Our Bubble World

A couple pictures of the kids at Brin's reception. I was helping too much in the kitchen to take too many pictures. Wish I had more.

Poor kid was tired before it even began. I had to wake him so he could eat some food.

I have so much to be thankful for in my life. I have a wonderful husband who loves me no matter what. I have 4 healthy happy children whom I love even when they drive me nuts and they love me even when I am nuts. My husband has a great job that pays for all we need and much of what we want. We all have fairly good health. My family (siblings, parents and all) are far enough away we can go a week without seeing each other if we want and close enough to help me out when I need it. With all these good things in my life, why was this Thanksgiving tough? Doug is in China! It's tough to do any holiday without him, but the big ones like Thanksgiving and Christmas are the worst. Although he should be home for Christmas this year and has never missed one yet. Anyway, this is mostly for him so he can see what we did to celebrate.
This year we celebrated at my house. I was in charge of the turkey, potatoes, and gravy. We also had stuffing, green bean casserole, veggies, grapes, rolls, orange rolls, cranberry sauce, apple cranberry salad, and pies galore. We had apple, marionberry, banana cream, coconut cream, pumpkin and lemon meringue pies. Oh the weight that was put on!

Some of the place settings

More place settings and some food

Kids table waiting to be dished up

Erin with Lex and Fin waiting to dish up

Doug happens to be in China on a job right now. Don't get me started about it cause I'm not real happy with the situation. He has missed Thanksgiving and if the weather doesn't cooperate he could miss Christmas. Now that I'm done with the small venting episode, I'll share a story he sent me and some pictures he took.

Thefood is good, but the smoke (from fires and people) is bad. Right after work, the project manager took about 15 of us to dinner. We didn't have a choice because our transportation is provided by the plant, and he directed them to drive us to the place where we ate. I am so glad I do not drink alcohol. I said I do not drink, and after a few attempts to get me to accept some beer and then rice wine, the project manager said it was good of me to not drink and that it makes me strong. And sober, I would add. We all sat around a large round table with a large lazy suzan in the middle filled with dishes that were kept spinning around the table. There was a sauce on the lazy suzan that looked good, so I tried it before anyone else. I dipped a chunk of my steamed bread in it and popped it in my mouth. Wow. It was some sort of distilled wasabi fire soy sauce. I have had heat, but this was intense, especially for the small amount I took. After about 20 seconds of pain, it eased and allowed me to stop crying. Of course my next goal was to get Mike to try it. After warning him it was hot, I gave him a piece of bread to dip. He took less than me and then put it in his mouth. He chewed for about 5 seconds with no visible reaction, and I thought I was a wimp. He later admitted he was trying not to react. Suddenly his eyes widened and he had to reach for his glass of tea or beer. His eyes tried to leave his head, his face got red, and he said afterward that his biggest fear was how long the pain was going to last. We were laughing pretty hard by now in our corner, and our translator asked what was up. We had her try a bit of the sauce. She had just a speck of it on some bread. She chewed for less than three seconds before getting a terrible face, bending over her plate, and spitting it out. By now we were rolling, and our ultimate goal was to get Frank to try it. He said he had already had it, that he had it in large amounts, and it was no big deal. We dared him to try again, and to prove his manliness, he took a huge amount compared to us. He popped it into his mouth and started chewing. He then realized it was not the sauce he had tried, though he did well for about 5 seconds of not showing the pain. Suddenly, his eyes started crossing, literally, and his neck convulsed, and his whole body shook. He started shaking his head and twitching. Mike and I were gasping for air and trying not to spit food out. After about a minute, Frank was able to breathe and speak, and he managed to smile weakly and lie that it was "good stuff".
We had tubeworm, sea cucumber, and about 20 completely unrecognizable dishes on the table.

Inside shot of the bathroom "stalls"

No joke - the bathroom at the plant - boys on the left, girls on the right - hope a supporting beam does not fall
Tube worms - nature's straws

Seeing as how it is early morning when I'm trying to post this I must not be fully awake and I could kick myself for it. I just tried to download pictures from last night to post, but I missed a step. The one that says "Ok transfer pictures." I thought I hit it and all was done. I deleted the pictures from the camera and set to work to lable them for easy upload to the blog. What did I find? No pictures! Grrrrrr! Now there is nothing for you to see but my lame words trying to describe what we did. Sorry all.

We went to Chuck E Cheese for the kids to play and they loved it. We'll have to go back because we didn't get to spend enough time there for them. Then we went to Pizza Hut for dinner. I know you're thinking "Why didn't they just eat at Chuck E Cheese?" Well the answer is simple: Chris had a coupon for a free personal pizza at Pizza Hut so we just had to use it. I tried to be healthy and had mostly salad with one piece of pizza. Lex was too good for pizza turning her nose up at it and had peaches and crackers from the salad bar. Then we came home to sleep and prepare for the infestation of family on Thanksgiving day. I wish you could see the pics, but alas they are no more. Next time I'll be sure everything is transfered over before I delete.

Alexis' hair is taking forever to grow. Finally I've been able to put it up in little pony tails, but they don't stay in for long. She isn't use to stuff in her hair so she rips them out. I just had to take pictures before that happened. She just looked too cute.

Yes, we've had some snowfall before now, but this is the first real snow fall that we could play in. The kids got all bundled up and headed outside. Lex is sitting on the beginnings of the boys' snow fort. That's as far as it got since the next day warmed up and melted it all.

Doug threw a small snow glob at Lex and here she is trying to give it back

Evan decided to go down the slide

So I'm thinking our life must be really boring when the highlight of our Saturday is the cutting down of the tree in our front yard. This tree was huge and a nuisance. This past spring as I was trying to plant a flower garden right by my house I found roots from said tree growing right up next to the foundation not to mention popping up all over the yard. The decision was made it had to go. Doug was going to cut it down, but I think someone didn't want him to. Every time he tried to climb up to test the waters so to speak the wind would blow like crazy. So we hired someone and you know what? No wind when he cut it down. Anyway here we go with the cut down.

Standing tall

Getting limned

Topped off

More and more getting cut

All down on the ground

Now next spring when the roots try to send up sprouts everywhere, we will cut a layer off the remaining truck and liberally apply Roundup to get soaked up and thus kill the tree roots and all. Yes, I'm a little nuts cause this is exiting for me. That tree was a bain in my life and I'm glad to be rid of it.

Another sibling married and I had the pleasure of being there with her as she got ready. The wedding is over now the reception to plan and carry out.

Getting her hair done

Here I am Jeff. Come take me away!

This year we decided to have a small Halloween party for the kids. We live out in the country and it is real hard to go trick or treating unless we want to drive to town and I really didn't want to do that this year. The party was my solution. The kids could eat, have fun, and get candy from the treasure hunt.

Some of the food we ate:

Mummies, Fingers, Bones, Witches Brooms, Grapes, and Chessy Pumpkins

We had a couple of activities for everyone to do. We read stories, made bookmarks, played pin the cat on the broom, and as mentioned a treasure hunt,

Ben and Chris are getting to the age of sports participation. Now I don't know why but for some reason Doug has stated that each child needs to complete 2 sports per year. Here it is already November with that statement hanging over us and we have yet to enroll in one sport. I'm not a fan of trying to do two sports at once like soccer and baseball in the spring. So when I saw the handout for a three day basketball camp I jumped on it and said it counted as one of the sport requirements for the year. The boys love it. They each received a t-shirt and a basketball. Thing is it only cost $30 for each of them. I think the shirts and balls cost at least that much but I'm not complaining. These are shots of the first practice.

Look at that form!

Pumpkins everywhere at least the guts seemed to be everywhere. We decorated 5 pumpkins this year and some of them were huge. We got them from my dad's garden and were able to get big ones. They just don't sell them huge at the stores. Evan and Alexis decided to paint theirs while Ben, Chris, and Doug carved theirs. It took a total of 3 nights to get them all done, but we finished before Halloween so thats what counts.

Lexie painting her pumpkin

Finished look

Evan painting his pumpkin

Finished look

Daddy and Lex gutting the pumpkin

Chris gutting his pumpkin

Ben gutting his pumpkin

Their finished work