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Pumpkin Carving Party

Lisa here. It's time to try my online wit once again. So, I'm going to tell the story of our Pumpkin Carving Party through a series of pictures.

A fun thing about living overseas with other Americans is you feel a unique bond when American holidays roll around. Some friends of ours who have access to the base commissary hosted a Pumpkin Carving party. They bought over 30 orange pumpkins for us to carve. We can get pumpkins here, but they're a grayish-green color. So, here's our Pumpkin Carving Party.














Doesn't Mike look in the fall festival mood in his beautiful orange coat? Lookin' good, honey!



















The best part about pumpkin carving.



















Annie and a buddy with her "Angry W Eyebrow" pumpkin.












David and his buddies and their vomiting pumpkin.












We can't get Dr. Pepper or Root Beer here, so this refrigerator was a rare sight for us. Yeah, I took a picture of soft drinks.












After the pumpkin carving, we played a game. Each child received a number, and he/she got to pick an American goody. Our friends who hosted the party have access to the base commissary, and they stocked their home with American goodies.









Good choice, son! David picked 2 cans of icing, orange extract, food coloring, and pumpkin tins for baking cakes. Wow. I was impressed with his choice. The next day we made 2 pumpkin cakes with orange-flavored icing!












Abby's choice was a jumpy spider. Didn't she see the Boo Berry cereal??? Or the Franken Berry cereal??? Where have I gone wrong? A jumpy spider?









Once Annie and Emma saw how cool the jumpy spider was, they BOTH chose jumpy spiders as well. That's a total of 3 jumpy spiders in our house. Didn't they see the fruit roll ups???









After the game was over, Annie changed her mind. She traded her jumpy spider for the Ooz'n Eyeballz. Did I mention there was brownie mix up for grabs, but they chose the jumpy spiders?









After lamenting my girls' poor choices for jumpy spiders, a friend brought me a box of Boo Berry cereal the next day. I don't deserve such friends!!!

Mike's Book of the Year

Thanks to some dear friends here, we have received a copy of the book pictured here. In case your eyes do not work as well as you'd like, the book is entitled In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day.

If you are looking for something to read and don't mind books that confront you and make you uncomfortable, may I recommend this one to you? In short, it talks about how we can be lion CHASERS!

Let me know if you take the plunge and dare to read it!

A Different Kind of Protein

Last night, I (Mike) was craving some walnuts. Thankfully, they are in abundance here and we had some waiting in the pantry. As I opened the jar, a MOTH flew out of the jar and barely missed my mouth!! I quickly squashed the moth and put the lid on the jar. Then, as I looked at the jar, I saw another moth flying inside the jar as he/she/it tried to escape. That is a little more protein than I am needing at this point in life. BTW - in case you are looking at the photo next to this and asking, "What does that have to do with walnuts?", I could not find any pictures of a nut and so I found a picture of 4 nuts!

Worth The Wait?!?!?

I was at the local bank branch this week and picked a number to wait in line like everyone else. (By the way, what are those machines called that spit out the numbers, anyway?!?!?!?!?) I was waiting to add credit on our gas card to heat our apartment this winter, so I had to pick a special number between 800 and 899. I was given 807 by the machine, but noticed that the last number called was 869! So, I figured I was 37th in line and decided to be productive and do some homework while waiting. After about 40 minutes, we were at 898 and 899. But, instead of rolling back 800, the board read "700 and 701".

Confused, I started asking a few people waiting if they were putting credit on their gas cards. When I found someone who was, he had number 713!! I showed him my number and he just smiled and laughed. After thanking him, I did some quick math in my head and realized I was not 37th in line, but 137th in line!! That equated to about 2-3 more hours of waiting...and I did not have that much time, patience or homework!

After meeting with my teacher to check my homework, I realized that it was NOT worth the wait because my homework was about 137th out of 137 students! HAHAHAHA!! The moral of the story: if you don't laugh while trying to learn a new language, you will cry!!

Cologne Clones

Sorry for not writing much as of late!!! We have had busy days and nights with lots of stuff happening. Thanks to those of you who faithfully check in. For all of you, here is an experience that is one of my (Mike's) strangest yet in a new culture:

I was at the bank one day waiting for a friend....no big deal. While there, I watched the bank security guard greet another man who he obviously knew...no big deal. As they talked, the guard opened up his desk drawer and the man pulled out a bottle of cologne....no big deal. They joked, laughed and smiled...no big deal. Then, as the security guard took the bottle of cologne back, he started spraying the other man with cologne!! He was not joking around or playing a trick on his friend: the man was quite pleased as he raised his arms, sprayed his hands and wiped it on his face and neck...no big deal?!?!?!?!? Weigh in with your opinion................