Happy Thanksgiving

Hi Everyone! Happy Thanksgiving. I just got home and spent a few minutes reading last weeks blogs. I tried to get mine done while I was in China, but everytime I would log onto a computer there it was always in Chinese. Tara I am so happy that you are going back to school to get your LPN. Who would have thought that at this stage in their lives Ray and Paul would be married to co-eds! WooHoo! Amy I am totally jealous that you got to have a special lunch with Tara for your birthday. An Melissa you may have put someone else's pictures of turkey cookies on your blog, but we all know you made some that looked just like the picture you posted.....miss fancy pants. I also know that Laurie is being quiet right now because somewhere in her kitchen is a plate of something yummy that looks fairly designerish as well, that would put all of us Oreos cookie buyers to shame. So to those of you that are making all homemade yummy desserts I say "SEND ME SOME". We are also getting ready for Thanksgiving here which is why I am blogging on Weds, not Thurs. It is only going to be us for the holiday this year so very low key, but H is helping make all the dishes. Today we are making pie and cranberry sauce. Tomorrow he will help with everything else, so here is the menu:
Turkey (plain, not fried this year)
Stuffing (the real stuff, not out of a box)
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans with bacon and Spatzles
Corn Suffle
Rolls
Cranberry Sauce
Pecan Pie
I feel slightly ill thinking about the amount of food we are going to be making and comsuming, but Thanksgiving only comes once a year and everyone wants their favorite dishes, so here we go.

China was fab! I had a wonderful time. Travelling with my Mom was wonderful. We took a great tour of Hong Kong on the second day we were there, did a lot of shopping, spent a bounch of time with my friend Leah from Paris, ate great food, and loved the city! Shanghi was a completely different kind of city. It was much more gritty. The people there didn't speak English for the most part. I did take a city tour and spent some time wandering about on my own. Mom was working in Shanghi, so I spent most of my touring time there on my own. One day I went into an older part of the city, that was a real neighborhood and ended up in a real, Chinese grocery store. It was two stories tall and had the craziest stuff in it. Melissa you would have loved all the crazy things in it. I ended up getting a few things to bring back for the kids to take to school and sample with the other kids. I have some really fun pictures that I will load later in the week. I am still struggling with sleep issues. I got back very late in the evening and had trouble falling asleep because it was morning in China, and H is sick with a cough, so that last 36 hours have been a bit rough. I think the folks at the local Starbucks must think I am a professional coffee runner for an office building with the amount of trips I have been making there. Everyone will be pleased to know that you can get Starbucks on almost every coner in China! They are very name concious over there and they love American brands. Starbuck's, McDonald's, KFC, Coldstone, Coach, you name it they have it! While I was walking around I ended up in the museum of Science and Technology in Shanghi. It was full of Chinese school kids and Chinese military guys. I was the olny western person in the museum, and all the kids kept asking if they could take their picture with me. I felt like Paris Hilton! WEIRD! So, next week I will post some pictures. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

What I am Giving Thanks For:
My Husband
My Kids
My Family
you all knew those would top any list!
Having friends that stand the test of time. I know I could go on about how much I care for all of you and what you all mean to me, but I know you get it, and I don't have to say it out loud. I trust you all, I love you all, and I miss you all!
My pretty new house.
A good school, for me and the kids.
A fireplace
SNOW

What I will give thanks for that everyone would think is silly
Long fingernails that are all the same length.
A perfect white V-Neck shirt I found on sale and got two of in my size!
Cheetos while watching Survivor
TiVo
Knowing I will totally get my Mom with the Duck.
Pecan Pie
Starbucks
Shopping close by

Enjoy Turkey Day!

Sorry No Pictures.

I was all about going out and photographing all of my favorite places here in MI, but I never got around to it this week. I was very intent on getting all the laundry done and making sure there was food in the house before I go off on my fantasy vacation without the family. A few people pointed out that Paul is more than capable of doing all these chores himself and I shouldn't bother, but this way I have way less guilt about splitting. Besides, if it was just Paul I would give a quick wave over my shoulder as I was on the way out the door, but the babies are so used to the Mom way, that I want to make sure they are well taken care of. They have never been without me. The max was two nights and three days when I would go for a girl's weekend in Washington, so why make them suffer. We had a bit of snow here last weekend, and when I say snow I mean a sleet/rain/flake mix that never stuck and the kids didn't get to play in. I guess it usually doesn't really snow here until December. My big hip-hip-hooray moment came this weekend when I finally found snow pants for H. He has those darn short little legs, but is a husky boy, so I tried two different pair at Target, one at Meijer, one at Wal-Mart and was getting ready to go to Land's End online when I found them at Sears. If I was in OR I would have been hosed and would have just gotten them online to start.

Laurie- Very nice story about W's Veteran's day. I think scouting is a really great thing to do with a boy. I wish H would have been a bit more interested in it, but alas he is not. He did get two medals in his swim meet two weeks ago....are those kind of like patches? Let's pretend they are!

Tara-Where are you in Gilmore Girls? Has anyone else watched Gilmore Girls? What part are you watching now? I took a break for a bit to catch up on Grey's and Desperate Housewives, which by the way is really good this season. Last season wasn't so exciting, but this is nice.

Did you all watch the season finale of Army wives yet?

I have all of your addresses and will send postcards any such from China. I hope I will be able to blog from there next week. The hotel should have a business center, so I will include pictures if I can and let you know how it is going.

I am not sure why I find it so hard to get pictures up on the screen. I am pretty good with other things, but the picture/blog thing I need help with. I guess that is why I usually stay away from computers. Here are the Halloween pictures I promised to show off. If any of you tell Paul I posted his picture I will surely find a way to make you suffer! It is Fall here in a big way. We only have two really big Oak trees on our property, but we have a bunch next door on the vacant land and they are all dropping leaves in our yard, so we have a tidal wave of leaves. The one really weird thing about living in this town is that they do not have a dump here, so there is no place to take yard waste, and there is no burning allowed, so the only option is to bag them and put them out with your garbage. Do any of you know how long that process takes? Well I can tell you Paul and the kids have been hard at work on it for weeks now. I pull the "I birthed your babies, you take care of the yard" card when it comes up that I should help. Halloween was lots of fun here. The school parties went very well. Paul came and helped out in G's classroom with her party. He ran the beanbag toss and seemed to be having a great time. He will be going in and filling my reading time slot with her class while I am in China which is nice. I am so glad we are off the boat so he can do things like that. The best part of Halloween night was when I got duped! I had three boys show up at the door. I tell all the older kids that come to the door that if they don't say "Trick-or-Treat" I will not give them candy, and if they are not in a costume I tell them that next year "no costume/no candy" well, we give out full sized candy bars and these three boys were very impressed with that, so unknown to me they took the candy, went out to the yard, stripped their costumes off and came back up to get another bar. Paul happened to be walking up the driveway and watched them do it.

I am very excited that elections are over and the political commercials are off my TV. Don't get me wrong, I followed the elections like a crazy person, but I gave up way to much of my TV viewing time to the elections, and I hate the commercials. I won't share who I voted for, that is the joy of being an American and having the right to privacy at the polls, but either way what an exciting time in America to have a woman and an African American running. The kids at H and G's school held elections. They all got a ballot and went to a voting box and got a sticker that said they voted. It was very exciting for them.

Paul and I didn't do much for our anniversary because of our obligations at the school, so we are going out this weekend to celebrate. I finally have a nice babysitter. She works at the counter at the pharmacy here in town. It is a small pharmacy that has a really old fashioned soda fountain in it. This summer the kids and I would go and have a pop or an ice cream and we started to get to know McKenzie. She is 17, in high school and has been babysitting for years. Over the summer she watched 4 kids every morning from 6:30 to 12:30. If a girl is willing to get up early all summer long in oreder to make money she is the girl for me. She also provided references from me. I know I am a stick in the mud when it comes to leaving my kids. The other big news is that I have an emergency contact for the kids now. I have been spending time with the woman that is the playground monitor at the kids school. She lives a few houses down from us and I adore her. She only wotks in the mornings and she said she would be the contact. With me going to China I was terrified that something would happen and there would be no one to call if Paul got held up at work or something.

Tara- Where are you in Gilmore Girls? I just hit the end of the first season! Are you there yet?

Amy- So glad elections were on Tuesday and not Thursday. I don't think I could give up Survivor. I have seen the commercials and a merge is coming this week! But, I think there is a twist!

Melissa-I have Twighlight in my pile of books to take to read on the plane, so don't give anything up! Are you enjoying being in town? Have you become best friends with the Starbuck's counter person?

Michelle-I need your address, could you please email it to me?

ACTUALLY- I NEED ALL OF YOUR ADDRESSES, PLEASE EMAIL THEM TO ME!

Happy Thursday ladies. I miss all of you and will be thinking of you as I am a tourist in a far away land with lots of Chinese made products for the American market sold very cheaply. If I have an address I can send gifties! I will try and post before I leave next week. If not maybe on late on Thursday when I am in san Francisco, so just keep looking.

Happy Halloween!

I know this is a very late posting from me, but I have been busy. This morning was my usual day to help in G's classroom, so it being the anniversary, Paul came with me and helped out as well. He took today and tomorrow off from his grueling schedule so he could have some fun. (I am poking fun at Paul right now because he hardly ever works) After help time we went home for some anniversary fun and than out to lunch at a very nice place on the water. We did stop at Wal-Mart on the way home to get Paul a costume for the Halloween Party at school. G could not understand why a 40 year old man would not want to dress up for Halloween, so Paul bought a costume so he could suprise G at school. He is wearing a Sombraro and a Poncho with a painted on mustache. Very funny, and of course I will post pictures. We really didn't plan much for our anniversary. We don't have a babysitter yet so we are out of luck in going out tonight. I guess we could just throw what we are saving on not going out into the 20th anniversary fund, because we are going to England and Ireland for two weeks when we hit 20 years.....of course, KID FREE! I have had an exciting week. I met with my academic advisor and registered for my classes. I start January 5th. I will take three classes during the winter term, two in summer, three in fall, and two next winter and I will be finished with a BA in Language Arts. I start the Master's portion in the spring after I get my BA. I am thrilled this is all working out according to plan. Paul is now finished with his classes and is a certified home inspector. He is going to hang his shingle out soon and see what kind of business he can get started here. I do think we will end up in the Pacific Northwest. I don't have much time for anything else because we have to get to the school, but look back later and I will try and get some Halloween pictures up.....I know you all want to see Paul's costume!

Melissa and Amy-I am totally jealous that you two get to visit!
Tara- I don't know why you could not leave a message, I haven't blocked you!
Laurie-I hope H is doing fine.
Michelle-I love the comment about not telling the kids until right before you have to leave. I agree candy is a powerful motivator.

We are having ? for dinner tonight, Papa Murphy's tomorrow (love the pumpkin shaped pizzas) and lean cousine for me over the weekend while the kids eat whatever I can make for them and not feel tempted by.

I have not added any new songs onto the IPOD for a while, as I left it in the car turned on and now the battery is dead and I never remember to take it out of the car to recharge, but when I do I am adding the new Sugarland song, the new Taylor Swift song and I think some vintage Bon Jovi!

Hello Thursday!

Good Morning Everyone. I am back from the school and ready to read and write. I needed the crash course at school this morning dontcha know. OK, so now I need to put on my thinking cap and figure out what happened this week to tell all of you. Paul is playing referee at a Coast Guard football game today, so you all know he is hard at work. H is getting ready for his first swim meet here on November 1st. G just finished her first gymnastics class and is starting her next one next week. She is suprisingly good at gymnastics. Paul really likes going and watching the kids do all this stuff because he missed so much, which is nice because it means I am not sitting there all by myself, but it also means that I am not really meeting all the other Moms during class because Paul is with me. Do you think he would mind if I asked him to sit on the other side of the bench? Just until I make some friends? I am really enjoying helping in the school Library. I like the librarians and they love having the extra help. I think if another part-time job came up as a media specialist at the school, I would probably be in line for it now. I have an appointment with my academic advisor on Monday to decide what is the best course of action for me to get through school in a timely mannor. I keep teasing Paul that he is now married to a co-ed. We are getting ready to celebrate our 10 year anniversary next Thursday, but we are not going out that night because we don't have a babysitter here yet. So we are going out for a nice lunch and a drive and maybe something else that I will not share with all of you. I finally found my travelling outfit. Melissa I know you will appreciate me wanting to have a nice new outfit to wear on the plane. It is a 15 hour flight and I don't want to wear jeans, so I have been hunting for the right outfit. Comfortable and stylish. I found it at Wal-Mart of all places and took it for a test drive today. Two different teachers said how cute it was, so I guess this is it. Maybe I will post a picture of it so you all can see. Not much else going on around here. It has been a pretty quiet week here. Oh, I almost fogot to tell you about the golf ball. Paul has been taking H golfing a few times a week and they have been having a great time, well yesterday Paul took along a few trick golf balls he got for his last birthday and put one on H's tee. When H hit the ball it blew up in a cloud of smoke. H almost wet his pants. It was so funny. Take care and I will see you all next week.

Not my post

This is not the Thursday blog......I am helping in the school today and will be home around 10:30 to write my blog. Be back soon!

Moments

We all recently made a list of our five favorite things, and I really enjoyed reading about what you all love. I was driving to Costco (shout out to Melissa) and the local radio station here does something everyday at Noon that always makes me proud to be an American. They stop the music everyday at Noon and ask everyone to take a moment to be proud of our service members, to remember the folks that make this country what it is and than they play the National Anthem. Everyday at Noon! So, this is the challenge, write moments that you loved, that help define you, that motivated you, five moments that are unexpected, just five moments.

1. Noon-everyday!
2. talking to Kathy for the very first time.
3. H calling me ya-ya instead of mama
4. camping with my girlfriends and kids every year
5. Thursdays!