Th-th-th-Thanksgiving!!!!

We had such a lovely Thanksgiving. My parents flew in after a week long vacation in Branson Missouri. They spent five wonderful days with us and we had a ton of fun. (And yes all you jealous siblings out there, I was completely and totally spoiled!!!!) It was a blast. My dad fixed all kinds of little things in our apartment, including turning around my washer that was annoyingly turned around. We also went shopping, cooked tons of yummy food, went shopping, played lots of games, went shopping, and bought a huge Christmas tree. We had a blast. I think my parents were so ready to get home and close their wallets by the end of the week but we had an absolute blast, "thanks mom and dad", "thanks mom and dad", thanks mom and dad". E. was sick most of the week which put a damper on things but he is better now and back to his crazy fun ways. Here are a few pictures for your viewing entertainment!

The crew working hard for their dinner.

The lovely spread...mmmm...

Our fabulous new tree! Yeah for Christmas!



On my parents last day out here we took them to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, it was incredible and so much fun! They have everything, Van Gogh, Monet, Serat, Degas - it was fabulous.

The day after my parents left we decided to go with some cute friends to see the move Australia. I LOVED this movie. It was sad and funny and suspenseful and just wonderful. I would give it four and a half stars. It was great and lovely and wonderful and just go see it. (Make sure you look for the really goofy shot of Hugh Jackman riding his horse, it's great.) Then we went out for Sushi that was just great. It was really fun! Thanks everyone for such a fabulous and wonderful week. Love you mom and dad, thanks for coming out and spoiling us so much!

Question of the Week...

Here is this weeks thought provoking question of the week! Remember that we're meeting December 11, linked right here from this blog. We're reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel and I hope you're all reading and loving the book! (Caution: Spoiler Alert - this question gives away a bit of the plot!)

Pi's story of surviving on a lifeboat with zoo animals is rather incredible. Did the far-fetched nature of the story ever bother you? Was Pi a convincing storyteller?

Food for thought...

Country Christmas Boutique!

Tomorrow marks the 19th annual Country Christmas Boutique put on by M.'s fabulous family. Every year they have a great big boutique (normally at my Mother-in-law's house) with all kinds of crafts and food and absolute fun. I love all the excitement and fun that's involved with the boutique. So many hours and sleepless nights and time spent together, I am really missing it this year and my heart is kind of aching. I just needed to let everyone involved know that I miss you and I wish I was there. For those of you not involved, you should be - go - it's a ton of fun. It's tomorrow and the next day (Friday and Saturday) at the Whitear barn (if you want to know more about the location contact me and I'll get you the info). It's so much fun and you won't be sorry! I wish I could be there. I don't know how to start the holidays without the boutique!

Jolene

Everyone seems to be posting about him and I don't want to be left out, nor do I want to ignore how cool it is that he once resided in my hometown and was friends with my brother. You can check out the other posts about him here, here, and here. As far as I've heard, Ray LaMontagne you deserve all the fame in the world and more.

Question of the Week

So I thought I would give everyone reading Life of Pi with me a question every week to be thinking of (thanks M. for the idea). These are questions we can discuss later but you can either answer now by posting a comment or you can just be thinking about it and let it guide you a little bit in your reading (or remembering, if you already read it). So this weeks question is...
Pi considers himself a convert to Christianity, Islam and Hinduism? Is it possible to practice all three faiths faithfully? What is Pi's reasoning in not choosing one?
Something to think about...

Visitors from Utah!

So I haven't posted some pics of E. for awhile and I thought I would give you all a little treat of when his super cute Tia and Tio came to visit. Tio Marcos got a great shot here of his "bum leg" (it gets stuck in his pj's and he doesn't care, just keeps movin' and scootin'.)

Tio Marcos was holding him in the most ridiculous position and E. was so chill, he didn't care, bringin' out the suave in all positions!

He looks so old!! Yes, my little baby is almost 1 and he looks like it! He is super grumpy in this picture because he was still recovering from the food poisoning we all got to share before our lovely visitors came. He's cute even with food poisoning.

I tried to upload a video of E. and his Dadda dancing and singing and playing the guitar with Tio Marcos but it didn't work. We sadly didn't really take any pictures of our visitors so these are courtesy of our guests and they didn't leave any with Tia Mia in them. (Sorry Mia.) I would love more pics that you took guys if you would send them on over!

Caution: Big Curves!

Life of Pi

So, our first book is going to be "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. I'm really excited about this book, it's so big right now and I've been wanting to read it for quite awhile. I haven't decided on a for sure date yet because I'm not sure what night of the week is good for everyone. If you have a preference please let me know and I will plan for that. Right now I am planning on Thursday nights and possibly December 11. If that doesn't work for you post a comment and let me know what will. I'm really excited about this, I think it will be really fun so if any of you are interested at all and haven't let me know yet please do so I can plan on you being there!
I'm going to work out a book list for a few months in advance so if any of you students want to read up during Christmas break you can still be involved, I will let you know what they will be.

BOOK CLUB!!!!!

Ok everyone, if you have been checking out my blog for awhile you know that I LOVE to read. If I don't have a book that I am currently reading I feel like I'm going crazy. I have always wanted to be in a good fun book club where we can discuss the books and enjoy interesting reading from all genres. SO...after a conversation with my cute friend Chelsea, we decided to start an online book club. Anyone can join. Men, women, children, dogs, anyone really that likes to read and can type. What we will do is read the book (suggestions are welcome) then on a specified day we will all go to a chatroom (linked from this site - again any suggestions are welcome, we're still trying to figure that part out) and we can discuss the book. I am so super excited and I think it will really be a blast. I have a few ideas for some books but I would love some suggestions, otherwise I will just put up the name of the book that we will be reading and we can go from there. I figure it will take us about a month to read the book so I will announce it later this week as well as the date for our first book club "meeting". You can even come to the meeting in your pj's, your underwear, or dressed as Cleopatra, how cool is that? If you like to read please let me know that you want to join, I'm not exactly sure how the chat room will work but I might need to know names. Keep checking to see what the book will be!

Election Day

Yes we can!

Here is huge post about this past week. M. found out last week that his beautiful Aunt Norma passed away. She has been a big part of his life and we loved her so much. We decided that it was really important to us to go home and be at the funeral. Norma did so much for us as a family and we wanted to tell her goodbye. We love you Norma and we know that you are so much happier - I hope you're dancing you saucy lady!

Here is E. on the airplane. He was such a wonderful baby the whole way there and the way home. He mostly flirted with all the women on the plane and then slept the rest of the time. This is him being so macho in his own seat. What a big boy!

M. loves looking out the window while we're flying so he shared his love with his son and we could barely tear him away. Like father - like son.

We flew out on Halloween, (I recommend this to anyone planning on flying this time next year! The planes were empty and everyone was so nice, it was lovely!) so naturally we had to dress up right after arrival and go save the world! (Da na na na, da na na na BATMAN!!!!) This was the only picture we got with his mask on, he wouldn't leave it on.

These were some of the cute cousins that were down for the funeral. How cute right?!

And finally, here is a picture of E. wearing his Grandpa's glasses. Every grandchild has an official "grandparent glasses on the baby" picture in our family. It was time to bring E. into the tradition. What a goof ball.

Well, that concludes our picture show. We had a lovely trip, packed full of visiting family and friends. Thanks everyone for taking time out of your schedules to come and see us. All of you that we didn't get to see (Kels!) you just need to plan a trip out here to come see us. We love you all and miss you already. Thanks for the fun and all the candy (I have already gained way too much weight from all the good eating we did!)