Mama On The Move

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'"?