Merry Christmas!

December 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been an amazing year filled with many changes for us. We started off the year settling into our new home in Monterey, California. Monterey is a beautiful seaside town about two hours south of San Francisco. We live less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean in the foothills of the mountains. Monterey was the capital of Mexican California, and it has a lot of historic homes and buildings.

The Florida National Guard moved us out here so Jeff could study Arabic at the Defense Language Institute (DLI). In the course of making new friends and learning about Army programs, Jeff met an officer who was recruiting people to staff the Language Immersion Center at DLI. Until November, Jeff was working as the Officer in Charge of this program.

Karen has become very involved with the Army Family Team Building Program (AFTB). AFTB provides training and knowledge to spouses and family members. “It is AFTB's mission to educate and train in knowledge, skills, and behaviors designed to prepare our Army families to move successfully into the future.” Karen has attended advanced training provided by the Department of the Army and has earned the title of Master Trainer. Karen is also the Family Support Group Leader for Jeff’s California National Guard Company.

In July, Karen began work as a Facility Coordinator for CB Richard Ellis with the McGraw-Hill worldwide contract. This contract includes McGraw-Hill and their business holdings of J. D. Powers, Standard & Poor’s, and radio and television stations. She works with two senior facility managers to support eleven locations from Washington to southern California.

We are proud to announce that Jeff received a promotion to First Lieutenant in late October. Jeff has now served in the military for twelve years as both enlisted and as an officer. He has fulfilled these positions on Army Active Duty, as a Reservist and a National Guard Member for Florida and California. With his promotion, Jeff has been given a new job at DLI. He is now the Executive Officer at the Asian I School. There are eight language schools at DLI, so this is quite an honor. An Executive Officer in this position is equivalent to an Assistant Dean at a civilian school.

We’ve had a lot of fun over the past year, and have taken some great weekend trips around California. If you’d like to read more about our ongoing adventures or see some recent pictures of us, please visit our blog: http://jkdoherty.blogspot.com/

We hope everyone is doing well. We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


Karen and Jeff