Teen Game Night

Another get together for the teens. This time we opened the invitation to some of the other NATO nations here. We had one Portugues girl and that was fun. Other wise the same fun group of kids who come, hang out, laugh and are realy great kids. Polite and enjoy them selves and the other kids and always say thank you. I have to say my girls have some good friends here!

So we had a board game tournament and had prizes for the winners.

We also had all the kids bring chips and I made a bunch of different dips. Everyone seemed to have a great time!

Thukermans Famous Pig

Thats how the cute little spanish kids pronounce thier "z" They try so hard with thier english!

So Seth was the star of the class play(He speaks english pretty well) and I will have to say as someone well versed in plays this was a pretty good one! Special effects, all lines memorized, great set, good sound system,most of the spanish kids were understandable! Seth did a fabulous job as well! I was so proud walking through the hall holding my little pigs hand as all the parents stoped to tell him how wonderful he was!

(I wasnt as proud this morning when he wanted to wear the pink pants on the bus to school instead of putting them on at school)

He did GREAT!

Care packages with cake mix

Arent my aunt's great! First Aunt Debbie and now Aunt Ginny and did I mention they both sent extras with thier Christmas gifts?

Thanks so much!

Just a side note, Logan has been making cakes to take to school and the Spanish kids (Its a private school, they are rich) have been paying her $24 Euro for a cake thats near $35.00

WOW! Talk about mark up!

These cake mixes will go to some good use!

FUEGO! FUEGO!

So on Sunday on our way home from church we turned down our street and saw our community trash dumpster on fire. Big giant flames were spuing out of it. My resident Spanish expert (Dan)was gone for a work assignment and I was left to figure out what to do.

My neighbor speaks english so I ran to her house, but she didnt come to the door her mother did. It took me a few minutes but I finaly remembered the word "Fuego" She ran out and saw the flames. Called in the house for some one to call the fire department and ran to the other neighbors ringing thier bells to get them to move thier cars so that we didnt have an explosion.

All the neighbors came out with buckets of water and tried doucing it, it was too big.

The one neighbor pushed his hose over the fence and they drowned the flames.

So this is what our dumpster looks like now!

Long distance baby shower

So my mom and I did a babyshower for my sister. Since they were both in Arizona and Im in Spain it was mostly planned over the internet with me ordering gifts and decorations and talking about plans with my mom. It would have been sad to not be able to participate, but luckily todays technology allows me to attend via skype. It was fun talking with everyone and watching her open her gifts. They had muffins and juice and quiche so I had a muffin and juice handy so I could participate! We even took pictures together. She has a lot of great friends and got lots of great gifts! As my Mema Jackie put it..."this is like something space age"

Shopping trip

So My friend Kirsten and I went on a little shopping trip this week. From Wednesday to Sunday!

We flew to Germany on Wednesday, got a rental car and drove to Poland where we bought lots of pottery. Then we drove back and stayed at the AF base. That was a bit of a chalenge with Kirsten not being military and us pulling in so late at night, but we worked it out. Then we spent Friday shopping at the PX and Commisary hauling it to our 8th floor room,and packing it all into boxes lugging it back down stairs and rushing it to the post office before they closed at 5pm. We barely made it.

Then we had some fun, got my hair cut, saw a movie and spent Saturday in Trier Germany looking at the old German town and doing some more shopping!

We had trouble getting gas on base and all the German stations were closed as well as there was a snow storm (could hardly see in front of me and spun out a couple of times) So we drove slowly and carefully on fumes to the airport and got gas luckily before we ran out! We made it in time for our flight and are back home safely! Just looking forward to our boxes of goodies to come in the mail!

Pokemon Slumber Party!

So we started at about 6:30pm with a group of kids coming in and hanging out around thier DS games. (Boy that was wierd-the way kids play together sure has changed) Then once everyone was together we went out to the field for some games. We had a Bastiodon Stomp(thats a Pokemon incase you didnt know!) this is a big field and the game lasted quiet a while because they could easily get away from eachother so that no one could stomp thier balloon. (There was a little fight at this time, some clothes ripped and some blood, but Dan asures me this is typical of boys and nothing to worry about.) We played find the pokeball. 60 pingpong balls I painted to look like Pokeballs. we also had a spoink race (Also a pokemon..one with out legs, but a spring, and a peral on its head) we did it relay style and had to bounce while holding a baloon on thier head!

We had a piniata and it didnt make it through the whole crown of 15 boys before it was busted open and had boys piled on top of eachother to get candy. I heard Seth at the bottom of the pile yell about his ankle.

Then to calm down a bit we came in and Dan had made this great Pikacheu game and we all played pin the tail on pikacheu. We had some dinner all of which looked or sounded like a Pokemon. The kids recognised it right away and I was impressed that they knew thier stuff and that I had made it look close enough for them to guess.

We of course had Pokeball cupcakes and opened presents. Getting all our blankets out for padding on the hard tile floor as well as all the sleeping bags the boys brought took a while. Then the Pokemon movie I bought on line wouldnt work so we just turned on the Disney station for a while but mostly the boys were playing thier DS games in little groups.

At about midnight Dan told them it was bed time and he came upstairs. For about an hour he and I snickered at the funny things the boys were talking about and how some of them wanted to sleep and would yell at the others while the awake ones would make fun. The he went down with his mean voice and told them all "be quiet or else!" (Someone bravely in the dark yelled "or else what?" I guess his mean voice isn't mean enough) So it was about 1:30 am when they all finaly fell asleep.

Around 7:30 am there was some noise downstairs and I came down to start breakfast. It was just one cute little Danish boy sitting at the table. He had told me the night before he was an early riser and wanted to know if there would be breakfast. So I guess he was ready!

I made pancakes that look like Munchlax (another pokemon) they all enjoyed them and set to picking thier stuff up.

Logan took a group out side to play PSYDUCK.....SQUIRTLE (like duck duck goose-but with...you guessed it Pokemon)while the rest got picked up and then we all watched cartoons as we waited for parents.

We had a lot of fun,my favorite part was the international kids trying new foods. The little French brothers learned they like Ranch dressing (Almost as much as Paige) The Danish boys liked American Pancakes, They all loved the American candy in the piniata.

It was a lot of fun!

However Dan and I think having a mass of boys over is much different than girls!

Valentines Strawberries

One of the ladies from the NATO group asked me to teach some cooking classes, and one asked for something yummy to make for thier husbands for valentines day. So I taught my famous stuffed strawberries. We all had fun, they learned double boilers and other melting teqniques. They learned to hull a strawberrie and how to fan one. We talked about tempering chocolate. I made a strawberry mouse cake that had drizzeled chocolate and chocolate dipped strawberries.They didnt wait for many of thier strawberrries to harden and I am not sure how many husbands will see thier strawbierries. At one point it was more like a fondue class! It was yummy, and fun!

Birthday Breakfast in Bed

Happy 10th Birthday Seth!

WOW! Double digits! Dan and I said how much older 'we' must be now. Seth has been antisipating this day all winter, he wants to stop his class (actualy he didnt want to go to school)at 10am when he was born and have a celebration because he is back in the continent he was born on. So the time is exact.

He requested breakfast in bed"Fried egg, toast, and sausage"

He also very carefuly helped me plan his birthday party for this satuday all the while using his Pokemon handbook so we will be very authentic!

He's a cute boy and we are so glad he is ours, even if he keeps getting older!

The contest is on!

We got a Valentines care package from Aunt Kasey.

She sent us a bottle of Mrs. Butterworths so we can win the contest!

Of corse there were other sweets that we all love!

Thanks Aunt Kasey!

"I like the blow dryer"

Logans room

So this is Logans room, Very Beachy. (is that a word?)

Her surf board (Unused since we got here) in the corner, grass skirt trimming her book shelf, Palm tree floor rug and blue watery silky comfortor . We painted the wall lime green (actualy not an unusual color for the Spanish) and put up the vinyl lettering "Sand, Surf, Sun" Now everyone has thier own space and its all them! Its how we make home everywhere we go!

NO ROOTBEER??????

Yeah realy they do not sell rootbeer here. The Spaniards think it taste like medicine!

I wish I had that medicine growing up! Unfortunatly Dan is somewhat of a Rootbeer freak!

So for Christmas my mom got him some rootbeer extract and a bunch of rootbeer recipes.

He is going to work on perfecting it, but he started with an easy recipe with the kids. We all enjoyed it.

Try #1= great taste, super easy, gotta drink it fast, the carbination dissapears fast!