Call from afar...

Last night I was crashed out in bed, dreaming peacefully, when I was scared awake by the ringing of my cell phone. In a sleepy haze, I see it's a local number, and a million bad scenarios of who could be calling and why flash through my head as I answer, "Hello?"

"Hey, what's goin' on?" a male voice replies, very nonchalantly.

Still confused and sleepy, I'm trying to figure out who is calling me, "Uh, fine. Just woke up."

"Oh yeah? Huh."

Now I'm starting to get mad, as this jerk obviously doesn't care I've been awakened by his call, so I ask, "Who is this?"

"Now, who would be calling you at 2 in the morning from around the world?" he chuckles.

IT'S TIEG! MY BROTHER SERVING IN IRAQ!!

His company had stopped at an air base and he had some satellite phone time, so he called me up to say hi! :-)

I was so shocked, and jumped right up out of bed to talk to him for about 20 minutes. He's doing well, hasn't showered in about 2 weeks, hasn't cut his hair in about a month, and is growing a mustache!! He says it's cold and rainy along the Syrian border, where they patrol and 'ruin people's day' as he puts it. He didn't want to talk about it much, mostly wanted to know about me and the baby, how things were in our lives.

I did manage to ask him about the following pictures. Although they are not of his company, the shots are exactly what life is like for him over there...







I was just so touched that my baby brother would call me! My mind was racing a million miles an hour when I went back to bed, and when I got to school today I asked my principal if it would be alright for me to ask the students of our school to put together care packages to send to Tieg and his company. She loved the idea of 'adopting' him and his company, so we're putting out the word to start bringing in stuff (I gave a specific list of things, stuff Tieg said he enjoyed from other packages) and as the boxes are filled we'll ship them over (the post office has boxes that are flat rate 11 bucks, no matter what's inside, for troop packages).

I can't wait to see how it works out, and you'd better believe I'll keep ya'll posted!