Rip-diddle-ip-tip it's your biiiirthdaaaay!!

Tylers 21st Birthday was Saturday. He tried to play down the fact that he was *REALLY* excited to finally be 21, but I know that's a complete load.

As soon as I found out that I was going to be around for his birthday, I started scheming on how to make it extra special. I finally settled on a surprise party.

I started planning weeks ago how to do it, where, how to keep it from him, etc.

He asked me to plan something for him while he was in Mongolia. As soon as he got back he asked, "So what are we doing for my birthday!??" I had to say, "Uhh.. I'm really sorry babe, I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to even think about it.."

His little face looked so hurt. He looked and sounded like a beaten puppy. I felt so guilty. Like I actually had forgotten to plan him something, but I didn't really!

He'd been bugging me all week after that to plan something, call people and get everything together so he wouldn't have to "look like a loser planning his own party and asking people to hang out with him on his birthday."

Little did he know, I'd already bought him multiple presents, ordered him a Captain America birthday cake, planned a surprise party, and reserved the waterfront clubhouse.

I had everyone either cancel on him last minute or tell him they already had plans when he invited them out himself. (He was really butt-hurt.)

But we went out out to dinner at the Kailua Pub with our friends Mark, Erin and Woodall (Danny) and  he had a few drinks/shots.  Mark came up with a plan to get Tyler back to the house. We told him we were gona go out in Waikiki, but first we were gona take the cars back home to drop them off and take a cab out.  Then we were all gona go out, and get "completely smashed."

Of course Tyler was game.

At first he poked fun at me for Mark taking more time to plan his birthday than I did. I was counting down the minutes until we got back to the house and I could rub it in his face.

Meanwhile, back at my house I left my friend Alex in charge of letting everyone in, parking cars, last minute touches on the decor and informing everyone when to yell, "SURPRISEEEEE!!!"... and when to shoot him with the confetti guns, that my loving mother provided. (Which were a nightmare to clean up I might add.)

At first I was thinking, "Ok.. awesome.. that gets him back to the house, but how do we get him down to the clubhouse without suspecting anything?!"

Well Mark had that planned out too. He had everyone go up to my house for the inital surprise and hide in the dark with all of the lights out.

As we approached the gates, I shot off a quick text to Alex to let her know we were home. We parked and got out and Mark was already waiting for us.. teeetering and loudly exclaiming he had to crap.. *deepsigh*

So he rushed Tyler to the doors and shouted while he fumbled the keys. Tyler finally got the door open and the lights switched on and over 20 people popped out from every corner of the living room, shot him with confetti poppers and scared the hell out of him. It was perfect!

His face was dark red with a hint of purple. He jumped back about a foot and stood there for a minute before it registered.

All I can say, is its a good thing he doesnt pack a gun. I could just picture him doing a shoot out at his own surprise party.

In the end, there was way too much food and beer, Indy wound up in the pool and Tyler didn't puke. I'd call that a success. :)

Gooooooooood morning Ulaanbaatar!

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I figured it was about time for an update!

In a nutshell, Tyler’s home (YAY!) and I’m awaiting a new tasking to deploy (meh.)

Tyler finally got back from Mongolia last weekend. He’s got a million stories and I have to admit I’m jealous of his experiences. Well… most of them anyway. Sleeping on a hard surface, eating food solely boiled in lamb fat, showering with every other nation in an open bay shower and working 14 hours a day, he can keep. ;)

I think one of his favorite stories to tell, is the fermented horses milk story. I’ll do my best to retell it in the way he told me.

He had been in Mongolia for a few days and kept hearing stories about the locals drinking fermented horses milk. So he and a few of the other Marines started asking around about where they could get some. One of the Mongolians loaded them up and took them to a ger (the round house tents Mongolians live in) and when they got out, there were farm animals running all around, and all the kids gathered around the truck to see them.

He said they went into the tent and one of the Mongolians filled this kettle full of lumpy, smelly milk (that still had HORSE HAIR floating in it. BARF.) and started heating it up. Eventually, the lumpy, smelly, hairy milk was warm and he poured it into a bowl for them to drink.

At this point, Tyler’s thinking, “ok.. cool. We have one bowl full, we each take a sip, pass it around and we’re done.” Wrong.

Their translator informs them they have to drink the entire massive kettle full of hairy milk.

Meanwhile, one of the Mongolian mothers, whips out her boobs in the middle of the room and starts breast feeding this butt-naked baby.

Tyler said it got really awkward at that point and all of the Marines immediately diverted their eyes to the floor and started concentrating on not snickering, like little kids, at the naked lady and baby. They continued to pass the bowl and worked on putting away the hairy horse milk so they could finish it and  leave.

No sooner had she started feeding the baby, it let out this “massive, projectile, liquid shit (these are Tyler’s words mind you..) that shot, no joke, three feet across the room.”

The lady and baby are covered in it and she gets up to go outside and clean off.

So now they’re all looking at each other like, “WTF. It smells, there’s crap everywhere, let’s GO.”

As they’re leaving, they’re informed that it’s custom for visitors to give the baby money. Not, give the parents money for the baby, but literally hand the baby the money.

So as they were on their way out, they were all tucking dollar bills into the babies clothing.

Tyler said it was coming out of his sleeves, his collar, his diaper, etc. And in Tyler’s words, “he looked like a little baby Lil’ Wayne. He was big pimpin’.”

He wanted to take a photo, but was worried about offending someone.

Now, my other favorite story from his trip was Bush getting drug by a horse.

Before I sound mean for saying it’s my favorite, I’d like to add that he’s *mostly* uninjured.

Bush is one of Tyler’s friends that’s stationed with him at Camp Smith. He’s a little bit younger and just got here from MOS school a few months ago.

So one of the days they were there, they had the opportunity to ride horses. The Mongolians are sort of funny about telling you they want their turn though. They’ll just jump on right behind you and kind of push you off the horse. It’s a very subtle message.

So Bush is out there riding around and laughing, having a good ol’ time.

At some point, a Mongolian came up behind Bush on the horse and spooked the horse. It freaked out and sort of took off running, and then slowed back down. Bush got this freaked out look on his face and tried to jump off when it slowed back down.

However, when he made his getaway, he forgot one important aspect to dismounting your horse; remove your foot from the stirrup.

As Bush jumped down, his foot got caught and the horse took off. Bush was drug for about 200+ meters, kicked between the legs, kicked in the leg, has a bruised rear, back and groin. He’s missing patches of skin from his back, forearms and hands.

The best part? It was all captured on video.

Gunny Holly, Tyler’s gunny at MARFORPAC, began filming the initial ride and ended up capturing the drag too.  The audio was removed from the video, but had it been there, you could hear him laughing and cussing up a storm. Initially anyway. At first it was more of an, “OH! Crap!! Hahaha.. “ and then it turned into.. “ooooh.. crappp.. uhh.. “ Except his language was a little more explicit. So… use your imagination.

Like I said, Bush escaped without any life threatening injuries. Just a really sore rear end.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. More pictures to come soon!

Rewind and Press Play

So my deployment got delayed again. Various reasons really, but bottom line, I'll be home for at least another month.


It's typical of the military to go back and forth with these types of things. In the past 8 months alone, I was supposed to go to Japan for relief efforts, Washington, Thailand, Cambodia and Afghanistan. Every single one got cancelled. All of them for one thing or another, but the back and forth is to be expected in the military. We're always told, "you're not going and it's not one-hundred percent until you're boots are on the ground."


I won't lie. It toys with my mental stability. One of these days I'm just going to snap and show up to work naked and just be typing away at my desk like nothings wrong or something. I'm not complaining, but its tiresome.


I finally talked to Tyler, who is still in Mongolia. We really only got to talk for like five minutes on Facebook chat, but I'll take what I can get. He's having a blast working with all the different countries and seeing how their military operates. I think they all traded off weapons at some point, he got to shoot an (old) automatic AK-47 that belongs to the Mongolian Army. He also mentioned something about drinking fermented horse milk(???) with some villagers in a tent. He said it was disgusting. They hiked twenty miles up a mountain to a small village to get some vodka that night. (After drinking fermented horse milk, I'd want some too. ...But I would just wait at the bottom and make him bring it back for me.)


Only 9 more days until he comes home though! It should go by quick.


On another note,  I was sitting at the Wright Brothers Cafe on base this morning having breakfast and a submarine on its way out of Pearl Harbor passed by! So naturally, I stood in front of it and took a picture. :)