Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Christmas is almost over...the kids were up early, as per Child Regulation #298-B1, Section 8.2 which states that "All children shall awaken their parents at a totally unreasonable hour, preferably before 6:00 a.m. on Christmas Day". I'm lobbying Congress to get that regulation changed to 9:30 a.m. So far, I have 12 signatures. Anyone else want to sign my petition? Anyway, we tried to calm things down by having one child open a present at a time. Josiah, then Annika, then William as per Child Regulation #3...well, you get the picture. Eldest, middle, youngest and so it has been since the beginning of time. We tried to get them to slow things down, appreciate each gift and its giver before moving onto the next, and think warm, happy Christmas thoughts in between. But--they are children and before we knew it, the entire living room was engulfed in a massive pile of torn shreds of paper, smashed ribbons, cardboard and empty plastic shell packaging. Guess who got to clean al...

Annika in the Cub Club @ Great Wolf Lodge Just finished painting her dolphin magnet. Goofing around at the Cub Club... Josiah, at work on his latest masterpiece (in case you can't tell, it's Mario)! The kids' "cabin" inside our suite...typical Annika with her tongue out, Will is a blur! We had a good mini-vacation at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg. Arrived Friday night in time for buffet supper. The kids expressed some wonderment that "buffet" means, loosely tranlated: eat until you fall over. We let them go ahead and fill their own plates, go back for seconds, and make deserts that were meant to contain ice cream but mostly contained M&Ms. They begged us to go back to the buffet for every meal afterwards, but at $70/meal, that just wasn't going to happen. It didn't matter how much we ate, it was nowhere close to $70 worth. But it was fun for just that evening. As you can see, we had quite the charming little suite. The kids had an...

And so, as usual, we begin our tale at the end and work backwards. I've invented a time machine and it's called Blogspot...I give up trying to figure it out. Deal. These are the kids on Sunday at approximately 3:49 p.m., just moments after they had walked through the door of the Ted Constant Center and found out they were (surprise!) attending "Phineas & Ferb Live!". I think Annika's face in this one pretty much sums up the general success of this surprise. General fun was had by all. All of us sang, some of us danced... Now...travel back in time with me to Saturday and the FRG cookie exchange. Yes, I baked. A random cookie recipe I found online. Yes, they were edible. Some might even say slightly good. We have a professional baker in our FRG (Family Readiness Group), so I knew I wasn't competing for any titles. She won, hands down. But it's me, nevertheless, having a cookie. Which is standard behavior for the XO's wife during the cookie exchange...

Believe it or not, I've seen three in his mouth at one time...! Thanksgiving Day started with playing school (all the boxes are desks, Josiah is the teacher, Annika the student and I always have to be the principal). I am administering the spelling test while Professor De For oversees. Our Thanksgiving corner. Turkey on the lamp was made by Josiah in class. Pinecone turkeys were made by me and Annika, picture in my revolving season frame by me and glass turkey votive holders were a cute on-base find. 3/5ths of us at the Thanksgiving table...Will was still sleeping at lunchtime and we know not to wake a sleeping Bear! I used my Polish pottery because I forgot to get my Great-Grandmother's china out. I don't think anyone noticed the difference. Maybe next year. After quiet time, a nice walk to the park. Here's Will in the tunnel. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The Nikon was out of batteries, so iPhone pictures will have to suffice... Hans made it home in time to accompany us! I feel only slightly bad that we didn't leave a bowl of treats on our front porch or have one of us stay behind to hand out treats. I really wanted us to trick-or-treat as a family. For once. Watch out for all the minivans! Josiah as Mario (though the 'stache didn't stay stuck on for long), William as Tiger III (all three of them have worn the tiger), and Annika as a little witch (...)!

On Friday, William and I went back to Hunt Club Farm. I may be a little biased, but dang, he's cute, isn't he? Trying to hula hoop in the hay (say that three times fast)! The chicken coop and goat pens were closed because there were 8,257 elementary school kids there on fieldtrips and I'm guessing that there would have been fatalities of the goat/chicken type if they had been squeezed and chased around by those 8,257 kids. Who were quite wild with their fieldtrip freedom, I should add. I was a little disappointed because I had envisioned the pure joy of a newly-minted 2-year-old chasing chickens and goats. Oh well. Like I said...cute! Even with peanut butter face (oh and the nice bruise where Grandma (ahem) whacked him with the door earlier in the week)! I'm pretty sure I could have spent a $20 roll of quarters getting feed for the alpacas and he would have stood there handful by handful all morning feeding them. Playing on the playground--one of the few moments he...

She chose riding the pony over a ferris wheel ride...I think she made the right choice. Interacting with Salt and Pepper (not to be confused with the 1990s female pop group). One amazingly tolerant chicken! It just wouldn't be a De For outing if Hans wasn't messing about... OK, call me bad, but I was super-tempted to take the eggs and slip them in my purse. I had the opportunity to have farm fresh eggs while I was in St. James and they were SO good...their taste only furthered my desire to have some layers at some point in the future. Josiah's catch--love that expression! Feeding the llama/alpaca (I'm not certain which it is). She kinda had a thing for Josiah...! Playing in the hay...I swear, it was another of those "why do we spend money on toys?" moments. A few bales of hay would do just as well. These photos were all taken at Hunt Club Farm in Virginia Beach. It was a fall social put on by LEYTE GULF's Family Readiness Group, so we were treated to ...