A Family Again!

Mitch is home - and we are a complete family again. Now will come the period of adjustment as we all get used to being together again. The kids ran out and jumped into Mitch's arms when we came home - and I was so busy living in the moment - I don't have any pictures :( Brett cried and hugged him and told him that he had missed his smell of copenhagen. Emma cried and just told him how much she loved him and missed him. Braeden just gave him a big hug and said he was glad he was home.

Today's the Day!

Mitch is due to arrive this afternoon from Frankfurt Germany. The kids and I are ready for him to be home and we are all excited for him to finally get here. I'm heading to the airport in a couple hours - and wouldn't it figure that it is raining today - for the first time in ages!!

It's Official

Mitch will be arriving in Seattle on Sunday afternoon. To say that we are all excited would be an understatement. Yesterday one of the boxes he mailed home arrived - and it was so good to open it up and put away his clothes and know that soon he'd be here to wear them!

Sock Hop

Our PTA put on a Sock Hop night at the Elementary School. You were encouraged to dress up 50's style and come and have fun! Brett wasn't too sure about going, I wasn't looking forward to going - but Emma was excited to go, so off we went. We had a fantastic time! The PTA had awesome decorations up, a fun DJ who played some games like Hot Potato and a Hula Hoop contest. Brett danced with a GIRL! It was totally cute - and he told me that he loved the dancing and was having the greatest day of his life. I was the adult winner of Hot Potato and got a glow stick for my efforts LOL. Emma and I looked more early 60's than 50's - but Brett nailed the 50's look. My friend Paula dressed up too - and she teased her hair into a beehive - and I teased her that she looked like a sober Amy Winehouse. Her kids were dressed in 50's cool, with her daughter having the cats eye glasses, saddle shoes and poodle skirt. We took the kids to McDonalds afterwards for milkshakes and food - and then went to Paula's to watch movies and let the kids play. Fun time!

International Night

We have the Passport Club at our Elementary school and I am the volunteer coordinator and also help out on Check Day. My good friend Paula runs the club and she is passionate about the fact that kids should know about the world that they live in. This year she ran a fundraiser for the club - and decided that the kids who participated in the fundraiser would get a great reward. Her first thought was a field trip to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle to see Lucy's Legacy , but due to some transportation and insurance issues - that had to be cancelled. Next she decided to hold an International Night, and have volunteers prepare foods from different countries and she would prepare a recipe book/passport that would tell a bit about each country - give the recipe and have a place where when they went to the "Country" to taste the food they would get a stamp in their passport. All her had work paid off, we had a lot of attendance - there was great food and the kids got to learn about drums and African dance and music from the group Planet Afua . I was the "official" photographer for the night and took tons of photos, I also got to taste lots of food. My favorite by far was this dish

Ethiopian Injera and Doro Wat (bread and chicken stew)
Injera:

Combine 2 ½ cups flour, 1 tbsp. baking powder in a bowl. Whisk in 3 cups club soda or sparkling water. Mix into a smooth thin batter. Heat a large non stick skillet. Dip enough batter from the bowl to cover the bottom of the skillet and pour in quickly, all at once. Lift and rotate the pan to cover the bottom completely with a thin layer, and set it back down on the heat. When the moisture has evaporated and small holes appear in the surface, remove the injera. Stack the injera on top of each other and keep warm in the oven on low.

Doro Wat:

Chop up 4 cups of chicken and cook in 1 stick of butter. Add 5 large cloves of garlic, chopped. Also add 1 small chopped onion and 2-3 carrot stalks- sliced. Season with 1 tsp. chili powder and ½ tsp. pepper and salt, or to taste. Add in one can of tomato sauce (14 oz) and simmer for ½ hour or so, until carrots are tender. Stir in 3-5 hardboiled eggs, chopped and serve with injera.

You take a piece of the injera and wrap it up around the stew- eating with your fingers.

Fun Month Begins

I'm trying really hard to keep up with my goal of 5 layouts per month and with that intent - I'm participating in some challenges for the Fun Month at Scrap Attack . Yesterday was the first day of fun month - and I got one layout done.



For Challenge #4 - Clean Slate
This started as a PageMaps sketch - and then went totally sideways.

Bazzill Cardstock
Moxxie Paper
Misc. Staple
Black Sharpie Pen

Journaling:
Paula & I took the kids bowling. I'd forgotten what a workout bowling can be ~ especially when your shoes stick and the only ball with big enough finger holes is a 14 pounder! Mai Ly bowled better than the rest of us and Brett used his Yabba Dabba Do technique
All Star Lanes
1-19-2009

Two Week Countdown {maybe}

Well as of information we have today - Mitch is due home from his year long deployment in 2 weeks. Of course this is about the 4th date that we have for his arrival - so it is still only a number. I keep telling him that I'll believe it when he gives me his flight info to pick him up from Sea-Tac.

As far as the year of him being gone goes - it has gone by VERY quickly. It seems to have passed in a blink of an eye in some ways and in others it has been the longest year of my life. We will all be so happy to be back together as a family.

I made this layout (it is a scraplift of my friend Jen's layout - even lifted the title!) and journaled a wee bit about how I'm handling the separation.

Some Scrappy Shopping

I had to go to the Dr. the other day, diagnosis - bronchitis. Soo, to make me feel better, I did a bit of scrappy shopping while I was out.

{SAS}SY Fun Month

February 15th and running through March 15th Scrap Attack Scrapbooking will be having a {SAS}sy Fun Month! So if you like challenges, chatting and prizes you won’t want to miss out on all the fun!

Carnivals are always a {fun} place with so much going on. So keeping along those lines, we’ve put together a small “midway” of activities for you to complete during our {SAS}sy Fun Month.

For each activity you complete, you will receive a ticket! The tickets will be entered into a drawing for some fun prizes courtesy of SAS! At the end of the {SAS}sy Fun Month, we’ll total the tickets, enter them into a drawing and pull 7 random winners! The more you play, the better your chances are to win some fun stuff courtesy of Scrap Attack Scrapbooking!