but I'm going to share it here too. Re-entering the Water: Liberia's New Coast Guard MONROVIA, Liberia, Apr 16, 2010 - A small team

My father-in-law asked me last week why I hadn’t posted anything recently. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it several times but things have been busy and time has gotten away from me. In less than two months I have traveled to Africa twice, first to the Democratic Republic of Congo and then to Liberia, and I was in charge of a week long visit to the headquarters for a media delegation from Ghana. And in the middle of all that I also went to Malta for a long weekend to visit Tom...thus the earlier post of me and my heavenly hot chocolate . I began writing a blog post about my trip to the DRC, which was my first ever trip to Africa, to submit for Africa Command's Wordpress blog but I never finished it. I grabbed the draft though and will post it here. This was written in February when I was on the trip and I worked on it some when I got back. There’s no doubt…it is hot in central Africa in February but surprisingly not as shocking to the system as I thought it would b