Wordless Wednesday

He's baaaaaack!

I think Mommy and Daddy were far more excited to see the return of Tinsel, our elf, than Colin was. After Colin went to bed on Sunday Tinsel appeared in the bathroom, knowing it would be the first place Colin went after waking up and coming out of his room. A fancy letter from Santa all wrapped up with a silver bow was ready and waiting. Here is Colin's letter from Santa...

Here is Tinsel all ready for Colin...

Colin was quite surprised when looked up from the bathtub and saw our Elf there. He was very excited to see a letter from Santa Claus and grinned and giggled the whole time I read it to him. So sweet!

Let the decorating begin!

I thought maybe I could avoid decorating our house for Christmas this year. It seemed sort of silly being that we leave the first week of December and don't return until after Christmas. Colin,however, had other plans. He saw other people starting to decorate and did not want to hear any of this not decorating business. He all but demanded we decorate and so we did some lights outside and a little bit inside. Here is my living room and our little mini tree.

Colin was very concerned about the size of our tree and wanted me to get our big tree out. He kept telling me that tree was too small and Santa couldn't put big presents for him under it. Then I reminded him that we would be in Florida for Christmas and then he wanted to know all about Grandma's tree. LOL I told him he would have to call and take that up with his Grandma!

Shelby and Colin got started on Friday night putting up the lights.

Right after this picture when I told him to stop messing with those bulbs he cut his finger. Ugh!

Then the next day Dan and Shelby got out there to finish it up. Rosanne and I had our chairs on the sidewalk so we could drink our coffee and provide design tips and inspiration to the guys. They listened very well and did an excellent job! LOL

The finished product...

Happy Thanksgiving

The last two or three days we have had unusually beautiful weather. Sunshine, temps in the sixties, blue skies and light winds. Then, we woke up on Thanksgiving to yet another island tempest. Wild winds, crazy sideways rain and just general nastiness.

This is the view out the back, trees are blowing sideways and video probably would have been more telling than a picture.

Poor Shelby had to get up at 5:30 to go out in the weather to get the smoker going and the turkey on. Then he had to go out about every 20 minutes or so to check on the smoker and make sure the winds and the rain were not bothering the temperature inside the smoker. Not fun!

The weather was still not cooperating midday when it was time to fry the other turkeys and so that had to be done inside the garage. Talk about SMELL. Fried turkey tastes delicious but oh my does it smell terrible when it is cooking. I had every Scentsy warmer in the house on as well as all my candles lit trying to banish the smell from the house before the guests arrived.

I had done some of the baking and prep Wednesday night, and only had a few things left to do Thursday morning, which was very nice. Then the housekeeper came and cleaned it all up and made it sparkling before people came over, so thankful for that! Here is my pretty dining room table ready to eat on...

Here is the makeshift table in the living room so that we all had enough space to eat.

The spread of food!

We had two fried turkeys, one with jalapeño butter injections and one that we did in a brine recipe found here, plus a smoked turkey on the smoker that was soaked in a brine also. We had all the sides and fixins including some delicious Portuguese type stuffing brought over by the neighbor's Portuguese family.

I was quite pleased with my pecan pie this year, isn't it pretty?

We had about 15 people between the four families together for dinner. Our neighbors Dan & Rosanne and their girls, and their Portuguese family came too. We also had a family that is new to the island that we have made friends with over. Their household goods were just delivered Wednesday, so their house is a sea of boxes right now. I love having lots of people but I don't think our little house could hold any more than we had. Base housing is just not made for entertaining!

Boxer babies!

It took us less than 6 months of living here to cave. Since we moved here and I've been staying at home, Shelby has a lot more off/free time, and we don't travel nearly as much, we've been saying how we have time now for a dog. I also have a housekeeper which means I do not have to clean up after a dog. We had continuously said no because we would like to go back to Germany after this if possible and we already know that life didn't afford us much time for pets. Then we met a gorgeous boxer boy named Razor on Halloween, and his Mommy told us he would be a daddy any day. From then on I could not get boxer puppies out of my brain. On November 1st the pups were born and it was all over once I saw their sweet little faces. How could you possibly not get one of these fat little balls of cuteness?

Choosing was the hard part. We originally loved the brindle babies based off the pictures, but the brindle male was 90% spoken for and we really did not want a female. When we went to meet the pups and saw the daddy again, we knew this little guy would be just like him.

Today we went to visit the babies again, they are two and a half weeks old now and have opened their eyes. They are trying to walk around and belly crawl a lot. Their skin mama says their little personalities are starting to show and her favorite is the one we are taking. He is the biggest of the bunch, not too needy, barks and growls some, and loves his fawn sister. Colin still doesn't know we are getting one, we just keep telling him we are going to see the puppies and play with them. He doesn't know any better, he's going to flip when we get to bring it home.

Sweet, baby Cooper!

Oh my...

I knew I'd been slacking in the blog department lately, but it wasn't until I came here to check in that I realized Halloween was the last time I'd posted anything! Good heavens! Sorry about that. I have added a few updates now. If it makes you feel any better there really has not been too much excitement going on around here. I honestly do not even know where half of November has went, this is a bit crazy and scary! I've over committed myself yet again and I'm trying to do things I don't need to be worrying about, but that's me.

I picked up a new class on November 1st that I strongly dislike. It is boring, the professor is an idiot, the material is somewhat relevant and useful to me but the assignments they are asking for are horrid. So far we are three weeks in and I still have a 100% average, so that is good. I did get my week 1 paper back and in the comments from my professor (and I'm using the term loosely) said "As you think about upcoming assignments, please make sure that you limit your paragraphs to three to five sentences. Some of your paragraphs were too lengthy." THREE TO FIVE SENTENCE PARAGRAPHS?! Have I left college and moved back to elementary school? Last I checked, in college we transition to a new paragraph when a new idea or topic is being introduced, but whatever...if this ding dong wants three to five sentence paragraphs I will give them to her. I can't be done with this stupid class fast enough!

I was sick the first week of November and finally got over that crud and then had to play catch up. On top of having to catch up, I am trying to work ahead on school work to prepare for our upcoming trip to the States. Shelby is also taking classes, but unlike me he is a procrastinator and not nearly the overachiever. He puts everything off until the last minute and his lame professor actually granted him an extension on his final exam and last paper. He is currently nagging me to write his paper for him, he must have lost his mind! We also sponsored in a new family that just moved here from Germany and arrived last Sunday. We had to pick them up at the airport and show them around and help them get settled, which took up some time this week.

Thanksgiving is coming up this week and we are hosting some friends and looking forward to that. Shelby's new turkey fryer arrived just in time, Hurricane Sandy delayed our mail quite a bit and we were not sure it would get here. Shelby is extremely happy he will get his fried turkey this year. I will try to do better and keep up with the blogging! I honestly don't even have any pictures really to use for Wordless Wednesdays, I guess I've got to do better in the photo department too!

Veteran's Day

Colin had a Veteran's Day parade at his school the Friday before Veteran's Day. They had a fire truck escort leading the way, and all the kids in the CDC marched and waved their flags in the parade. Colin's class had adorable little T shirts they had made in school to wear.

Colin & his buddy Gavin ready to march

Colin's class ready to go

Colin and his flag

Pink Tie Gala

There is a large annual fundraiser for cancer awareness here at the base called The Pink Tie Gala. It is a formal event with a silent auction, a live auction, dinner, and a lot of fun. Shelby was working, so a coworker/friend of ours invited me to go along with her. My dress turned out great and I did a surprisingly nice job on my hair. Colin was so funny when I got all dressed up and asked me where I was going and I told him to the ball. He replied "well I've never been to a ball." I told him they are for grown ups and he said "ok when I grow up I'll go to a ball and I'll wear a bow tie because I'll be in love." LOL Apparently you have to be in love to wear bow ties in Colin's world!

I went to the gala, was feeling fine, and having a blast. I ate my salad and the main course had just been brought to our table when I started feeling dizzy and hot. I decided maybe some fresh air outside of the ballroom would cool me down and so I got up to walk out. I made it about 10 feet out the ballroom doors and I was making my way down four steps leading to the hallway when I suddenly got sick. There was no warning, no strange feeling in my stomach or my throat like I usually get before I puke. It just happened, in front of people, all over the floor. I managed to keep it off my dress, thank God! I rushed to the bathroom where I made it as far as the sink before another wave of nausea hit me. I seriously wished I could have just flushed myself down the toilet and disappeared! I went back to the table and told my friends I was sick and had to go, and hurried home before the next vomit attack struck. Thankfully it is less than a five minute drive from the base to my house! I went next door to pick up Colin and he was less than thrilled to see me back so soon. I had told him he'd be staying up really late and having fun at his friend's house, so much for that! He was so sweet and concerned when we got home and as I sat on the steps to take my heels off he rubbed my back and told me "Don't be sad Mommy, there will be another ball. When I grow up I can take you." Sweetest kid ever, love that boy! I tucked him in, took some good German anti nausea drugs and passed out for pretty much the next 24 hours. The nausea passed by Monday, but it took a solid week before I felt normal, right and back to myself again. I wonder if they'll let me buy a ticket to next year's Gala? I know my friends are never going to take me anywhere again! LOL

Happy Halloween!

Finally Halloween is here and Colin can trick or treat! He has been super excited for this night ever since we put up the Halloween decorations weeks ago. Our house...

The way it works here at Lajes on Halloween is at 5:30 PM they lock all the drive through gates to the housing area. Then from 6-7 PM it is trick or treat time for the Americans with US ID cards, the gates are all locked to come in unless you have ID. During this time we took Colin around the neighborhood and he was on a mission this year. Last year he understood the process, but he still wanted to eat a lot of the candy right when he got it. This year he had more of a sense of urgency and realized if he saved the candy to eat later, then he could get to the next house faster, and end up with more candy in the end. So we were able to cover almost our whole neighborhood in the hour Americans had to trick or treat.

A house in the neighborhood decorated up...

Colin and the girls next door, Anna Sophia & Emma, AKA Captain America and Cat Woman.

Once his pumpkin was filled and it was almost 7 PM we headed back to the house to prepare for the stampede. Here is Colin showing off his loot...

If you have never lived at Lajes you cannot possibly begin to imagine the insanity known as Halloween at this base. As a show of hospitality to the local nationals we invite them to come trick or treat from 7-8:30, after the American kids are done. If you invite them, they will come. Every single person on the island that is. I had been warned, and I was a little scared. This is the entrance to our housing area prior to the gates opening to the Portuguese...

I had a laundry basket full of candy ready to go and as I was getting it ready it occurred to me how insane this was. I weighed my candy out of curiosity...28 pounds! We had 28 pounds of candy to give out! Colin was READY and very excited to hand out candy. The first few kids that came by were American stragglers heading home, he was so cute and polite telling them "Happy Halloween!" and "You're welcome!"

Then the masses descended and it was crazy! It was a mob scene in no time! I could barely keep up dropping ONE candy into every bag fast enough. I didn't dare give away more than one per person because everyone had a bag for candy, kids, adults, babies...everyone! This was taken in our yard during the craziness, I am somewhere in the mob passing out candy!

In the end, our 28 pounds lasted about 45 minutes! We finished up before 8, Colin had a blast, and the Lorax costume was a hit. I am ready to pack up the Halloween now and move on to Thanksgiving!

Finally all caught up!

I have been sooooo behind the last two weeks. Not just behind on blogging, behind in life in general. It's been the "just keep your head above water" kind of weeks around here. My current class, Early Literacy Development, has been more demanding than usual recently, so I've had school work to do. Then I just totally over committed myself in other areas. There were a bunch of fun kid oriented things to do on base I didn't want Colin to miss out on. I volunteered to help out with a few things. There were birthday parties and other social events. Shelby went TDY to Germany again for a few days for more treatment on his back. I signed up for a table at the base flea market and had to get stuff organized for that. I had to shop for a dress for a formal event coming up before all the good dresses were gone. I had Halloween costumes to finish making. Appointments. Sports. Awana....you get the idea.

To make matters worse we've been working with one car. Shelby's Jeep decided to break down in the middle of a traffic circle one afternoon. How's this for irony? Thursday we wire money to the bank to pay off the Jeep loan and FOUR days later on Monday the stupid Jeep dies. Talk about luck! Word is the transmission is shot. Jury is still out on that one, we had it towed to a mechanic we don't normally use because the guy we go to is closed on Mondays. We plan to have it towed from its current location to our usual guy and let him check it over, but I'm thinking he isn't going to have any better news. Looks like we'll be buying another island bomb to use for a couple months while we figure out the repairs on the Jeep and get the work done. Fantastic!

Then there was the head cold/flu thing that decided to sneak up on me this week. I don't know what it was but it was miserable. Thankfully it was short lived and out of my life in about 4 days. I was fairly sure my head was going to explode at any moment, it hurt to open my eyes and my mouth. Lucky for me I had a lot of school work to knock out this week so I was able to just lay in bed with my computer and try to stay alive. So far the boys don't have it, fingers crossed they missed it!

Another reason we had so many appointments crammed into the last two weeks is because things are starting to come together with our plans to adopt. Shelby and I have always talked about adopting in addition to having biological children, even before we got married and learned of my fertility problems. Colin would love a brother or sister (he asks for one all the time!) and we want that for him and for ourselves. We are in a place where the time and situation is right and so we are ready to pursue adding to our family. This is probably news to many as we've kept it pretty quiet until now. I've gone back and forth about blogging and going public with the adoption plans many times. I know several friends who have adopted and during certain parts of the adoption they have had to make their blogs private to protect themselves and the progress of their adoptions. Like infertility and IVF, adoption is very uncertain. It's a stressful process with no guarantees. I worry that something will fall through, we won't be approved, there won't be a child who fits our family, and many other things. We had to share our plans with some family and friends since we need recommendation letters to complete our application package. We have obtained numerous legal documents, all the letters and filled out pages of paperwork that should be ready to submit next week. Once the paperwork has been submitted and accepted by the adoption team as a complete package, they have up to six months from that day to complete the home study.

So there you have it, all the latest random tales of my uneventful life. And the pile of blog posts below that I finally got around to posting. :)