Holiday Highlights

Here are a few random highlights from the Smith's Christmas/New Years season:

#1: Graduate from BOLC III with honors:
During the BOLC III Graduation Ceremony, Cam was awarded the BG Mellnik Leadership Award, as voted on by his classmates and approved by the Cadre, and the Army Communication Skills Award for his superior grades on his Cultural Awareness Paper, Battle Analysis and Operation Order. As the leadership award recipient, he also led his classmates in the Soldier's Creed during the graduation ceremony.


#2: Drive non-stop north through the western US states:
After the graduation ceremony, we packed up the truck and headed out for a 24+ hour trip north through New Mexico, Arizona, and California to Washington and Oregon to spend time with our families. We spent 4 days in the Vancouver/Portland area visiting with Cam's parents, siblings, nieces, nephew, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins... We even squeezed in some time to visit with some of Kristy's family friends while we were in town. On Christmas Eve, we headed to Eastern Washington to spend a few days with Kristy's parents, brothers and grandma.

The Smith/Anderson/Dunphy gang

With Dad Smith and his girlfriend

Twins? Uncle Cam and his nephew

The Smiths, The Lebers and Grandma

#3: Pray for no snow on our drive home:
We took a different route home through Idaho, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. We were blessed enough to only find a little snow just as we were leaving Utah and saw the most beautiful sunrise in New Mexico.

#4: Finish unpacking and organizing our NEW house:
After arriving home safely after a 20+ hour drive, we set to work unpacking our remaining boxes and organizing everything! We ended up with a HUGE garage sale pile (We'll drag it all to our friends' house on Post for the Spring Post-Wide Garage sale) and more space than we know what to do with. On the bright side, both cars fit in the garage with space to spare for our bikes and a work bench for Cam!

#5: Attend the 2009 Sun Bowl:
Our house-inspection guy noticed that we were big football fans (How could he not when we were sporting Coug gear from head to toe when we met him?) and offered us free tickets to watch our Pac-10 brethren Stanford take on the University of Oklahoma. We figured that we'd be safe with either teams' fans if we proudly wore our WSU crimson. While our adopted team didn't win, we had a GREAT time and got to see the Army Knights parachute team deliver the game ball.



#6: Start a new job:
After all the hullabaloo of the holidays, Cam was ready to start his new job with his new command. He is currently a platoon leader for the A-4 THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) Battery. He is currently spending most days "out in the field" learning the system and meeting his team.

As a final note, we wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to all of our family and friends we visited over the Christmas break!!! You guys went above and beyond for us and we feel so lucky and loved! Until we can visit again, our door is always open and we now have a super comfy Guest Room! :)

One last stop before home ...

Before our looooooong drive to the Tri-Cities and then the loooooong drive home, we stopped off at Cam's favorite breakfast place (Elmers) for a little chow and a little reminiscing/catching up with some really old friends from high school.

Thank you, Kevin, Zach, Rachael, Wes, and Melissa! It was great to see you all and hope we can see you again very soon!

Some former PHS Falcons
L to R: Cam, Kristy, Melissa, Wes, Rachael, Zach and Kevin

Christmas with the Smiths

After a crazy couple of days, it was nice to have a plan and stick to it! We arrived in Vancouver in time for breakfast with Cam's dad, his girlfriend and her three kids. After a delish meal of french toast, we had just enough time to sneak in a little football before everyone else arrived!

A huge crowd turned out to see Cam and share a few more Christmas treats. Cam's grandparents, Aunt Mary, Cousin Larry and family and Brother Jason and family all came over and hung out for most of the afternoon. Again, after getting our fill of cake and cookies, we opened some more gifts and enjoyed our time together!

Cam with his grandparents

Uncle Cam Jungle Gym Time!

Somehow a game of pick-up-sticks had us all enthralled

An intense rematch between Cam and Jason

Angie and some weird dude

Christmas with the Andersons

We arrived safely to Hillsboro (home of Cam's mom & step-dad) after a pretty "exciting" drive down the Columbia Gorge. We spent most of the day catching up with Cam's parents and prepping for a HUGE Christmas dinner. We were joined for dinner by Cam's Aunt Carol and Cam's older brother and his family.

We had a yummy prime rib dinner with all the fixings and a HUGE assortment of dessert to follow. After we were sufficiently stuffed, we all sat around opening presents and playing with the kids. Bedtime came shortly there after!

Thank you, Mom & Bruce! Sorry we couldn't have a longer visit, but we had a wonderful day!

PT after dinner with Uncle Cam and Andrew

Uncle Cam with his nephew and niece (dressed in their Coug finest!)

Cam and Aunt Carol

Christmas with the Lebers

We spent a wonderful few days with my parents, brothers home from the Army, and Grandma at the Leber home in West Richland. Cam and I were amazed to find that they had less snow on the ground than what we left at home when we left Tuesday night!

While home, we had family pictures taken, ate waaaaaay too many Christmas goodies, watched my mom and grandma attempt an almost impossible puzzle, unwraped many gifts, argued over tv programs and spend quality time as a family. It was great to spend time with my brothers and I realized how much I really did miss them. Hope they have safe travels home to NY and KY this weekend!

On Friday morning, after the traditional trek to the Spudnut shop, Cam and I attempted to back into my parents' driveway in order to load up the car for the second leg of our trip. Unfortunately, as we attempted to put the car in reverse, we felt/heard a "CLUNK" and the transmission would not engage. Thankfully, my father was able to rush home from work to rescue us and determined that the transmission was toast on our 2000 Chevy Blazer. So, instead of traveling to the Portland/Vancouver area, we spent Friday traipsing around the greater Tri-Cities area looking at new cars, trucks and SUVs.

We finally gave up the search in favor of renting a car and will continue our travels to Portland tomorrow morning ... weather-permitting.

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with plenty of friends, family, and memories!

Cam and Kristy

The Leber/Smith Soldiers

Dad and the elusive Tim

A self-portrait of Erik and Kristy