Mama On The Move

Kerry recently attended a briefing for Marines who will be deploying to Afghanistan. A small booklet was handed out containing handy phrases they might need to know in case they need to interact with the local populace. Included are the pronunciations in Pashtu for common sentences. The first page includes: Do not move or the Marines will kill you. A Marine will come to you and search you. Do not move unless told to do so. If you advance further, the Marines will kill you. Stay away from the Marines. If you advance any closer, we will be forced to use deadly force. Marines will kill anyone who is a threat to us. And at the bottom of the page, they learn to say: The Marines are here to help you.

I have a black shirt that I love. It's comfortable and I wear it a lot. But it hasn't come through the last few laundry cycles and I guessed it had probably wound up in someone else's drawer. Emily was sitting at the computer when I came in the room and said, "Have you seen my favorite black shirt, I can't find it anywhere and...............are you wearing it?" She looked down at herself and back up at me and said, "Oh yeah, I guess I am!" "I've been looking for that everywhere!" "Well, I'm glad you found it!"

Ben and Katie were both in a dance recital last week. Katie takes hip-hop and Ben takes ballroom. The ballroom dance was the Cha-Cha this year. He is dancing with his real life girlfriend, Noelle. Ben has been taking ballroom for a couple of years now. Katie only just started hip-hop classes about six weeks ago. When she started the class, the other students had already started learning the recital dance and they had quite a head start on Katie. As soon as she learned about the recital, of course, she wanted to be in it. Baby likes a chance to shine. I was opposed to her jumping on the recital bandwagon. "There are only six classes before the recital, I don't know if that's enough time for you to learn the dance." She begged and pleaded, we discussed it with her teacher, and he said as long as she knew the dance, she could be in the recital. Thanks, teach! Fortunately he had uploaded a video of the dance to you tube and Katie practiced it every day until she...

Something about Ben's post-operative head gear seemed vaguely familiar to me. Then when I went to the grocery store, I realized what it was!

Ben had all four wisdom teeth removed today. They were impacted and had to come out, so we took a deep breath and did it. Ben told us later he didn't even have time to get nervous. They had him breathe laughing gas first and he never even felt the IV go into his arm. He liked the fact that the laughing gas made his voice deeper. He said he asked them several times when they would knock him out. The next thing he knew, Kerry and I were in the room and it was all over. He kept laughing when we first walked in the room. Several times he said, "I don't remember anything!" Then he would laugh. He suddenly patted himself all over. When I asked what he was doing, he said, "Just making sure I have everything." Then he laughed. He said something about his feet, but we couldn't understand him. Then he laughed. He tried talking a lot, but his mouth was full of gauze and we really had no idea what he was saying. We just laughed when he laughed, and he...

December is a very intense month for my kids. Packages are arriving in the mail on a nearly daily basis and they are aquiver with curiosity about what's in those boxes. Today a box arrived, I opened it and checked the contents, then immediately closed it and headed off to hide it. "Christmas presents?" Katie asked hopefully. "It's just a box full of coal and switches," I told her. She nodded her head toward Emily and told me wisely, "I knew she was going to get some."

I always hoped that my children would love and protect each other, but I've come to accept that most siblings simply can't resist picking on and competing with each other. Katie was making a video of herself (we have millions of videos Katie has made of herself - and pictures too!) which was amusing enough in itself but then you hear Ben and Emily arguing in the background because Ben caught Emily taking a bite of a brownie which was made with real butter instead of the dairy free version I usually make. For those of you who are immediately thinking how mean I am to make brownies that Emily wouldn't be allowed to eat, I didn't make them, Ben's girlfriend did because they wanted to cook together and he made a chicken casserole and she made brownies and I wonder if they were imagining that's what it would be like to be married because that's what I did when I made hot dogs for my college boyfriend and I thought it would be so much fun to cook for my husband on...

Katie: "If our food was still alive while it was in our stomachs, would it be able to read our thoughts?"

I made a giant platter of deviled eggs this year for Thanksgiving. We love them, and all the folks at our Thanksgiving get together were delighted to have them. This morning Kerry mentioned that he only got two of them. "I know, I wish we had more," I remarked. Then it dawned on me. "You know, we could make more. I don't know why we don't have them more often. I made that whole platter, it's not like we don't know where they come from." "Yeah," Kerry said, "It's like we think the deviled egg bird has to fly in the house and lay deviled eggs on the counter!" The stork has a new career apparently.

Once again, we went to the mess hall for Thanksgiving. Although, nowadays it's called the DFAC. I like to go because I can get all the food I don't have room to make at home. I only have enough oven space to make ham or turkey and three casseroles (green bean, sweet potato, and corn bread). At the DFAC I can get all that plus fish, prime rib, kalua pig, and crab legs. The kids always really enjoy this part of Thanksgiving, particularly for the crab legs. This year, we were some of the first people in the door and the crab legs were huge! By the time we left, the people coming through the line had crab legs about the size of a finger. The carnage was terrible. But as a military family, we are used it. Then we (I) strolled around and checked out all the decorations like the ice sculptures..... ....the sparkling cider table.... ....the general overindulgence table.... ....cool cakes.... ....and chocolate sculptures. The decorations are always very impressive..... ....well,...

Emily has completed her acoustic guitar lessons. Her teacher informed her that there are really only a few things left that he can teach her and asked if she would like to start bass guitar lessons. She was very excited over the idea of a guitar which could be plugged into an amp with a volume control set to the "shatter windows" setting. Her teacher had told us that the local music store sometimes has a package deal where they bundle the guitar and amp together for a discounted price. So, Emily and I headed over there on Saturday to see what sort of deal we could get. The store is closing and moving to a new location, so they are selling off a lot of their stock at discounted prices which we were hoping would benefit us. As soon as we walked in, one of the store employees came over and asked us if we needed help. "Yes," I told him. I explained that Emily was about to start bass guitar lessons and that we needed a bass and amp and that we had heard they sometim...

Yesterday we went hiking to the Lanikai Pillboxes over on the windward side. I was assured that this one was much easier than the easy hike we had been on before. No handholds needed, no cliffs to climb while hanging on to a rope. That's my kind of hike. We all gathered together to start our hike at five o'clock in the afternoon. Our main purpose in starting so late was to climb to the top and then watch the full moon rise. We've been waiting quite a while for a night when the weather was good, and when the moon was not already up, or only had a crescent showing. Of course, once we were all ready to go, one of the teens who has been on this hike before mentioned, "Yeah, there's just a couple of parts where the trail is so narrow it's like, if you step too far to the right, you die. If you step too far to the left, you die." What?? As it turns out, we weren't going to be hiking along a regular trail, but along a ridge . I wasn't pleased to be hear...

I was buying groceries today when my phone beeped indicating a new voicemail. I don't get a good signal in the store so my phone never rings but will occasionally take a message for me. The voicemail from Emily went something like this, "Hi mom...I love you and you are the best mother in the world! I just want to remind you that I've never made less than an 'A' in my life and I'm a very dedicated student. I'm also good at sports and really good at the guitar. I'm thrifty and I save most of my babysitting money, just like you've taught me." At that point, my phone had decided it didn't want to be my secretary any longer and it cut her off. I assumed that she was probably trying to butter me up into buying candy or something while I was at the store, and I laughed to myself. But since I had no signal, I couldn't call to confirm what it was she wanted, and I promptly forgot about it in the excitement of discovering some unexpected c...

When you go to Starbucks, they ask your name and write it on your cup when you order. Apparently, I don't pronounce "Amy" clearly enough. When I got my drink, I thought, "Who on earth would think that my parents would name me 'Namie'"? Then someone pointed out to me that the barrista was probably writing my name on my cup and thinking, "Who on earth would name their kid 'Namie'"?

I saw this idea on a craft site and thought it would be fun (and easy) to do for Halloween. We each took an empty milk jug, drew a ghost face on it, and put battery operated tea lights in it. I thought they were really cute, and I love how each member of my family put their own spin theirs. But Ben told me we just look like we are too poor to afford a pumpkin!

Kerry's unit had a Powderpuff football game this week. That's where the women play flag football. I was asked if I would like to play. No, I would not. I did go watch, but I have no desire to break a knee or throw my back out. Let the younger women participate. Besides, I really just go to look at the cheerleaders. Jumping around in their short skirts and combat boots.... It takes a secure man to wear a kilt!

I know this doesn't even look real, but this is an actual chameleon that one of the kids at church found in the bushes today. He was not particularly pleased to be shown about the inside of the building and rolled his eyes at all of us a lot. Now, I'm going to be completely freaked out that there might be more of those bad boys around here somewhere.

We went camping on the North Shore. Our friends at church have been renting this same house for one weekend a year for seventeen years. It's right on the beach and we have bathrooms and a kitchen. There are also bedrooms, but I don't think anyone actually used them. The yard is big enough for all of us to set up our tents. Our own personal Taj Mahal had a great ocean view. We brought the air mattresses with us because the last time I slept on the ground I could barely move the next day. Cots or air mattresses are not optional if you want me to stay. Which is kind of funny, because I didn't spend Friday night out there. I went to see "The Phantom of the Opera" with some friends and left for the campsite Saturday morning. So it was just Kerry and the kids. Except Kerry had to go in to work at 1:00 in the morning and didn't get back out to the camp until 5:00 Saturday morning. So it was just the kids. And Ben and Emily decided to sleep on the beach. So i...

We went camping last weekend with a group of about thirty people from our church. Each family signed up to take care of making one specific meal. We joined together with another family to make breakfast Saturday morning and Kerry volunteered to take on dessert for Saturday night. Each family also signed up to bring paper goods which we would all share. I spent the day gathering...... ...two water coolers, two air mattresses, paper towels, toilet paper, coffee cups, water cups, tin foil, flashlights, the tent, a ground cover, blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, sunscreen, bug spray, beach toys, beach towels, folding chairs, a pop up tent to act as a covered porch in case of rain or excessive sunshine, light jackets because it's getting chilly at night, Emily's guitar.... ...charcoal, lighters, a big metal fire pit, ingredients to make breakfast casserole for the entire group, ingredients to make dessert for the entire group, dairy-free food for Emily, and snacks for my famil...

This is Katie's favorite favorite pair of pajamas. She refuses to admit that she might have outgrown them, even though she can barely squeeze into them and the top and bottom won't stay touching unless she constantly tugs on them. I'm not sure why she added the fur-topped socks to this particular ensemble unless it was just to add some pizzaz.

A sunny spot is a happy place. *Yawn*