Happy Thanksgiving!

It is finally here! My trademark holiday. And the thing is I slept through most of it. Got up early and did the Turkey Trot. Ran it in 25:36 at an 8:14 pace. It was about 40 sec faster than my last best time. Slowly improving. I want to get to an 8 min pace before I leave here. I am also excited for the half marathon. It just sounds so fun to me to train with you. I like doing stuff with you, what?

After the run I came back and called you. Then got up and felt oddly sick. I roamed the PX then looked for resorts online then went to find Banks and everyone at about 12:30 for dinner but couldn't find them. So I went to the Difac for dinner/lunch, the line was huge. They had decorated the place real nice, or at least had lots of cool cakes and the commanders were all serving us. Someone had carved all these amazing pumpkins, it was really awesome. I think I found a new hobby to pursue. Dinner was ok. They had turkey (duh) and ham and roast beef and mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, stuffing, and sweet potatoes. Also cake, and several types of pies. They also had like this home made egg nog that was really good or at least insanely thick and rich. I sat with some people from the hospital and hung out for a while.

Then I came back to the room and had a nap. And thats where the rest of the day went. I woke up about 7pm. Decided to get up, got some workout stuff that I'm out of at the PX roamed a few minutes, now I'm back here again in the room. So kind of an uneventful Thanksgiving but I'm grateful for the difac in trying to make it special and it was very nice. I wonder what Christmas will be like here?

I'm glad we did this now - I mean the deployment. I think it would have been much more difficult later when the kids are busier in school, etc. Also, while I've been here, the army changed its policy that it will not allow any more 4.5 month deployments. All deployments are 9 months now on. So it was great to get this out of the way before that change happened! I don't know about doing 9 months. I certainly wouldn't choose to do that unless I absolutely had to and there was no choice. No volunteering though for sure. I also think this allowed to start on some good habits that I hope will continue.

Well, even though Thanksgiving was nice enough, it still reminded me of how much I miss being with family. I am anxious to get back to my little Pilgrim people. With this last month, I'm planning to set some high goals and push it to the end. This will help me reach for something and make the time pass fast. I encourage you to do the same. Set some goals of personal habits to reach for. Time will go by faster than you know it. I've found that having an aspiration makes me often wish for more time so I can accomplish it which is a turn of the table when I'm anxious to get the time over with. I think that's why a mission goes by so fast because you are always reaching for that one more or that one individual you've been working with and want to see make the change and wishing for just a little more time to get there and thus the two years aren't long enough.

So here's my last month goals:
1. bench 250lb
2. Squat 300lb
3. Deadlift 300lb
4. Run 5k under 25min
5. Learn Blackbird, Valley Winter Song on guitar
6. 1 lesson a day in Italian
7. No electronics except for: calls, scriptures, letters, news, books, and Italian (maybe it would have been easier to say no internet, no amazon/ebay) This begins Dec 1
8. Read through Deuteronomy

I think that is more than enough goals! Should definitely keep me occupied.

I love you and am excited to watch the time pass by. I want to be amazing for you and will try hard to be the best I can be (sounds like an Army slogan!). Army strong babe!

I love you more than a soldier loves MRE's.

Papa Pilgrim