Holiday Burn-Out...

 The thing about living in an International Foreigners Community is that you get to celebrate each and every single last Holiday ever invented in the History of mankind.

Holiday 1: Canadian Thanksgiving. Canooks are thankful too right? I have no pics of this event. Sorry guys...

Holiday 2: Korean Cheosuk. Second largest Holiday in Korea. Kind of a homecoming/harvest celebration. No school, no work for like 5 days. This is when we went camping:

Holiday 3: Pirates Day. It got it's own blog entry... I'm sure you remember it.

Holiday 4: Halloween!

 Holiday 5: Australia's Melvin Cup (Melbourne Cup? Melvin Cup? Some kind of cup...) It's a big horse race and you have to wear a silly hat and then bet. I bet on some lame dark horse called Americain (cuz you NEVER underestimate an American Underdog am I right?) and won the whole thing. Oh yeah, won like 160,000 Won or something and got a SWEET pink running jacket at the Nike store. I call it my Melvin Cup Jacket.

 Holiday 6: Guy Fawkes Night. This is a cool holiday the Brits celebrate. Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the houses of parliment and kill the Queen. So every year since they drink, eat soup, and burn him in effigy. WE NEED a Holiday where we burn someone in Effigy. Maybe if we finally find Osama Bin Laden we can burn his likeness and have a toast yearly. Think about it and get back to me...

 Teddy at Guy Fawkes night. Lots of soda and sparklers too! The kids had a blast!

 Holiday 7: The Indian Festival of Diwali. This is a festival of light and it goes on for like 2 weeks. They had a big party/show/food fest at the clubhouse. Here's me with my Diwali greeting dot. It has rice stuck in it.

Teddy receives his Diwali greeting:

 Here's my friend Jayshree with her 2 kiddos. She is a Canadian of Indian descent but came here from Houston so she was able to tell me a lot about the holiday.

 Holiday 8: American Thanksgiving!! We celebrated one day early with the Smith Family since Jeff had to work late on Thursday night. We had smoked turkey legs and chicken, craisins, mashed potatoes and squash, and kind of a make-shift green bean casserole, but we got an AWESOME pumpkin pie from Costco. Can't believe they had it here!

So if you're doing the math, that's almost a special event per week since we've been home. Add on Hashes, Quiz Nights, PTA events, 10K races, Flik trips, half marathon training, and good-bye coffee mornings and you begin to get how crazy busy it is around here. My friend Hayley got Pneumonia and checked into the hospital just so she could have a week off! So we're looking forward to Christmas but also an end to this insane Holiday season. Hope all of you back home had a wonderful Thanksgiving with REAL cranberry sauce! Love to all!

Jeff in Rhode Island!

OK, so back to our summer adventures. The day Jeff was to arrive in RI I took Abbi and Sasha for a pedicure. They insisted on sitting together which the salon lady thought was hysterical. She said that it was like doing a pedicure on a 20 toed alien.

Then Jeff made it home! The day after he arrived we kept it mellow and had a nice summer BBQ with the extended family.

 

Hey! How did Auntie Karen end up at the kids table?

Next day we went to our favorite spot and dug up steamers! If you've never dug them before it's hysterical. You go down at low tide to a rocky muddy area and just throw a rock  anywhere from 1-3 feet in front of you. Where ever you see squirts you dig and get a lovely steamer clam. My problem is (like with any type of gathering ie berry picking ect...) that once I begin my quest I have a hard time walking away so I'm usually the one going "um hum, yup, I'm done... just a minute.... just have to check this oooone last spot..." until everyone gets fed up and walks away.

We got a ton! (Jeff has the bag) and they were delicious! (but my fingernails smelled like low tide for a few days).

We got in plenty of good beach days. The Rhode Island beaches are the best in New England if you ask me.

And then we got invited to go up to the lake at Uncle George's house.

Kids were so happy to see their Dad that they were all over him much of the time.

The boys! Teddy and Ryan. A hard day of fishing and swimming sure makes you work up an appetite!

And of course, the princesses, Sasha, Abbi, and Sarah.

We had tons of good luck fishing:

Sooo excited! BTW, is Teddy the most ripped 4 year old ever or what? I swear he's got a BMI of like .02.

Sasha caught one!

And so did Abbi! Ryan got one too, but I missed it. Sorry Ry Guy.

On Jeff's last night we went to a new pizza restaurant in town. They have a menu item for kids where you get to make your own pizza and then they collect it from you and cook it. Sasha loooooved this.

Needs more cheese Ted....

Next Summer entry:
A few days without the kids in Block Island!

Halloween!

Halloween in the compound was pretty fun. This year we had a fairy and a ghost in the family. Teddy was very clear that he HAD to be a ghost with a raggety torn edge, and he had to say "Bwahahah!!" Which apparently is a very scary ghostly sound. Here are the 2 of them ready to go out the door:

Let's fill this sucker!

Seriously. I cracked up every time I looked at him. What a character!

My buddy Zoe was a super scary ZOMBIE. Like you've all seen Zoe before - she's gorgeous. She was such a hideous Zombie I could barely look at her!

The kids had trick or treat maps that showed them stops where people were hosting a trick or treat stations. The guard shacks even participated!

Jeff hosted a trick or treat station and then dressed like a scary killer and GOT IN THE TRUNK! All through trick or treating I got text messages from parents about how their kids were gonna need therapy now.

My kids were in heaven of course.....

This fairy is ready to fly!

Teddy marched through trick or treating like he was gonna get an award if he was the first one done. ON A MISSION doesn't even begin to describe it. Maybe he thought he would get to lap it twice if he did it quickly....

Wait for us Ted!

Sasha met up with her friends Tanaisha and Naomi and they finished their trick or treating together.

Jeff meanwhile had tons of candy when everyone else had run out because some kids were too terrified to get near him!

Teddy got a bunch of candy to eat and then I put all his candy in the car while we hung out at the Halloween disco. Then I couldn't find him. Guess where he was?

The next night was the Halloween party for the grown-ups. The theme was Heroes and Villains.

Self portrait. What would have happened if we had gotten pulled over by the Korean authorities. How do you say "We are here to fight crime" in Korean?

Julian was Freddy Kruger. Terrifying.

Zoe was Cruella DeVille

Sam:

Kellee and Dale were the Hulk and Laura Croft.

Me and Zoe.

Captain America buys a round. We went to this other place because we were told that there was a Halloween party there. We showed up and were the only people in costume. Good thing there were a lot of us. We're like mobile party!

See what I mean?

Boston and Block

 After VA beach we had a week before Jeff came to join us in Rhode Island. We decided to go up to Boston for 2 days to see Aunt Tara and Marcy! They took us to a really cool playground that had this out of control spinner contraption. Sasha was really good at it!

 Whoa!! The whole world is spinning!

Then Teddy got on. He spun so fast that he immediately started screaming and had to be rescued!

 The next day we went to the Boston Museum of Science. I did my Ed.M project there so it was almost like coming home for me. We found out that Marcy would be totally squashed flat if the T-Rex's were still around.

 Aaaahhhhh! Save us Mom!! It was so good to see that they finally got rid of that old-school tail-dragging T-Rex. The new one is awesome and very scary. The old one now lives on outside the Museum so don't worry, you won't have to travel far if you miss her.

 The kids LOVED The musical stairs. Of course we loved them too and spent tons of time playing on them while we waited for Imax shows back in the day. We were kind of bigger kids but whatever....

 Sasha's favorite part of the Museum was the science station where she got to do bubble science. She blew a bubble inside a bubble, a square bubble and she even got to hold a bubble!

 Teddy's fav thing in the Museum was the kinetic energy sculpture with the balls. We literally had to go back and watch it 5 different times. Just like his Dad...

 Then it was time to head to Block Island so we had to say "good-bye" to Aunt Tara and Marcy. See you next time guys and thanks for having us!

 We met up with Uncle Timmy who promptly showed Teddy just what he would get if he gave him any lip on the ferry.

 Teddy and Uncle Timmy were reunited at last. They shared many bonding experiences not the least of which was guy yogert time in the morning.

 Our beach set-up. This was the only time all summer that we got to see Auntie Andreea, Luca, and Uncle Will. It was so good to see them!

 Timmy, who just started his own business, managed to get in a full working day including payroll for his crew all from the beach. Seriously you gotta love his style.

 And he still had time to play with his niece and nephews! Sasha got taught the hand slapping game...

 ...and got promptly schooled by her Uncle!

 Then she was off to boogie-board! All that practice in VA beach paid off in Block, and there were a few days where the waves were so big we were a bit afraid to take the board out.

 Then we buried Ted....

 And then Ted buried Sasha (which he quite enjoyed...)

 Then the boys took at nap.

 After about 1 hour plus of sleeping, it was almost 5pm. Andreea, Will and Luca were long gone and Tim, Sasha and I were getting hungry. Tim took Teddy for a beach drag to wake him up.

 Except it didn't work! He dragged him all over the beach and then up onto someone elses sandcastle and the kid was still out!

 We all met up and had a great dinner before heading back for a final Block Island sleep before leaving in the morning.

 Bye Uncle Will, Auntie Andreea and Luca! Maybe we'll catch up with you in Texas!

 The next morning we headed onto the ferry for our trip to the Mainland. We were sad to leave Block Island but so excited because Daddy was flying from South Korea to Rhode Island and we knew that we were going to pick him up that night!

Next time: More adventures in RI!