Explosive Airheads

Did you know if you put Airheads candy in your carry-on baggage, every time it goes through a scanner the airport security will think you have explosives in your bag? Neither did we...until today. Yes, it's true my friends, and I'm posting this to save you the trouble. Some friends came to see us today, and before they came they asked if there was anything the kids wanted. The kids said they wanted Airheads, the taffy-like candy. So this sweet friend of ours bought a Cosco-sized box of Airheads candy, and he put it in his carry on. Evidently, Airheads looks a LOT like the putty that is used for explosive material. This sweet man was taken by security in two separate airports over the Airheads candy! He eventually got here safely, and so did the Airheads! Our friend's advice to other travelers is to put Airheads in your check-in baggage. Who would've thunk it?

the coveted toilet chore

Summer break started last week, and so did our summer chore chart. We sat down last Sunday night and handed each child his/her chore chart. We talked through each child's responsibilities, and we had a most unusual and unexpected response. We started with the youngest and went over Emma's chores...things like watering flowers, sweeping the balcony, and making her bed. With each child, the chores became a little more complex. Last but not least we came to David's chores. One of his chores was scrubbing the toilets. When Abby and Annie heard that David got this responsibility, they said, "No fair! I wanted to do that! Why does David get to scrub the toilets? Why can't we do that?" Since Emma saw that this was a coveted job, she began to beg to scrub the toilets as well. Mike and I were completely bewildered. We quickly reassured the girls that we would switch the chores around every couple of weeks so everyone got a chance to scrub the toilets. This made everyone very happy. I'm still perplexed!

David is 12

David turned 12 last week. In honor of his birthday, I'm interviewing him:

1. Favorite food - "Steak, the kind in America."

2. Most boring thing to do - "Nothing."

3. Favorite fruit - "Star fruit"

4. Favorite sport - "Football"

5. What do you think about Michael Jackson? - "Do I have to answer that?"

6. Morning or Night person - "Both"

7. Food you miss from America - "Steak"

8. Favorite subject - "Math"

9. Favorite ride - "Vortex at King's Island"

David is short and to the point on most things. Since he did not elaborate on his questions and gave such vague answers to a slew of other questions I asked but did not print, I thought I'd make a few observations of my own. David is a saver. He saves his allowance and calculates carefully before buying. David is a builder. He creates magnificent things with legos. David is a neattie. He does not have clutter in his room and I rarely have to ask him to clean it. David is a chef. He has cooked entire meals and really enjoys working with me in the kitchen. David is a writer. He has written a novel that is over 70 pages long. David is easy-going and goes with the flow. We rarely hear a complaint from this sweet son. At the age of 10 he moved across the world, and he rarely ever complains about the vast differences or inconveniences. He's easy to love and quick to smile. And even though he said the word "Elmo" before he said "Mommy", I love him with every ounce in my being.

For David's birthday we took him and 9 friends to a local park. They rode go karts, played soccer, had a picnic, played football (which drew admiration from onlooking nationals), and then rode some rides similar to ones at a county fair. Here are a few pictures from the big day.

Life is just a ...

Life is just a ...

Sorry. I just couldn't resist. The cherries are now in season, and we are fully enjoying them. I've learned the hard way that there are 2 kinds of cherries: the sweet kind you eat right off the stem and the super duper sour ones that only the brave at heart eat raw. We have been enjoying both, and the kids' faces were priceless when they unknowingly bit into the sour ones.

The picture above is the super sour ones that are unbelievably delicious when cooked with twice as much sugar and placed in a pie, cobbler, or jam. I went to the open air fresh fruit market today and bought 2 kilos (I'm telling you how many pounds that is...waa haa haa haa) for about 3 dollars. Cha-ching! Last week I made a bunch of cherry jam, and it rocks! Now before you think I'm just really ambitious, I'll have to tell you the jam thing is mainly inspired by my pocketbook (as my Grandmother Tuggle would say). Jam or jelly is around $6 a jar, so even the simplest of minds (yours truly) can do the math on that.



Emma is carefully holding the sour cherry. It's not coming near her mouth.

Happy Father's Day (A Poem by Annie)

With a house full of bookworms, Dr. Seuss happens to be a frequent
favorite book to read. So, partly inspired by Dr Seuss and partly by
Shel Silverstein, Annie decided to wax poetic for my Father's Day
present. Enjoy!

Father's Day, Father's Day, it used to be on the way.
But now I'm really glad to say that Father's Day is today!!

Father's Day is super cool, we might even go to the swimming pool!
The only other rhyming word is mule! (spelled "muel" by Annie)

Father's Day, Father's Day, it used to be on the way.
I'm really glad it's not in May 'cause I'm glad Father's Day is today.

squatty potty laundry room

Almost every home here has a squatty potty bathroom. We have one right off our entry, but we also have 2 western toilets (BIG smile). Because we have a bathroom off our hallway and an itty bitty bathroom off our bedroom, we took the advice of some other foreigners and made our squatty potty bathroom into our laundry room. Otherwise, our washer and dryer would've been in our main bathroom.

Doing this feat required fine electrical skills provided by our American friend several blocks away. Since there are no electrical outlets in the squatty potty bathroom, he made the light fixture serve as the electrical base. Somehow he rigged up the electrical flow through the light fixture.

So we have a power strip dangling behind the washer and dryer, and that's where we plug everything in. It all worked so well for several months. Then, Mike changed the lightbulb. Tragic mistake! Things started to get interesting.

We've had to try various things to get our washing machine, dryer, and light fixture all to function at the same time, but it's quite tricky. We never know what mood they're going to be in, so we have tried a variety of things. The light fixture went out all together a few months ago, and it refuses to give us light. We continue to do laundry in the dark because we can't figure this one out, but we have managed to try a variety of things to get clean clothes...

• The washing machine and dryer typically don't like each other. If they're both on at the same time, they'll flip the breaker so nothing works. So, we only run one machine at a time.
  
• The washing machine and dryer's relationship has so deteriorated that not only do they not want to work at the same time, but they don't even want to be plugged in together. Now we have to unplug the washing machine if we want the dryer to cooperate (and vice versa).
• The washing machine and dryer like the dark. They will not allow the light fixture to work, and sometimes they will not allow the entry hallway light to be on. Sometimes we have to turn off the entry light if we want clean clothes.
• The washing machine is picky about its water. Sometimes it won't add water to the wash unless you manually reach your hand behind the washer and turn the water knob.

Has anyone seen The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars? The cute little toaster goes to Mars where he meets the angry appliances. The evil Wonderluxe appliances devise a plan to blow up earth, led by the Supreme Commander who is a huge refrigerator. My washing machine could've easily been cast as Supreme Commander, with the dryer as his top aid.

I've included some pictures of our electrical wiring and our washer and dryer. Sorry the pictures are so dark...the appliances like the dark and refuse to allow the light fixture to work. I had to use a flashlight to get some sort of light, thus the spotlight.

Emma's Doctor's Visit

No, this is not a horror story from the doctor's office. It is simply Emma trying to talk her way out of treatment!! I (Mike) took her to see the dermatologist last week because she has a wart on the palm of her right hand. She actually wanted to go because it is getting painful. We met the doctor and she offered only one real option for a small child: freeze it off. We explained it to Emma and she was happy to let the doctor "spray her hand and make it cold." That was...until she actually did it!! We told Emma we would count to 5 while the doctor sprayed her hand. After that, we would do it a second time while she counted to 5 and she would be done! Well, after the first time, she was ready to leave. Her hand hurt and was cold, so she pulled out every excuse she could think of and made up some new ones. With big, sad, blue puppy dog eyes, here were some of my personal favorites: "Can my Dad spray it this time?", "I'm thirsty. Can we go to the store and get something to drink?", "Can't we just use an ice cube at home to make it cold?" and "Can I come back with Mommy?"

After running into the doctor's next appointment, we finally had to coax Emma and her juice box into my lap so we could spray her palm a second time.

The real bummer is that it looks absolutely no different! She goes again on Friday - this time with her Mommy!! :-)

Elvis lives

Emma's preschool had an end-of-the-year production. We had no idea what she'd be doing, but we figured it would be singing and dancing. The classes before hers performed some dances from songs of this country. However, when Emma's class took the stage we were surprised that she was dancing to Elvis! Her class did a few other numbers that weren't in English, but we thought you might enjoy watching Jailhouse Rock from Central Asia.

I only posted half of the production to save you the download time :-)

another trip to the grocery

Today I tried a new grocery store. Annie was at a birthday party at an indoor kid's play place, so after I picked her up I went to a new grocery store because it was in the same mall.

Annie wanted to ride in the cart, so I lifted her to ride in the big part. As we entered the store, the security guard stopped me. He taped up my bag from a previous store. Then he handed me the blue cloth thingies we always get at doctor's offices, museums, the preschool, and other public places that allow you to wear shoes as long as you cover them. I looked around, and no one else had the blue cloth thingies on. Through our Tarzan-speak and hand motions, I realized that Annie needed to put them on because she was sitting in the shopping cart. It was completely fine for me to wear my dirty shoes throughout the store, but since Annie was placing her feet where food would go, she had to wear them. Once I finally figured out who was supposed to wear them and why, I put them over Annie's flip flops (which was an awkward fit). The security guard was happy, and I was allowed to proceed. I just smiled and said, "Sorry, we're foreigners." Nothing like stating the obvious.

The trip got even more interesting when we got to the check-out counter. I had enough groceries to last our family of six for a week. After the cashier rang up everthing and I bagged it, there was a problem with the register. After calling two supervisors, I had to take all the food out of the bags and let her ring it up a second time. She did so, but again when it was time to give the final tally, there was a problem at the register. She consulted her two supervisors again, and she explaining to me a lot of things I didn't understand. I just knew she could not finalize the bill yet. So, for the third time she didn't make me unpack my bags, but she took the old receipt and entered every singe item by typing in the bar code number. Abby, Annie, and I sat there and ate the very rare find of donuts ($2 a piece). I offered one to the cashier to lighten things up for her, but she refused. After she entered every single bar code number of every single item in my cart, I was able to pay. However, she was not finished.

At this point, a friend of mine who knows the language very well showed up (I love small towns of 6 million and little run-ins like this). She translated and said there was a problem with the register and the juice boxes. The cashier then had to ring up one juice box at a time, finish each transaction, watch the money drawer open, and then close it. She repeated this action about 30 times. Then I paid her the total sum for the juice boxes.

I think I was at this one register for around 45 minutes.

Annie still had on the blue cloth thingies over her flip flops, I had my 30 juice boxes -each individually transacted, and we merrily went on our way.

KY in The News!

Here is a link from a dear friend who visited KY last year and has not been the same person ever since. He is always up to date on what is happening in the commonwealth!! Here is a link to a great story: http://usatoday.feedroom.com/index.jsp?fr_story=FRdamp275343

In my (Mike) personal opinion, this still does not top the story my brother told me a few years ago. One day while coaching basketball in Bracken County (rural KY for those who do not know), he had 2 players who were unusually late for practice. They were very apologetic, warmed up quickly and joined practice. During a break, Brad asked if everything was OK. They said it was and he asked if they were OK as well. Then, the punch line, "We're sorry we were late, Coach, but we had to help our dad catch the cows that got out when the fence was left open." Oh, I miss the commonwealth and days gone by!! If you know "My Old Kentucky Home", please sing along.........