So, it's been a long while since I posted on here. A lot has happened since the last post, but none of it seems relevant right now given the circumstances of this post. My brother, Matt, 20 was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia a few days ago. He went in to the doctor on Thursday morning for what my family thought was a bad spider bite, and he was meeting the doctors at the hospital by about 4:30pm Thursday afternoon to start confirmation tests. He started chemo on Friday night. A lot of family and friends have been keeping him entertained for the past couple of days, so thanks to everyone who's been there to make him laugh, and to put up with his cancer jokes that have already started. I'm still out in San Diego, but I'm trying to get home this coming up weekend. We find out more details about his subclass I guess you'd call it on Monday, and how aggressive his treatment will be from there. You can keep up with everything that's going on with him at http://mattmillerfriends.blogspot.com/. Just send Matt and my family back home lots of love, prayers, good thoughts, support, etc. Love y'all.

Lovin’ life. J

01January

So, I did one of the “cooler” thing I’ve done since I’ve been here. We are going through a bit of a storm tonight, so the flight deck is obviously all wet. We have cameras in the deck that they use to land the planes, and the cameras had standing water in them and were almost at the point where you couldn’t see anything to land the planes at all. Well, they had me and another guy in the shop get all dressed out, run up on the flight deck, and clean out the cameras in the middle of flight ops…between all the rest of the recoveries. It was exciting – got front row seats to the recoveries and had to listen to the Air Boss yelling on the flight deck intercom over the engines and propellers at us to go clean the cameras between each recovery. There was tons of really cool lightning that we could see up there and lots of running around on the wet flight deck, trying not to bust my ass in front of everyone. During one of the cleanings, the plane came in faster than they thought it was going to I guess, and we cleared to the wrong side of the ship, and they had to wave the plane off. I guess the Air Boss was yelling at us to clear the other direction A LOT, but we couldn’t hear a thing out in the center of the flight deck. Not good. Anyway, the whole situation may not sound as cool as it was, but it’s much more exciting than sitting in the shop or standing behind the camera the whole time. Just thought I’d share (what I consider to be) one of my “cool” stories since I get requests often…lol.

Hope you all enjoyed your New Year’s celebrations! Much love to you all!

Ashley

It's already 2010 here

Happy New Year to all of you!!!  I hope you are having fun and being safe ringing in this new decade!  Much love to you all!

Desert Camel Train

So this is the blurb I sent to my mom about my camel ride during my sunset safari in our last port. I guess it was enjoyable, so I’ll share it here too.

 

Camel ride was pretty cool…it was in a “parking lot”…aka the part of the desert where they parked all the jeeps. It was a short ride on a camel train – there were 3 camels all tied together and the camel handler just led the one in front which forced the back 2 to follow…which I’m sure is why the front camel was so much meaner than the other 2. The getting up and down process was a little freaky. You get on the camels while they’re lying down, and the handler guy somehow convinces the front camel to stand up, which again, forces the back 2 camels to follow. Their legs are so skinny they look like they’re going to snap. At the end of the parking lot stroll, the handler hits his stick against the rope in between the camels until they fall on their front knees which makes you feel like you’re going to be thrown across said parking lot into the sand dune across the desert. It was a true test of inner thigh strength to hold yourself up until they dropped to their back knees as well. It was fun though. I got pictures. They had muzzles on so they weren’t spitting. We’re not 100% sure, but we’re pretty confident that the front camel WAS trying to bite through the muzzle while everyone was trying to pet him….his own fault for being the engine on the train…nobody was bothering the caboose camel, so he was chill….so was the middle one.

 

 

Sorry it’s been awhile since I posted. Things are busy and fun out here on deployment. There’s definitely ALWAYS something going on. I’ve been to a couple of ports so far, and I’ve had a lot of fun in both of them. I’ve taken TONS of pictures so far, but I won’t be able to post them until I either get to a port with high-speed internet available or until we get back to the States in the spring. We have about 3 ½ months left and a few more ports which I’m sure will all go by way too fast.

A couple weeks left until Christmas, the birthday, New Year’s, and 2010. This year has been full of new things for me. Some parts seemed to drag by in the moment (**cough cough**my time in Great Lakes**cough cough**), but overall it has flown by. It’s definitely been a great year and I’m looking forward to another one starting soon.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and enjoy any time off you may have over the holidays! I miss you all!! Much love!

 

P.S. To whoever sent me a care package from “Operation Gratitude:” THANK YOU!!! I just got it today and love the stuff that’s in there!! Especially the All Natural Lip Balm Chapstick that I searched for EVERYWHERE before I came on deployment and couldn’t find!!! and all the energy shots and mixes! J

Out here living the deployment life on the USS Nimitz.

 

I’ll try to post on here a bit from my email while I’m out. Right now, we’re just doing the everyday Operation Enduring Freedom thing – providing air support to troops on the ground.

 

You can keep in touch with me at my email: ashley.miller@cvn68.navy.mil or through snail mail (*or care packages* hint hint cough cough, lol) if you prefer:

IC3 Ashley Miller

USS Nimitz CVN-68

Air/V-2/VLA

FPO-AP 96620-2820

 

Keep in touch! Much love!