Diary

Thanksgiving

my dad called me yesterday to ask if im going to the lake for thanksgiving this year. for once i was able to say i was cause im finally NOT WORKING over the holidays. but today i actually thought about going to the lake, and i realised i dont want to go for – but for a whole new reason this year. this will be the first time the family has gotten together since the funeral. how are we going to have a happy thanksgiving dinner when 3 chairs will be empty? i wonder if uncle stuart is going to come. what do you say to a man thats lost everyone?? the whole thing is going to be sad and weird and really gonna suck.

 

reading over this i realise i just sorta said it without going into much detail. the truth of it is, im really really saddened when i put deep thought into it, so i usually try to just never think about it at all. if i think about it or talk about it i get near tears…like now.

Diary

St Lucia – Post 2

Wednesday

Weds morning we went on our first excursion. It was sky rides through a rainforest. you get in this large sky bucket thing and it takes you up 120 feet to the canopy top. you glide through the tree tops while a guide tells you about all the wildlife. we saw several types of birds up in the tree tops, and looking down at the forest floor you could see lots of butterflies flittering about.

random fact: to be a rainforest, you must be located between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, have at least 600 species within a couple of acres, have trees reaching 800-2,000ft, and perpetually something in bloom.

random fact: cashews and mangos are related to poison ivy.

after the trip we had lunch at the hotel and then on to excursion #2. on this one we went horseback riding!! my horse was Barbie and paul’s was named Freedom. we took back roads thru a rural neighborhood to the ocean and then walked along the ocean. then we stopped at a little bar type place by the beach and the guides unsaddled the horses and paul and i went bareback riding in the ocean!! we went out far enough to where the horse was actually swimming! ive never been bare back riding and i was pretty much just trying not to fall off the horse. it was soo much fun.

 

Diary

St Lucia – Post 1

i know i can be bad about actually writing what i do when i take a long busy trip and it requires a lot of writing, but over the next couple days im going to give a brief synopsis of our honeymoon on the island of St Lucia in the Caribbean.

Sunday

Mostly travelling…we got up at like 5am and were travelling allllll day. the highlights were that we had individual TVs at each seat on the plane and the passenger manifest was light so we had the three row seat to ourselves and could stretch out. i was able to watch a movie on the 4+ hour flight. when we landed, a shuttle (van) came to take us across the entire 70 mile island to the Sandals Grande hotel. if youve ever been in a car in the caribbean, youll understand my pain…. trhe drivers are nuts and all the roads are windy and hilly and the drivers fly around these curves and bounce you out of your seat and make you car sick like youve never been before…

when we get to the hotel we are lead to a lounge where we can lay on couches and served champagne and ice cold towels while they check us in. by the time we got to our rooms we were exhausted so we ordered room service, watched some tv, and passed out.

Monday

We had an orientation in the morning to show us around the hotel, then afterwards we went and hunt out at the beach. guys peddling conk shells and necklaces kept coming up to us and a couple of them even offered to sell us drugs LOL. i discovered a new drink called a BBC which is baileys, bananas, and cream and ice. it tastes like a banana milkshake. nearly every day we saw a wedding on the beach.

Tuesday

We went snorkeling. it was paul’s first time and my second. it was way better than my trip on the cruise in march cause this time all my gear fit properly and we got to stay for 30 mins so i got to really see a lot. i really hope my water camera pictures come out!!

afterwards we went swimming in the pool and hot tub, then at night we went to the London style pub and hung out. at 11 they had a chocolate buffet.

Diary

In Memory

July 27, 2006

“And even when your hope is gone, Move along, move along just to make it through”

I’ve just found out that my Aunt Darlene, cousins Bryn (21), and Caroline (18) were killed when their helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. We really don’t know any details at this point. My Uncle Stuart has been living in Afghanistan and they were flying there to visit them. We don’t know if the helicopter crashed due to a malfunction, or if it was shot down. All I know is all three of them were in it and all 3 have died. My uncle is currently being sedated at the hospital. I didn’t know them very well, but they were my first cousins and they were still young. All three of them were at my wedding last month…. Bryn caught the flowers at my wedding, she was sposed to be the next to get married then by tradition. We just went to Caroline’s high school graduation party. She was sposed to be starting UGA in the fall. I’m going to post some pix I have of them as a tribute.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/07/27/afghan.crash.ap/index.html

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — All 16 people on board a helicopter that crashed in bad weather in eastern Afghan mountains were killed, including at least two American civilians and two Dutch military personnel, officials have said.

The cause of the crash was unclear.

The Mi-8 civilian helicopter went down on Wednesday northeast of Khost city — a region where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are believed to be active.

Afghan army and coalition troops have recovered 12 bodies and are searching for four more in the difficult, mountainous terrain, Col. Tom Collins, a coalition spokesman, told reporters in Kabul.

“There are no survivors,” Collins said. “The terrain in this area is extremely difficult and we are now working hard to recover the remaining crew and passengers.”

Collins said those on board included at least two Americans and people of other, unspecified nationalities.

The Dutch military said two of its officers — a lieutenant colonel from the air force and an army sergeant, both serving with a NATO-led security force — were on board.

“It looks bad, and by that I mean that the helicopter has crashed, not — as we had hoped — made a hard landing,” said Dutch Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Nico van der Zee in The Hague. “It’s beginning to look like the people have died.”

The Russian-made helicopter was operated by a logistics firm, Tryco. A Tryco official in Kabul said it was rented by Fluor, a U.S.-based company doing construction work in Khost province, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of the capital, Kabul.

The 16 people on board reportedly included at least three crew.

A Western diplomat, who was not authorized to speak to media, said there was confusion over who had been on board the helicopter as the passenger manifest listing their names had been kept on the aircraft. It was flying from Kabul to Khost.

Collins said there was no indication yet what caused the crash, but Van der Zee said it looked like an accident.

“It was in a mountainous region in very bad weather — rain and mist which reduced visibility. That points toward it being an accident such as flying into a mountain or something like that,” he said.

However, he added that the military had not yet ruled out the helicopter being shot down.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for a NATO-led security force in Afghanistan, said the Dutch officers were studying security arrangements at a U.S.-run base in Khost to help them as they establish their own camps in restive Uruzgan province where hundreds of their troops are deploying.

The Netherlands has more than 1,500 troops in Afghanistan, most of them in Uruzgan. There have been no fatalities before among the Dutch forces here.

A coalition quick reaction team was also deployed to hike to the crash site on Wednesday.

In Kabul, Gen. Abdul Rahman, deputy chief of Afghan border police, said a team of border police had reached the scene on Wednesday afternoon and found at least four bodies.

There have been a series of fatal helicopter crashes in Afghanistan over the past year from accidents or hostile fire.

July 29, 2006

The Newscast

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/9590079/detail.html?rss=atl&psp=news

click the link above to see the news broadcast of it

Atlanta Mother, 2 Daughters Killed In Afghanistan Chopper Crash

POSTED: 5:58 am EDT July 28, 2006
UPDATED: 5:14 pm EDT July 28, 2006

ATLANTA — A college roommate of an Atlanta woman who was killed along with her two daughters in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan described her as “a devoted wife and mother.”
Fifty-five-year-old Darlene Moulder and her daughters, 21-year-old Bryn and 17-year-old Caroline, were on their way Wednesday to meet with their husband and father, Stuart Moulder, a civilian contractor in Afghanistan.

Lee Buffington said they were going to spend a week with him in Afghanistan and then spend a week on vacation in Turkey. Buffington met Darlene Moulder when the two were students at Oglethorpe University in the 1970s.

Buffington said, “She was a very devoted wife and mother. They were just a good all-American family. Everybody loved one another. They will certainly be missed.

Buffington said Stuart Moulder called her after the crash. She said he wanted to tell people who were close to his wife and daughters about the accident before they heard about it from the media.

She said, “He was very upset, extremely upset. It was very hard for him to speak.”

The Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter — owned by the Afghan government and operated by a private company — crashed about 25 miles northeast of Khost city en route from the capital, Kabul.

The helicopter was operated by a logistics firm, Tryco. A Tryco official in Kabul said the helicopter was rented by Fluor, a U.S.-based company doing construction work in Khost province, about 90 miles south of Kabul.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed the rebels shot down the chopper, but a military official said it probably crashed by accident in bad weather.

Diary

just stuff

i really dont have much to write about. i spend most my days doing nothing all day long – just playing online or watching tv. this week i am baby-sitting my moms shih tzu puppy and thats fun so far. im working on trianing both Sukie and Abby at the same time. abby is learning to lay down and to go potty outside, and not to be a pain in the ass. Sukie is learning to come when called and to sit. theyre really funny when they play together. ok im bored of writing this now