Shhhhh....

 Sierra and Michaela...  Do NOT show Scotty that his picture is on the internet/computer.  If you do I will take an equally embarrassing picture of you guys and post it to Facebook.  Try me...  This is our little secret.

I almost feel bad posting these pictures because Scotty is at the point in life where he actually gets embarrassed about things, but I figure Scotty might one day find these pictures to be funny.  He was less than amused when he looked in the mirror and discovered what Sierra and her friend had done to him.  I'm not sure what he thought was going on, but he sat there nicely while his sweet, loving sister decorated him.  Poor kid, he's so trusting and sweet.... :)

Potato Chip Nachos

America will always be #1 ...and this is why...

Deep Fried, Potato Chip Nachos.

American Turkey Day IN AMERICA!

The last Thanksgiving we spent in the United States was in 2007...  We were living in Portland, Oregon and had driven down to California so we could eat turkey with the family.  The day after turkey was eaten we drove back to Oregon ...very sad to say bye to family knowing we were soon crossing an ocean. 

We stayed in Portland for a couple more days ...just long enough to finish shoving our things into a shipping container and ...oh, and to realize I was pregnant with Andrea.  We quickly stocked up on prenatal vitamins and boarded a plane to Denmark.  Seems like it was yesterday ...but not really.  :)

Now we are home!!!  :)  ...and I just thought about it, but a few days after this Thanksgiving I will again board a plane and head across an ocean.  This time I (alone) am going for only a few days to meet up with some friends for one last trip to the famous German Christmas Markets.  

Anyways...  This is our families first Thanksgiving "at home" in a very long time and we have a 40 pound turkey in the refrigerator to help us celebrate the occasion.  40 pounds.  HA!  Everything's bigger in America!!!  40 pounds... Geez, it's kinda like cooking Andrea.  I'm not quite sure why we have a 40 pound turkey, but leave it to the MAN to come home with a bird bigger than my four year old.  

(Apparently a friend of a friend sells turkeys and I guess this year they were well fed.  I hope I can eat it though.  Just knowing that it was alive and running around yesterday is a little gross.  Paul is definitely in charge of touching this one.)

...and with Thanksgiving comes Black Friday!!!  ...which for some reason has spiraled into midnight shopping the day of Thanksgiving, but like a good consuming American who is simply doing her part to stimulate the economy, I will take my girls and we will roam the halls of the mall until we decide we can't shop any longer.  Our mission this year... clothes... I think... it seems every time I look at the flyers I have a new plan in mind.  :)  I already spent three hours in a Toys R Us last weekend.  YAY!  :)

AND Christmas lights!  We get to have real Christmas lights this year!!!  Bright, colorful, obnoxious, twinkly, lights ....maybe with some inflatable fabric creatures ...giant glowing snowman, reindeers in the yard...  It's got to be big!  We get to start fresh too.  Currently we do not own a single Christmas light.  This means all mine will match.  Jealous?  :)

Even though I'm having a great time in America, I still miss my friends.  I do have a couple friends here thanks to a great friend who is sharing her friends with me, but I just miss my regular friends.  :)   I will see them soon though!   I can't believe I leave in nine days!  ...and this time I'M the one packing candy, toys, cereal, crackers, and baking supplies to distribute to those in need.  :)  

AND, I also might even get to see my one and only bestest CA friend, Trini, who was there for every one of my children's births; not during, but the next day.  :)  I hope she makes it.  Oh, wait.  She wasn't there for Andrea.  :(  Now I feel like Andrea missed out...  I did talk with Trini on the phone though.  :)  Either way, I'm excited to see her too.  

I think the next few months will be fun.  :)

Rescue Mission

A story I would like to have remembered forever ...to prove my love for Poozie...  or at least my love for Brown Bunny.

Over the summer we drove to Canada... a solid nine hour drive.  On the way back to New Hampshire we had three hours to go when we stopped for our lunch break at a McDonalds in the middle of New York.  We quickly ate, let the guinea pigs nibble on grass, stretched our own legs, and hopped back into the car.

We got home in record time, early enough to spend some time doing nothing before getting the kids to bed!! YAY to us for being awesome road trippers!!!  Only one small detail  ...and I knew it the minute the car stopped.

Bunny.

We left him in New York.

I was beside myself.  One might have thought I had left an actual child behind...  I started tossing things from the car hoping to find Bunny.  The driveway was covered with our belongings and I knew he wasn't there.  He was in New York.

I was devastated.  Poozie had no idea, she was already happily running up the stairs into the house and I was left alone in the driveway ...in tears ...without Brown Bunny.

I did what any mother on earth would have done.  I went back for Bunny.  Paul insisted I call the McDonalds first and luckily I had actually noticed the name of the exit we were at.  I called and they had Bunny!!!!  No, mailing him wasn't an option.  I didn't want Rabbit leaving McDonalds.  I wanted him safe in one spot.  I begged with the woman on the phone to keep him safe and I told her I'd be there in three hours.

At midnight I pulled into the parking lot of the Mohawk Ridge McDonalds in NY.

I stood in line patiently and ordered one Brown Bunny.  The cashier brought him out and it was such a relief just to see him!  As I stood there crying with Bunny in my arms I couldn't even explain to the confused cashier of how appreciative I was for everyone who was involved in the return of Bunny.  I'm pretty sure the customers behind me thought I was nuts.

I got into the car and drove the three hours back home.  Bunny sat on my lap the whole time.  I ate an entire bag of sunflower seeds just to stay awake.

Bunny and I got home at 3:00 am and we crawled into bed.  I slept with Bunny all night.

Bunny was returned to Poozie the next morning ...she quickly grabbed his long, floppy ear and ran off ...with little visible appreciation and zero knowledge of the six hours and $150 in gas that it took to get her best friend back.

Poozie loves Bunny and so do I ...maybe a little too much.  :)

Nana and Sandy came to visit!

I feel the need to report that Nana is fine.  :)

Nana came to see us and in keeping with tradition she brought a natural disaster with her.  The last time she came to visit us she brought a volcanic eruption in Iceland ...with this visit Nana arrived on Saturday and Sandy the Hurricane arrived on Sunday.   :)

We are definitely not in the path of the hurricane, we are about four hours north of it and I was beyond surprised when we got the automated phone call Sunday night that school was cancelled on Monday.  The kids went to bed Sunday night happy they got to sleep in and Nana went to bed happy she would get an extra day of having the kids at home.

Monday morning it was cloudy and a little rainy, nothing that would have indicated "hurricane" ...so we went out for breakfast.  :)  The rest of the day was uneventful, Paul and I split up to do some grocery shopping and Nana played with the kids all day long.  It finally got windy around 3pm, but nothing that I would have imagined would have justified closing school, but oh well...  :)

THEN...  :)  Just as I started cooking dinner the power went off.  Perfect timing!  Now I had a really good reason to NOT cook dinner!  :)  ...but Happy, being the boy scout he is, was prepared.  (Note: Paul is not a boy scout.  I'm pretty sure he is a boy scout drop out, but Scotty just started in cub scouts and so now I know their motto is "Be prepared" ...hmmmm, actually I think it's "Do your best.".  Oh well... I thought I was making a joke.

Anyways....  Happy had bought a generator when we moved here and I didn't even know a normal person would own one of these things.  Up until now I didn't even really know what a generator was.  :)  It's this big thing that runs on gas and it gives power to your house ...or most of your house.  Ours doesn't run the oven or dishwasher and only runs half the lights.  Apparently in New Hampshire you have to take power into your own hands because when the power does go out, it can be out for a very long time.  So when the power really did go out it was almost fun to turn on the generator and make ourselves some power!  :)

Ten minutes later the power came back on.

I had to cook dinner.  Ugh.

I cooked dinner and no kidding, the minute dinner was done, the power went back off.

So we turned the generator on so we could have lights... then we turned the OFF lights to eat by candlelight because it was more fun that way.  :)

We were only without power for a couple hours, but not really thanks to Mr. Generator.  I think the next time we lose power we will hold off on starting the generator on.  Paul was just excited to try out his new toy to see if it worked.

As for the weather yesterday, it was just windy and rainy.  We didn't notice anything hurricane like.  We went to bed Monday night thinking we would have school the next day, despite all the other nearby towns having cancelled.  I woke up at 5:45, checked websites and email and since there wasn't any indication of school being cancelled I woke up all the kids.  As sure enough, as soon I manage to drag Sierra's sleepy butt out of bed the automated phone call comes... school has been cancelled again; this time not due to weather, but due to power outages and road blockages.  So it was 6:10 am and all the kids were awake... it's going to be a long day...  We made some hot chocolate, sat by the fire and watched the news for a while.  Michaela was the only one smart enough to go back to bed.

Currently it's 8:00 AM on Tuesday; it's not rainy or windy and we have power in our house ...as well as four school aged kids.  At least it's another day with Nana.  :)

From watching the news it seems New York has had better days, but here in New Hampshire we are a little wet, but just fine.

14

KE is 14.  I forgot to mention that.  Don't feel bad though Michaela, because as Happy pointed out last night, I'm not a very good blog writer anymore.

Michaela's birthday happened long ago on the 10th, but her main gift was a weekend at a local Anime Convention that just happened this past weekend.  Anime has seemed to have overtaken my sweet daughter's life, but as a result of this new hobby she has made some nice friends who enjoy the same thing; and even better, she has traded aimlessly trolling facebook with writing her own little anime stories.  I'm not at liberty to discuss the content of this stories, much less post them...  something to take up with her on your own I guess!

PS.  On her real birthday she had an away soccer game and didn't get home until late so we took her out for dinner the night before where my little birthday girl consumed an entire rack of ribs!  Oink Oink.  :)

...and if you want to know what an Anime Convention is you'll have to google it, but Michaela and three of her friends had a great time dressed as the characters of Black Butler.  Very cute/amusing.  Her cake was the character she dressed up as...  well, the cake was the character she dressed up as, when that character is a guy.  Very confusing.  I just smile and go along with it ...because what else can I do?  :)  Can you even pick her out of the group??

  
Happy Birthday KE.  ...even though I kinda want to strangle you on a daily basis, I still love you lots.  Promise.

HOLLY in new HAMPSHIRE!

My friends are awesome.  Holly has now traveled to three countries to see me ...four if you count the time she drove across Denmark to help me cook food for our "moving to Germany" party.  :)

I think the last time I saw Holly was when she came to see us in Canada ...I think the last time I saw her husband was when he flew through Hamburg and I met him at the airport for the hand off of a suitcase full of American goodness that Holly had packed special for me.  :)

I totally miss my international friends, so having a familiar face to hang out with was beyond wonderful! ...besides, Holly and Chuck were the best guests on earth!  How many visitors do you know who would show up AND cook dinner for you!  Holly is a great cook so for fun I like to send her pictures of the horrible things I do in the kitchen.  After she got this picture:

...she decided I needed help.  :)  HA!  This was my attempt at being fancy.  Maybe it can be a contest to guess what on earth they are.  :)  I'll tell you later....

Anyways, Holly taught me how to make a great stuffed chicken dinner and we even made our own pizza - including the crust ...like with real pizza dough ...that used real yeast!  I've never used yeast to make anything, much less something that needed "kneading"!  It was fun!  The best part was letting the dough grow and then punching it down.  :)

Holly and I also did some sightseeing.  We went on an adventure to look for "New England Fall Colors".  Apparently people come to New England around this time to look at colorful leaves.  :)   I think the leaves all changed from green to beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows a few days after Holly left,  BUT we did see Covered Bridge #65!!  :)   Apparently people come to New England to see covered bridges too.  :)

Really though, we did see pretty leaves, the bridge was cool, and it was a fun day with just the two of us!

The next day Holly and her husband took off to Vermont, but came back in time to make cookies with the kids. :)  ...and the following day they ended their New England tour with a drive through Maine on their way back to Boston to catch their plane back home.  They are professional travelers.  :)  Love them both!  I'm really glad they came to see us.  Thanks guys!!!  :)

...okay.  The picture.  They are potatoes.  Sad, wrinkly, salt covered potatoes   :(  I tried to make some salt crusted potatoes, but I'm pretty sure I used the wrong salt and I know the egg whites didn't help.  They looked like snow balls.  Ewww..  So salty you couldn't even bite them.  I had to serve them because we had guests and I had to give them something so I rubbed the salt off and tried to wash them off.  HA!  Fiasco.  They were wrinkly and gross and I'd rather never think about them again...  but here I am posting the picture for the world to see.  :)