Search Results for: blog ways to thank the troops

Easy Thanksgiving Crafts You Can’t Mess Up

Thanksgiving is just two weeks away. Are you hosting the Turkey Day celebration this year? Preparing a massive meal for your extended clan is no picnic. Add to that the task of decorating your home for the holiday and you may be wondering if you bit off more than you can chew. With time ticking down to the big day, now is the time to recruit the troops. Get your kids involved in the making simple decorations to embellish your Turkey Day buffet. The following Thanksgiving-themed projects are so easy you can have a houseful made in no time: PAPER … Continue reading →

Thanksgiving Love Stories: Home for the Holidays

Last year at this time Wayne and I were in Denver to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family. I remember being so excited about getting to spend a whole week with Wayne. Thanksgiving, Then and Now It was a big deal because we’d spent months apart enduring a commuter marriage. But then Wayne decided not to stay with the job in Jacksonville and to get his old job back here in Nashville. I was over the moon! (Mostly because I was tired of trying to keep the house show-ready and over only seeing him on weekends.) Last year, Thanksgiving week marked … Continue reading →

A Week’s Worth of Fun Thanksgiving Activities for Kids

Looking for some bright ideas to keep your little turkeys out of the kitchen while you prepare your family’s Thanksgiving feast? The following holiday-themed activities will not only keep your children busy, but also they’ll yield a bounty of treasures to share: November 17th–—How to Have a Thrilling Thanksgiving. For the first time since opening in 1964, Universal Studios Hollywood will be open on Thanksgiving Day. So, ditch your dysfunctional relatives and head to a place where the thrills and chills don’t involve yelling about who’s getting the last drumstick. If you’re not big on thrill rides take a look … Continue reading →

Scrapbooking: A Gift Album for the Troops

My family (just counting brothers and sisters) includes two Marines, a sailor, and a soldier – and dh is retired Navy. So we are intricately connected with the military. For my brother’s first tour to Iraq, he left just after getting married and buying a new house. He was so good about keeping the whole family updated! Well, most of the family. The notes and pictures he sent to my mom were a little different than what he gave the rest of us. As far as she knew, he had a “desk job”. We were admonished not to say otherwise, … Continue reading →

Popular Actor Lends Support To U.S. Troops… Just In Time For The Holidays

He’s best known in Hollywood for his roles in “Mary Tyler Moore” and “Lou Grant,” but to thousands of U.S. service men and women serving overseas Ed Asner is better known for his role as a holiday goodwill ambassador. The actor is rallying the “troops” (you, me and the rest of the nation) to help make this holiday a bit brighter for American troops stationed abroad, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Asner is asking all of us to take part in a national “Cards for Troops” campaign: “During the holiday season there’s no better way to lift the troops’ spirits … Continue reading →

President Bush’s Advice: Read Blogs for War News

After a recent speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, President Bush was asked a very interesting question by a woman in the audience. Her husband, a military broadcast journalist, had come back from the war with positive footage of the rebuilding of Iraq but they were concerned with how the major media stations in the US were only reporting on the negative aspects of the war. She asked the President how people could get the words out about the positive occurrences in the Middle East. His answer was simple—the Internet and blogs. My husband has been deployed to the Middle East … Continue reading →

Lending a Helping Hand

“Charity begins at home.” If I had a dime for each time my parents used that expression while I was growing up, I’d be rich enough to start my own charity. Its repetition was annoying, but effective nonetheless. My brothers and I learned the value of loyalty, and the importance of taking care of the people close to you. Now that I’m a parent, I try to provide opportunities for my child to lend a hand at home, so that when it comes time to help others outside our inner sanctum, she jumps at the chance without giving it a … Continue reading →

Obama’s Proposed Budget Will Affect TRICARE

President Obama has created a budget that involves cuts to military health care spending. It appears that the plan includes an annual increase to the cost of premiums for TRICARE which could get as high as 345% of the current cost. It has been said that this increase dishonors veterans. TRICARE is a government run health insurance plan that is available for members of the United States Department of Defense Military Health Care System. This insurance provides health insurance benefits for current military personnel, for their dependents, and for military retirees, (who are also called Veterans). TRICARE is the civilian … Continue reading →

Travel Deals For Military Families

Memorial Day may still be a few weeks away, but it’s never too early to get started planning your next family vacation. Given that Hawaii is home to one of the heaviest concentrations of military forces on this planet, it is no surprise that establishments there offer deeply discounted travel deals to those currently serving (or retired) from the military. Here are just a few special “Military Appreciation” promotions being offered in the islands to salute the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. As a way of saying thank you to our troops, Castle Resorts & Hotels Castle … Continue reading →

Meet My Soldier

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It’s been a rough week on our military and their families. We have dealt with an anti-war protest that included the police being told to stand down during an incident with spray paint and then we discovered that William Arkin considers our troops “mercenaries”. For that reason, I would like to introduce you to one of those so called mercenaries: my husband. My husband Carl grew up in a very small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Carl joined the Army at the age of eighteen for two reasons: First, to get some kind of training that would give … Continue reading →