I've been tagged!

Ok Ladies and Gents! I've been tagged by my sister in law but I can't really do my tag right now. So on August 1 or August 2 my tag will be completed and posted ok?!?!?! I'm just not at my house right now! And nope I probably won't clean it first either cause I"ll be so jet lagged! So stay tunned! I'm off to go boating I'll be sure to take some photos of the GREAT event! I'm hoping to get some sun and it looks like I'm gonna! See ya folks!

Our little American Boy!

So we went to kiddie kandids today and got Aidan's pictures taken. I figure this will count as his 2 year old pictures! Since in Germany they don't have kiddie kandids and they are my absolute favorite! They did some collages of Aidan and they turned out so cute. I don't mind spending the money there cause they do such an amazing job! I'm not very good at knowing what picture is where so I just add my 2 cents to the pictures and post them! Thats fair right? I really hope you guys enjoy them!

Playdate with Aubree!

Aidan has been having a good time here in Utah. The other day we had a playdate with Ashlee's little girl Aubree! She is so cute!

This is Ashlee's little girl Aubree! Isn't she cute?

Here she is sitting in the pool!

Aidan didn't seem to want his picture taken but oh well! He was having fun!

Aidan was wondering where the airplane he had just seen was going!

HOME SWEET HOME!

Hey guys Aidan and I will be home tomorrow! Hip Hip Hooray! Hope you all are having a great week!
Maybe we will run into a few of you while we are in Brigham!
See you all soon!

Aidan's 18month Photos!

Well we ended up getting Aidan's 18 month pictures done out here in Germany. I know I should be enjoying the time over here and enjoying Europe but I just can't. Its the pitts! I wanna be in the states where when I crave some regular fast food while I'm knocked up I could go get it! The euro out here is kicking our butt too so that doesn't help out much. We will be home next week for a visit so I hope we get to see as many people as possible!

No MORE!

So we are in the CLEAR! No more bottles for MR Aidan! I know he's 19 months and they say to take them at 12 months but look at me I've conquered one of my motherly tasks! Sorry folks you won't be seeing the binky out of his mouth for awhile! So not ready for that step!

Happy Fathers Day!

Just wanted to shout out to the WORLDS GREATEST DADS!
Happy Fathers Day to all of you who have influenced my life! I want to especially thank my Dad. He's always been such a good example to me! Come on I've never done anything too drastic so he did alright! I love you dad! Your the best! Sorry our scanner is being silly so I can't post pics for some odd reason!
Ben! Your the next daddy on my list! You are the best! Aidan loves you so much! I'm glad your his dad and that you do so much for our family! I love you so much babe!
Then Ben's dad Randy! Thanks for everything you've done for Ben. He is always talking about life long lesson he has learned thanks to his daddy! We truly appreciate you! Love you all and Happy Fathers Day to all you Fathers~

Our Man and his Cute little Attitude!

Aidan loves to have his picture taken with me, Ben, or anyone willing! He always is on top of his game doing everything! He's all over the place except for when he's sleeping. A new thing he's started is. Since most of you know I get morning sickness bad. Well this time around its just the same! Go figure right? It'd be my luck. So for any of you folk hoping Ben and I will have more then 2 kids....................uh yeah right!!!!! Anyway Aidan stands by me at the toilet spitting into the toilet to. Funny kids right? The last picture is of Aidan in his tux to go to church with his hair all done! He's super cute!

Holladay's are coming to TOWN!

So guess who's coming home? July 1st thru July 31st? Thats right Heidi and Aidan. The army is sending Ben to SGT school to become a SGT and thanks to the Larsen's Nana and Papa Aidan and Heidi are coming to town! We'll be at my parents house enjoying the cousin bonding! yea! We'd love for you guys to stop by and say HI!

Our First Ultra Sound!

So I know this ultra sound isn't much and you can't see anything but the sac its growing in. We were still excited and I told people I would post on the Blog our first picture. The doctor was so incredibly nice. I'm seroiusly struggling being over here and knowing that I'm going to a German doctor and things here are TOTALLY different but I will survive! And my mom promises me she will come over for the birth! So everything's always fine when MOMMY is here right?!?!?!?
So everything looked fine and we're due Feb 8, 2009! Hope this message finds everyone well!

So I thought I would share!

So I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to share this info but we are too excited to not share! I'm due Feb 8 our our ultra sound is June 10th!

Aidan's Boo Boo

So I thought I would post some pics of Aidan's first of MANY boo boos! He was going out our friends door that has a ledge and didn't step over the mountain ledge and BOOM! It instantly swelled up. He looked like bubba gump it was sad but cute at the same time cause he was sucking on his lip cause it felt funny. So I posted four different views of the boo boo!

Just a little Update!

How is everyone? Little update on us. Ben is trying really hard to push for this Warrant officer stuff to be done. His company is taking LONGER then expected and I"m sure its cause if they hurry it up its ONE less Soldier to deploy with them. Although even if it is done we still have to WAIT to be excepted. All I can do is pray and hope for it to happen. So all of the 554 MP soldiers are going to be STOPPED LOSSED as of OCTOBER! (means no one will go to other units since they will be deploying 6 months after October.) No I'm not so ready for it. Infact they might have to submit me to a CRAZY home! Anyway we go to the DR tomorrow morning for Aidan. The dr is sending us to a specialist to see about having tubes put in the little man's ears. Not so sure about that either. I've decided after these last few months that right now I"m going to just stay at home and be a mom! Aidan and I really enjoy spending time outside together and going for walks. I love having him and I know he loves having me! So that in a nutshell is a update on us! Love you all and miss everyone like NUTS! Stop growing PLEASE!

Article of Ben's company he was deployed with!

hey guys this is a article that was written by a soldier in the 630 MP company who Ben was deployed with! Feel free to read it and comment as you'd like!
Love you all!

My time with the 630th


Spc. Stephen Decatur

21st TSC Public Affairs

630th MPs make history in Adhamiya

This holiday season, whether you are enjoying dinner with your family, swapping gifts, or just spending time with your friends, take a moment to remember those who will not be doing the same this year, or next year, because they have given their lives in defense of our way of life.

The 630th Military Police Company of the 18th MP Brigade, part of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, will be celebrating this holiday season without four of its members. In the course of a 15-month deployment to Iraq from June 26, 2006 to Sept. 20, 2007 the unit suffered four dead and 21 wounded of the 171 Soldiers the unit deployed with. Three Soldiers, Sgt. Brandon Parr, Sgt. Michael Peek, and Sgt. Ashly Moyer, were killed during an improvised explosive device attack on March 3, 2007, while another attached to the company, Spc. Karen Clifton of 554th MP Company, was killed in a rocket attack June 21, 2007.

The company made military police history when they took over Combat Outpost Callahan in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, making it the first MP company to operate from a combat outpost during the war in Iraq. During its various police transition team operations with the Iraqi police, the unit covered an area of 425 square miles with about 2 million residents.

Having just returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom II in early 2005, Soldiers of the 630th MP Company were stop-lossed and informed that they would be going to Afghanistan less than 12 months later. As often happens, the needs of the Army changed, and only 1st Platoon was sent to Operation Enduring Freedom, but the next day the company was stopped-lossed again to deploy to Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Diyala Provence, Iraq, said Maj. Anthony Tangeman, the 630th MP Company commander. The unit picked up a platoon from 554th MP Company which, fortuitously, had recently been commanded by Tangeman, who was familiar with that unit's leaders. Because many Soldiers were retained in 630th by the stop-loss orders, about half of the Soldiers in the unit had been deployed before, and some had already deployed twice before.

The unit arrived in theater June 26, 2006, and following the tradition of changing with the operating environment, the company's first mission was changed two days before leaving Kuwait and it was slated to go to Camp Rustamiyah in Baghdad to work with the Iraqi National Police, Tangeman said.

For five months 630th MP Company worked with four INP battalions on the road called Route Pluto by U.S. forces. Route Pluto straddles a canal that runs parallel to the Tigris River. The road bisects eastern Baghdad and checkpoints were established across it in order to control all east to west movement in that part of the city. The MPs helped the INPs run the checkpoints, observing the way they were conducting searches, acting as a quick reaction force to assist endangered checkpoints, and training new recruits at night when there was no activity due to curfews.

In November 2006, the MPs moved to FOB Shield where they were responsible for conducting joint operations with 12 IP stations in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad as part of Operation Together Forward II. Adhamiya is a large Sunni enclave in north eastern Baghdad surrounded by Shi'ite neighborhoods. When the MPs arrived the only other unit operating in the area was the 1st Battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, while the neighboring areas of Shaab and Ur had no coalition forces at all, Tangeman said.

The objective of the operation was to build the local population's trust of the police force and the community policing skills of the IPs. It was no easy task.

"When we first got there the Iraqi Police and Iraqi army was shooting at each other," said Staff Sgt. Raphael Ortiz of 630th.

Sometimes the Soldiers had a difficult time trusting their Iraqi counterparts, said Sgt. Pinh Phongsynha of 630th. In one instance, Ortiz caught three IPs arresting a man who refused to give them his fuel. He had to call an IP captain to arrest them, Ortiz said.

About 20 Iraqi police were killed by insurgents in the district, 19 were suspected of cooperating with insurgents and fired, including one who later died placing a roadside bomb, and more than 30 were arrested for either corruption or collaboration with the enemy, Phongsynha said.

There was also IPs who managed to win the admiration of some of the MPs through extreme acts of dedication.

"One guy got shot in the shoulder and was back at work the next day with his AK. That got a lot of respect out of me," said Spc. John Steenson of 630th.

The idea of a police force in Iraq before Saddam Hussein's government was toppled in 2003 was not so much to enforce the law and keep the peace, as in an American police force, Tangeman said, but was rather a means of enforcing the regime.

"During the Saddam era the Iraqi Police Force was not what you or I would consider a police force," Tangeman said.

Residents of Adhamiya did not have a positive attitude toward interaction with the police or the policemen themselves, so IPs regularly went out on patrols, interacted with the local community, conducted cordon and knock missions with the MPs to hunt for militia and insurgents, and maintained a presence in neighborhoods to gradually change peoples' perception through positive personal experiences.

"It was not a well-respected police force when we got there. Militia infiltration was on peoples' minds, so the Iraqi police had to go out and prove themselves," Tangeman said.

In January 2007, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division began arriving in Adhamiya. The difference was immediately noticeable.

"We'd go on a patrol and you wouldn't see any U.S. forces, and all the sudden we maneuver elements on the ground. People saw twenty-four/seven presence in the community and it gave more confidence to the local populace to come forward with information," Tangeman said. "Pre-surge you'd talk to people and they'd say 'I didn't see anything, I don't know anything, nothing bad happens here.'"

In time, previously uncooperative civilians would go out of their way to help.

"They would wave us down and stop us," said Spc. Chris Logan of 630th. "I think that the reason why was that they saw us out there."

On February 14, 2007, Operation Law and Order began in Baghdad and soon afterwards the 630th MP Company moved out of the FOB and into the neighborhoods where they had been working and fighting for months.

After conducting clearing operations in Shaab and Ur with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of 2nd Infantry Division, the MPs took over COP Callahan, which had previously been an abandoned shopping center, in the last week of February. The unit established another COP in the old Ministry of Defense building, and simply referred to it as COP Old MoD. Another platoon of the company began working in a Joint Security Site located at the headquarters building for the district police forces, along with IPs, IA soldiers, and 1st Bn., 26th Inf., Regt. Soldiers.

When the first MPs arrived at COP Callahan, they knew they were about to experience a completely different lifestyle than the FOB.

"It was kind of a shock. All the amenities of the super FOBs were gone," said Tangeman.

Soldiers ate Meals, Ready to Eat for every meal, slept on cots, and at first, had no electricity, no showers, and no latrines.

"It's absolutely amazing what you can get used to," said Pvt. 1st Class Cave Bumstead of 630th.

Parr, Peek, Moyer, were killed by and IED blast March 3 2007. In order to mitigate the threat of explosively formed projectors and deep-buried IEDs, the company was augmenting its M1114 up-armored humvees with a variety of homemade armor.

"We had a monster garage in our motor pool," said Ortiz.

Large 75 pound armored plates originally intended for up-armoring the floors of tanks were attached to the vehicles. Sandboxes and ballistic-resistant glass were also placed in the doors to counter EFPs. All of the modifications and the resultant extra weight kept the unit's motor pool busy. An M1114 has about 1,000 pounds of additional weight, and with the extra weight of the augmented armor, every part of the vehicle from the door hinges to the axles had to be repaired or somehow modified to keep from breaking.

The Soldiers experienced daily attacks from mortars and sniper fire, but being in the neighborhoods they were patrolling also mitigated the some of the improvised explosive device-related risks they had been taking by spending more time every day on often predictable convoy routes, said Tangeman. It also gave them the ability to quickly assist nearby IPs if they came under attack at any time.

To finally put a stop to militia and insurgent infiltrations, coalition forces started building a solid wall around Adhamiya April 10, 2007. The wall left only three entry and exit points in the district and hampered smuggling operations that were supplying insurgents, Tangeman said. Significant improvements were also made to the JSS from March to September, and it eventually stopped getting attacked, Steenson said.

Clifton was killed June 21, 2007 by a rocket attack while driving her team's humvee to assist C Company of 26th Inf Regt.'s 1st Bn., which lost five Soldiers that day to a deep-buried IED that destroyed their M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Despite being wounded in the attack, Spc. John Deweese of the 554th MP Company continued to engage the enemy until his fellow Soldiers reached safety, and even insisted the other Soldiers receive medical assistance before him. Deweese received a Bronze Star Medal with a "V" device for valor for his actions that day.

One problem that had continuously harassed the MPs was the presence of the Abu Hanifa Mosque, an important Sunni holy site, in Adhamiya. Even though they had long suspected it of being a supply dump and haven for insurgents, the Soldiers could never get clearance to search it. The local people had became more emboldened to stand up for themselves by the presence of U.S. troops during Operation Law and Order, and one sheik who had apparently lost a relative to terrorist attacks stormed the mosque with family members in August 2007 along with IA soldiers, then called the MPs. When Soldiers from 630th MP Company arrived on the scene, they found 50 barrels of liquid explosives and more rifles than they could count, along with an assortment of other weapons. After continuous operations by infantry units in the area, the COPs stopped getting mortared, and Soldiers noticed a significant drop-off in attacks.

"Now you're starting to see the payoff of the sacrifice and hard work of the Soldiers in Adhamiya," Tangeman said.

Soldiers who fought in Adhamiya have now had some time to reflect on their service and what they saw there.

"I understand now how lucky we are in the states to have a safe, peaceful society, a government that works, and ways to get help," Steenson said.

"You want to see people live the way you live and enjoy the freedoms you do, for their kids to enjoy the same freedom as ours and not live in fear. Why wouldn't you?" Tangeman said.

The operating tempo of this past deployment was intense for the MPs, with more than 2,200 missions in 15 months, compared with the same unit's more than 1,300 missions in 12 months of OIF II. Having survived many trying times together, one thing that kept them motivated to do their daily duties to the best of their abilities was their high regard for each other.

"It's that old cliché. You see it in the movies and you see it on TV, but it's the God's honest truth," Tangeman said. "They're selfless. I saw that day in, day out."

I have my own feelings about all of this and some things were not discussed but I thought that all in all it was a good article I should share with you all.

..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Trying but not succeeding but thats ok!

Some of these pictures just make me laugh. Everytime I get out the camera now this is what I get! Its quite funny! He is such a little cheese! Ben and I just laugh all the time cause he's so silly!

Doesn't he look like Daddy?

Just thought I'd add some photos of Aidan. He's just like his daddy. He looks more and more like him everyday! His new thing is wearing hats and being cool like Dad! I guess you'd just have to be here to understand but its so so cute! Miss you all lots! Nothing new here!

Our trip to the zoo!

We took Aidan to the zoo! It is so much better out here in Germany. They let you be UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL with the animals. It was crazy this chimpanzee was throwing a HUGE tantrum and jumped at the window and scared the crap out of us! So now when we say to Aidan....what does a monkey say he says ROOAAAARRRRRR~! I will add more pics of the Zoo later!

Our little NeRd!

Ben pulled Aidan's pants up so he'd stop tripping on them and he looked so funny! It made him so mad! He told Daddy NO NO NO! he even uses the finger when he says no! He means business! (wonder who he learned that from)

Just some Random Pics

here are some more fun pictures of the last week. Sorry I just haven't had the time to really sit down and write much. Hopefully within the next three weeks I will be done to 30 hours a week instead of 40! Lets hope! Hope everyone is doing great! We miss everyone!
Love the Holladays!

fun with my dad

Aidan loves his motorcycle him and dad got! They have fun playing on it!