Trimming the Tree!

 Initially the kids said no tree till December.  But they changed their minds!  It required cleaning out the shed so the treadmill could be moved there so there would be room for the tree. But we got that done.  And the Tree went up!

Feeling festive!

Big Yellow made an appearance.  There was some talk about leaving him under the tree, but the kids were too creeped out to do that. 

Callie was an excellent tree-fluffer. 

 Levi wanted in on the action.

 Delaney wanted to put all the photo ornaments up properly.

My new favorite ornament!  I got it made when I went to Miyajima with my Iwakuni friends back in September. 

 Negotiating what goes where.

Totally not posed! 

Someone thinks they are so clever. 

 She even smiled for me!

Hamming it up with the star.

And Callie wanted to pose with Levi and the finished product.

Student Council and Callie

 Callie joined the Student Council and they had a little ceremony for it.  It was wonderful- super short, well said, and there was punch and cookies after.

Waiting to start.

Callie doing her thing. 

The teacher talked about how each of them was a piece of the puzzle that made the picture and each kid put in a piece of the puzzle to represent their part. 

 The finished puzzle.

Fun Park? Yes Please!

 Marian and I went out shopping a bit ago and drove past a fun park. She wanted to check it out, so we went back to play.  All 4 girls came and had a marvelous time.

Waving from the balcony.

See, isn't it fun looking?!  It really was. 

Much fun was had on the slide. 

 And with several ways to get to the top, it was endlessly entertaining.

 There were some shenanigans.

It was tiring work though. 

The slide is set in this circle and you can climb up it several ways.  And there is the smaller slide as well.  So you could climb stairs, mountain climb, or take a ramp.  That's Delaney and Rylee dashing off to it after coming for a drink. 

This kid may have had too much fun! 

And this kid came and lay down and whined till I made everyone else go home.  To be fair, she did spike a fever that evening and puke her guts out, but right here and now in this photo, she ruined everyone else fun. Poor kid.

Happenings

A happy Levi.  He loves his people! 

Dan really really wanted to go to Shakey's Pizza and I did not.  Thankfully Rylee had an early release from school and he took her out. The enjoyed it immensely. 

I had suspected that the fridge was not functioning properly, but coupon;t say for sure until I got a thermometer for it.  It documented that the fridge was very broken. So I called Maintenance and they came to fix it.  They discovered it was not fixable and brought me a new one! (Well, new to me.)

The bag of food I had to throw away.  The fridge had probably been in the "too warm" area for weeks, but now that I KNEW it was too warm.... well, I couldn't eat it then.

I needed a photo of all the kids and realized I did not have one!  So I made them go out so I could take one.  They whined that the sun was too bright.

So we moved to the shade.

And then we had to add Levi.

Honor Roll

 I got to be at the middle school at 7:25am for Delaney's award assembly.  I made it but it was close!  I love the way they do them here-  Fast and simple!  6th Graders from 7:25- 7:45, 7th Graders from 7:50-8:10, and 8th Graders from 8:15- 8:35.  Granted, I had some extra time in there since I don't have a 7th grader, but I have friends and got to chat, so it was all good.  Both these girls had great grades, and Callie was one of about 6 kids to get all A's in the 8th grade.  They are awesome girls and I was proud of them.

Happy 243rd Birthday Marines!

 On Friday they held the Pageant at the theater.  Dan and I invited the missionaries and we attended it.  It was pretty awesome.  Well, it is the Marine Corps Birthday Pageant, so how could it be anything but awesome?! I thought it was pretty cool that they had the high school JROTC cadets doing the uniforms thru the years.  The cake cutting was nice to see, and I suddenly thought that perhaps I should take a picture of it.

My sole photo of the Pageant.  

Friday evening was out Ball.  As we were heading out, Dan realized he needed to put the trash cans in.  So he did that.  And I was amused.

Delaney took this photo for us.

And we got a selfie at the Ball!

Recent Happenings

Delaney went in for a sleep study.  Dan went with her and sent this photo.  He said she really wasn't as distressed as it looks in this photo.  The sturdy went well (for her!  Dan had to sleep on the floor), and we will pick up the results this week. 

We celebrated the end of the school quarter with lunch out in town.  We tried a new restaurant that was full-on Japanese. 

When you walked in, you picked your food and paid at a machine.  We were a little unsure about some things, so we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.  It was the best! Everyone was delighted with their meal.  So much so that I only took these three pictures.

On the left is delicious tonkatsu (breaded and fried to perfection!) chicken in fried rice with an egg cracked on it as it is served, so the egg cooks in the hot dish.  And on the right is yummy curry rice and tonkatsu chicken.  It was so good! 

This is the result of 3 hours of rolling change with two other ladies.  The middle school PTO (of which I am a part) is raising money through "Penny Wars" and the kids dump all their change into jars in their homeroom.  Apparently we did not think through this idea.....  On the plus side, it has made $400 in 2 weeks. But rolling 4500 pennies and yennies is incredibly tedious!

This is my face when my sister sends a surprise care package!

Halloween

 Callie stayed in to pass out candy.  She likes to do that. Marian doesn't like people, so she hung out in the back bedroom with her book.  Josh ran off to the library to do homework in peace.  Delaney had a friend she went out with, which left me and Rylee.  I walked Rylee the 1/2 mile to her friend Maggie's house and then we traipsed all over the neighborhood. I do love that the base mandate was Trick or Treating Hours were 6-8pm.  It was nice to know exactly when you could start and when it was over.  We did a LOT of walking, and hauled in a lot of candy.

Rylee is a bat. We made her the cute wings with some awesome spiderweb fabric that Delaney donated to the cause.  Rylee was delighted with the result.

Can you guess who Delaney is?!! If you have watched the Disney Zombies movie, then you know she is Zed.  I thought she did a fabulous job on her costume! And her hair id totally green.

A too-dark photo of Rylee and Maggie.

A Doggie Tale

 What is Levi looking at?!

Callie's food! 

So, Callie loves Levi. But she loves all animals.  And she talked us into another foster project.  We did not make a wise decision.  We let her say yes to the first dog needing a foster home.  In her defense, it did meet our requirements- potty trained and kennel trained.  Unfortunately, we need to add "not a marker" to the list.

We were suppose to meet the lady with the foster organization at 4:30.  She was late, so the girls killed time.

We ended up with Briggs.  He is super cute and pretty sweet.  But he does not know how to be a dog. 

This was the closest he and Levi got.  Briggs simply did not care about Levi at all.   

 Briggs is a cute dog. And he did not bark, or get into the trash, or chew stuff. He does have epilepsy, and he has medications for it.  But he still had 3 seizures in 3 hours on Halloween.  So that was a learning experience. 

It took him a couple days to warm up enough to snuggle or to let us pet him much. 

He was a spaz in the car.  He had to be buckled in or he'd climb all over the car and on you and if the windows were open, there was a strong concern that he would jump out.  

The downside to this cute face is that he felt the need to pee on every wall and corner and door to mark it as his territory. And he was sneaksy!  I would find sprinkles of pee everywhere, no matter how well I thought I had watched him. Sneasky!! 

He did not show the belly till day 5.  And while he was very sweet, it was not enough to make up for the peeing all over.  I do not like cleaning up pee! Especially when it isn't something he would easily train out of. 

But oh, he was a nice little dog, aside from that!

Fortunately, we had committed to take him for only a week.  And they were able to find him another foster family in that time.  So we had him Monday to Monday.  And I'm not going to lie, I was glad to see his pee-sprinkling self go.  Especially once I discovered he had left a parting gift.  Somehow in the 15 minutes I had left Marian and Callie's bedroom door open, he had snuck in there and marked the laundry basket (of clean clothes!!). The little bugger.  We discovered the wet spot after they came home from school, hours after he had left.