Djibouti II

More photos...

Djibouti

Its been a bit over 2 weeks since I've been reactivated and placed onto Active Duty in the US Marine Corps. For those just checking in, I'm heading out to Djibouti in a couple of months with my unit.

I was activated on Saturday, 7 Jan and that day I boarded a Delta flight to where I had the (dis)pleasure of going to Djibouti for a pre-deployment visit. I was there for a week and met the people that we will be replacing. The Marines of the 3rd Provisional Security Company were really helpful to us, showing us everything and bending over backwards to provide us with all the help that we needed. They were all smiles and every Marine greeted us in a very cheerful manner. At first I thought it was my magnetic personality, but then I realized that we were their ticket out of there and were just excited to see us because we meant that they were getting closer to going home.

The Marines of the 3rd PSC showed me and my platoon commander around. We saw an abandoned Italian bunker, built during WWII. We saw the local live fire ranges. We also saw lots of camels and some baboons.

Thomas Cole

And here he is! Sorry for the grainy picture...

New Years

I took Dominic up to Portland to see my parents and brother Lee. Lee and Rebecca just had a beautiful baby boy and I wanted to see him before I departed.

We left Thursday morning. Dominic was proudly wearing his backpack in the airport parking lot. (10 seconds after the photo was taken, he shrugged out of it and refused to wear it again, I had to carry it the rest of the way.)

All of my previous training efforts paid off as Dominic sat quietly the whole plane ride to Portland, watching his videos. After a bit, he did get tired of them and I let him take them off, but he was wonderful on both flights. All you prospective Moms & Dads, take this as a lesson, buy a portable DVD player! (Its also great when something good is on TV, but he wants to watch a video...I did get in a bit of trouble with DominicsMom, but I got to see the game.)

Dominic's Nana and Papa picked us up at the airport. Both were very happy to see him. They had a surprise for him when he arrived at the house, Thomas! There were lots of tracks and trains for him to play with. He had an absolute ball playing with them and spent most of his time with them. DominicsDad had a lot of fun setting up the track in different ways, I even had a triple-layer bridge/tunnel going!

There were other things to do at Nana's house. There was a tent & tunnel playset and Dominic had a great time running through them. He liked it when DominicsDad got stuck in the tunnel...

Our visit to Portland was too short, but it was fun. We both got to see baby Cole. Dominic was very interested in him and was always pointing and saying 'Cole'.

Christmas

We spent Christmas up at the Chiappetta's this year. All had a great time. Dominic loves Grandpa Frank's electric train. He would play with his other toys, but he always dragged us back to the train, he could watch it for hours. He wasn't so sure about the milk train as it made a bit of noise when it placed the milk jugs on the platform, but he loved to watch it go round and hear its whistle. Dominic got lots of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff again and he was thrilled.

Christmas Eve was spent at Teri & Joe's for a party. Dominic discovered the fireplace sweep and carried it around everywhere, I think he had too much eggnog...

Grandpa Frank gives Dominic goldfish crackers from his stocking.

Just a cute Christmas morning photo.

That evening Dominic had to show everyone his train.
He took a real liking to Michelle and constantly was sitting himself into her lap.

Christmas Pre-Party

Happy New Year! I've fallen behind again, so I'm going to try and make up for lost time. In early December we attended a family Christmas party. Dominic had a ball, playing with Nikko and Melia and generally entertaining everyone. We were trying to get a good family photo for our Christmas card, but were not having a lot of luck...

Dominic doesn't look too thrilled here.

Unfortunately, this one was a bit washed out. I should have set the camera to flash.
We ended up using this one...This one was cute, but his mouth is dirty and he has a cut under one eye.