My Musings

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Journey Of A Lifetime!

 Dear Friends and Bloggers,

Chicago's Sears TowerI left this morning at 7:00 AM and headed toward Washington D.C.  I pulled up my route on Google Maps.  It directed me through Chicago and onto Interstate 80.  It caused me to go through Chicago right at rush hour and it set me back a couple of hours.   I was in six lanes of bumper to bumper traffic for a couple of hours.  That's alright, though.  I love the city so I rolled down my windows and enjoyed the ride. 

I had a full tank of gas when I left my home town of Franklin Grove, IL, so I didn't have to fill up for $3.40+ a gallon in Chicago.  I was able to fill up later in Indiana for about $2.69 per gallon.  Woohoo!

Anyway, around 7:30 PM, I decided to pull up for the evening with just over two hundred miles left on my trip.  I pulled up in a Red Roof Inn and ordered a pizza from Dominoes.  I'll head out early in the morning and I will probably be able to make it to Washington by about 10:00 AM tomorrow morning.

I am so pumped about going to D.C.  I can't wait to get there.  I'll let you all know all about it as soon as I get there!

Thanks,

Nicholas Z. Cardot

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Monday, July 30, 2007

Mr. Cardot Goes To Washington

Dear Friends and Bloggers,

I praise the Lord that he has seen fit to process my orders and send me to our nation's capital.  I received a phone call from my washington-dc-vacationliaison approximately two hours ago informing me that he had gotten my orders processed and that I would, for sure, be going to Washington D.C. 

I am to report to the 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as the Old Guard, on Wednesday, August 1, 2007.  I will be  leaving from Illinois tomorrow morning at about 6:30 A.M.  According to Google maps, the trip should take just over thirteen hours.  According to the way that I drive, the trip should take less than twelve...

Having received this information is such a relief and it is most definitely an answer to prayer.  I heard about a hundred different people tell me that they were praying that I would get this assignment and I am so happy to be able to say that God answered prayer once again.  Be sure to thank Him with me for is goodness.  Thank you all for your prayers and your support for my wife and I.  God bless you.

Thank You,

Nicholas Z. Cardot

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My Vacation in Pictures

Even as our time of vacation draws to a close, we find ourselves thankful for the 100_0608time of rest and relaxation.  We had so much fun spending time with friends and family.  It felt so good to be at home and to see all of our loved ones at the church.  Scattered through this post is a pictorial representation of the people we were able to see. 

The first picture you see on the left is a picture of my brother, Jarod Delhotal.  He is a combat veteran who served for a year in the Iraq war a couple of years ago.  He received a purple heart for wounds received in combat and a medal of commendation for actions performed on the day he received his wound.  I do not know the particular commendation that he has and I keep forgetting to ask him when he is around.  I look up to him a lot and I sort of envision myself as following in his footsteps in a small way.

Jarod came out on Friday night and spent most of the weekend with us. 

The next picture that you see on the right is of Amy Hicks.  I took this picture at the church.  She and her husband, Todd, 100_0629have a whole bunch of boys, and now they finally have a girl.  So this poor little girl in my home church has to grow up with a whole bunch of big brothers.  That poor thing.  Todd and his wife are always a huge blessing to me.

My front passenger tire on my car has been rubbing bald due, we think, to a messed up bearing hub.  Todd works at the Chrysler dealership a few miles from my house, and he always performs the vehicle maintenance on my car for me.  Later today, in fact, he is going to replace the hub for me.  He always goes so far out of his way to help me and be a blessing to my wife and I when we are home!  Thanks Todd and Amy!

This next picture is an instant classic.  In the chair my Uncle Jim Delhotal, who you will sometimes hear me refer to as my dad, is reading a story book 100_0644to his grandchildren, Abby and Nehemiah. 

Jim is probably one of the best Christians that I know.  I was joking with him the other day about him getting saved.  I said something like this, "Aren't you glad that you got saved?  Because, if you didn't get saved you wouldn't have had the heart to take me in when I was a kid and then you would never have known what a blessing it would be to have me live out here.  Think of all that blessing you would have missed out on!"

When I was a kid, I was anything but a blessing.  I was a living terror.  Yet, somewhere in his oversized heart he found it in him to take me in and put 100_0663up with me and help me.  If he didn't take me in when I was thirteen years old back in May of 1998, I would most definitely be very far from God.  There was nothing in my life that would have ever drawn me to God...except for this man and his wife.  Thanks Jim and Janelle!

The picture here on the right is of my niece, Abigail Delhotal.  I took this picture when we were driving to church.  It's the same girl that you saw sitting a listening to the story on the previous picture.  She is a wild child.  She has two younger brothers and she thinks that she is tough stuff.  Yeah right.

This next picture is a picture of my brother, Chad, and his wife, Lee Anne.  They are working to start and grow a church in Princeton, IL.  On Saturday, I went down there100_0677with him and we knocked on some doors and handed out some flyers inviting people to be a part of this new Independent Fundamental Baptist Church.  He was also the assistant Pastor at the First Baptist Church in Amboy, IL when I was a teenager.  This is the church that I grew up in.  He was also the youth leader, which meant that I had to listen to my brother at church.  What a bummer.  Just kidding. 

Jim, Chad, and I went out on Saturday night to the river to ride the wave runners.  It was actually a lot of fun because there were some other boats out and about creating some waves to bounce off.  100_0694As we were riding the wave runners back to the dock to load them back onto the trailer, I cranked to the side and gunned the one that I was driving.  This created a solid wall of water that went flying onto Chad.  As soon as I had done it, I stopped, looked back at him, and waved.  He was completely soaked.  It was so funny.  We were both already completely soaked prior to this, but it was still so funny to see. 

 This picture on the right is of my nephew, Nehemiah.  I always spend a lot of time around my nieces and nephews when I am home.  They do, therefore, take up a lot of space on my camera.  He is a cute kid.  Of course, when my wife and I have kids, they will be cuter, but he is cute, too.

This is one of my parents dogs named Tirzah.  Tirzah is the name of a girl in the Old Testament.  100_0591Her full name is Tirzah Joy.  You can actually see her in the photo above if you look at the lower right hand corner. 

 As a final note, in a few minutes, I will be calling my liaison to find out about the job in Washington D.C.  I have been praying a lot about this and I appreciate all of the prayer that everyone else has offered up on my behalf.  I will post an update later today just to let you know what he said.  Unless you've been in the military, it is probably difficult to understand the feeling of not knowing where you are going until just days before you have to be there.  On top of that is the fact that what he tells me will determine the next four years of my life.  God is in control and I praise Him for that.  Whatever he chooses is the best choice for me.  Stay tuned and keep praying.

Thanks,

Nicholas and Diane Cardot

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

A Wonderful End to a Wonderful Week!

Today was a lot of fun.  My wife and I were able to enjoy our final weekend on leave with our friends and family.  We went to a party for a girl in our church who 100_0517 is graduating high school.  There were probably thirty or forty people there.  Some were playing horse shoes, baseball, and other games.  There was food and everyone was talking and catching up.  It was really nice.

This is a picture of my wife and her sister.  I took this picture on Thursday when we were in Iowa visiting her family.  I wish that we could have stayed longer and spent more time with them.  I have some of the best in-laws that a man could have.  How lucky of a guy am I to be able to say that.  Not only that, but my wife also has great in-laws...

After the party, my wife went with Janelle and Leah, my aunt and cousin, and they headed to the grocery store and then made dinner.  I left with Jim and Chad, my uncle and cousin, and headed for the river with two wave runners.  We had so much fun.  I was literally bouncing off the waves that the boats were making!  It was the most enjoyable time I have ever had on a wave runner. 

Please continue to pray for my orders to be processed.  I am praying very hard that I will be able to go and work at Ft. Myer in Washington, D.C.  I will call the man responsible for these orders on Monday.  Our God is a miracle working God, and I know that he can work it out for me!

Thanks,

Nicholas Z. Cardot

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Friday, July 27, 2007

Waiting...Another Day of Waiting

TombI called the man responsible for having my orders changed today and he explained to me why my orders have not been changed yet. Each day, he would submit my orders to be changed in order to assign me to the job which I have applied for in Washington D.C. Each day the orders would get kicked back. Finally, he called the people who kept kicking them back and asked what was taking place. They told him that they could not process my orders because I had already left Ft. Benning, GA. He told them that he was aware of that situation, but that he still wanted my orders to be processed. Understanding that the orders were supposed to go through despite my having left Ft. Benning, the people told him that they would put them through this time. So...he resubmitted my orders to be reprocessed today and told me to call back on Monday. 

I was supposed to receive my updated orders on Monday and have been told to "call back tomorrow" every day this week. I have been praying and I invite you to pray that my orders really would come through and that I would be able to join the 3rd Infantry Regiment at Ft. Meyer, Washington D.C. If this happens, I will be a part of the Old Guard, the group responsible for Funeral details, parades, ceremonies, and the guarding of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This would be a great honor for me to be able to be a part of this prestigious group of men.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Vacation: Ten Days of Leave

My wife and I have been so blessed to be able to find ourselves on ten days of leave. Beginning on July 20 and ending on August 1, we are able to enjoy sleeping in until all hours of the morning, eating ourselves sick, and enjoying the love of our families.

On Friday, July 20, I was dismissed at around 1200 hours. That’s noon for you civilians. It couldn’t have come too soon. We set out for Kentucky, which we have been calling home for the two years prior to my enlistment. God has been so good to us to give us so many friends and loved ones in this state. We were able to stay with some friends on Friday night and Saturday night. I spent time with my college friends, professors, church friends, etc. We were able to see so many people during the two days that we were in Lexington. We had a great time. I played an Age of Empires II tournament (A video game made for the PC in 1998) and for the first time ever…I lost. All through my college career, we got together and played the game a lot. My partner, Jeff Baldwin, and I had never lost…until this past week. It was still tons of fun! It brought back a lot of memories from the past few years to see the college (Commonwealth Baptist College) and all of my friends.

After church, we headed north for Illinois…the Promised Land! We arrived late in the evening and settled in for the night. We fellowshipped for a while and then headed to bed after our seven hours hike up into the north.

On Monday, my Dad bought two wave runners on eBay. He got a really good deal on them because neither one of them ran at 100% capacity. We took them out on the water to get a feel for them. He guessed that one was only firing on one cylinder, so he replaced the spark plugs right there on the river and it fixed it. Now it flies at 55 miles per hour. Quite fast for an old broken down 1994 wave runner. That was a nice five dollar fix. We replaced the plugs in the other one, and it sounds like it runs much better now, but we haven’t yet taken it to the water to try it. Hopefully we will get to do that on Friday. There are, of course, a few other things that are wrong with them, but it is amazing that they run so much better with such a simple fix. He got a REALLY good deal on them!

On Thursday, we headed to Burlington, IA to see my wife’s family. I love getting to see them. They are about the friendliest people in the world. You could not ask for a better set of “In-laws!” It’s a good thing, too. With as many “In-laws” as I have, they better be good. My wife has 16 siblings. Fourteen of them we have now met. In fact, we just met for the first time her brother named Tim. He seems like a great guy. My wife had never met him prior to this trip back home. What a blessing!

Well, I continue to wait on my orders. My current orders state that I am to arrive at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and report to the 82nd Airborne Division for in processing on Wednesday, August 1. However, I have applied for a position with the 3rd Infantry Regiment (Old Guard) in Washington D.C. I was supposed to find out if I got the orders changed on Monday. When I called my liaison, he told me to call back on Tuesday. On Tuesday, he told me to call back on Wednesday…etc. Today, he told me the same. Please pray that God would allow this in my life. I have until the deadline on my current orders, August 1. The man responsible for assigning me to this unit has told me that I can have the position. We are now just waiting for the orders to be changed higher up. We are now just hoping that the paper work can be changed in time for me to get in. Please pray!

God is treating us much better than we deserve in every regard. We thank Him for his goodness, and we thank all of you for your prayers and love. I will try harder to keep everyone updated on our status. Thank You.

In Christ,

Nicholas Z. Cardot

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Sunday, July 8, 2007

Today at Lighthouse Baptist Church in Columbus, GA, we had a great patriotic service. We had about six or seven soldiers in attendance. Several of us wore our class A uniforms and by popular demand I have decided to post a couple pictures of my good looking self and my even better looking wife. I know, I'm so conceited. Lol. Let me know what you think.




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Saturday, July 7, 2007

Airborne School

Well, folks, I just completed week one of airborne school. This is ground week. I spent the week learning proper exit techniques and proper techniques for slamming my body into the ground. We use what we call PLF's (Parachute Landing Falls). This is the process by which we slam our bodies into the ground. We land on the balls of our feet, roll into our calf muscles, our knees, our thighs, and then into our pull up muscles on our upper back.

Yeah.

I am covered in bruises and am black and blue. But it is a lot of fun. It is way more fun than I ever thought that it would be. Woohoo. This coming week we will be jumping off of the 250 foot tower.

And in another week, five jumps from 1200 feet. Wow! I can't wait!

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