First off, a BIG thank you to the Stockton UU Church for the incredibly generous care packages! You are making a world of difference to the soldiers out here!

So! The incoming team is here and we've been transitioning for the last three days! Hoorah!!! :-)

The transition is always a bit stressful as the incoming team is trying to learn as much as possible in a short amount of time and we, the outgoing team, are trying to keep the shop running but turn over the reigns at the same time. Tonight we are hosting our last Timmy event and then on Thursday the incoming team will officially take over operations and our team will start the process of flying home!

This entails trying to get from Afghanistan to Kuwait by Saturday (plus whatever delightful time we get to spend in the transient tents in Kuwait). Then the Freedom flight out of Kuwait which is a 6-7 hour flight, a layover somewhere in Europe, then another 6-7 hour flight to the States with another possible layover before we land in Ft Benning, hopefully on Monday. From Georgia we have a 24 hour period at Ft Benning and THEN...home to Chicago on Tuesday!

And a small side story- I took my replacement to the hospital yesterday to teach her how to do hospital visits and in a crazy coincidence one of the civilians who I sent home on a Red Cross message for the North Carolina tornadoes was in the ICU Ward! I actually blogged about this gentleman as we had watched the coverage of the tornadoes together in the office waiting for his message to come in and when he got it, he kissed me goodbye on the cheek and thanked me for all my help. We were so surprised to see each other again and he actually got out his bed when he saw me and gave me a HUGE hug. One of the most rewarding moments of this deployment....