Pictures from China

Mike got back from China last night after being away for 9 (almost 10) days. We were super excited to see him!  I loved hearing all about his trip.

 

There were 400 school administrators from around the world that went over.  There were 42 people in Mike's group that traveled together.

They got to visit a Kung Fu (aka "Ninja") school.

He had such a great time learning about China and their education system.

Anyone that knows Mike well knows how much he loves Germany and all things German.  Well, he said China is right up there with Germany.  He'd go back in a heartbeat.

Mike with a monk

 I'm not sure I would feel the same way.  Everyone smokes and the pollution and smog in the cities like Beijing is awful.  He ate crazy food like snake, pig's ear (which he said was good), pickled ducks feet, pigeon, and chicken (with the head still on).

He probably ate dog and cat too since that is normal over there.  He became so close with the people in his group.  He even joined Facebook so he can keep in touch with his group- Henan 7 (and he was anti FB for the longest time).

Mike's new best China friend. Unfortunately China does not allow Facebook.

I think Mike could take a trip in a cardboard box and make it a great time :)

Here are a few more pictures from his trip...

The Great Wall

The holes in this tree are from monks standing there tapping it over and over again with their finger and contemplating life.

The tree in the background is over 1200 years old.

 And now I'm off to write sub plans for next week, do a ton of laundry, and pack for our trip to St. John.  By this time next week my sister and Eric will officially be married and we will be celebrating all together on a beautiful, warm, tropical island. 

Peace.

Where's Mike?

Coon Skin Hat

We got an e-mail from Owen's school last Monday telling us that a family with children at his school had a fire in their home.  They lost many of their things and have to relocate while their house is being repaired.  The kids were invited to wear a hat on Tuesday with a donation for the family.  How great is that?!  When I asked Owen which hat he was going to wear I started giving him some choices... "your Phillies hat, or your Orioles hat" and he stopped me right away and told me he was going to wear his coon skin hat.  I think he looks so stinkin' cute in it, but I knew all the other kids would be wearing baseball hats and I didn't want him to feel wierd.  So I had him put a baseball hat in his bag just in case he changed his mind.  I didn't say anything about what I thought all the other kids would be wearing because I don't want him making choices based on what other kids are doing (although I'm sure he will eventually).  He wore the hat and I wish I had a picture.  I was surprised since a few weeks earlier he wore the most boring striped socks for "crazy sock day" and refused to let me roll up his jeans. 

When he got home from school I asked him how it went with hat day.  He said he wore it all day.  He also told me that some of the kids made fun of it and said it looked like a girl hat.  (Insert mama bear claws).  I asked him how it made him feel when the other kids laughed at him, expecting a really sad little boy with possible tears.  And he thought for a second and just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't really care.  He said he wore it anyway because he really likes it.  I gave him a big high five and told him I was so proud of him for doing what he wanted and not letting the opinions of other kids change his mind.  Plus, if those kids knew anything, they'd know it's a hunter hat and I bet very few girls would ever wear a hat like that.

Tuesday afternoon Mike and I had Owen's parent/teacher conference.  I quickly voted before and let me say it was not an easy decision for me.  I have some very liberal opinions about certain topics and very conservative opinions about other things.  In the end I had to pick what was most important to my family (my job) and vote based on that.  But it wasn't easy and I know very little about politics so that made it even harder!  Regardless, I feel lucky to live in a country where we are able to vote.

 Owen's conference went really well.  It was nice of his teacher to conference with us a day early so Mike could be there.  We are very proud of Owen and so happy that he loves school!

Last night we hung out at home.  I was exhausted, but mustered up enough energy to wrestle with Owen.  Daddy wasn't home and while I had no desire to wrestle, the look of sheer joy on his face when I said I would made it all worth it.  I truly believe that wrestling is a boys way of bonding.  A few minutes in, he said "I think you are better at wrestling than daddy!".  No lie.

Tonight we were invited over for dinner at Uncle Boo and Aunt Judy's house.  It was so nice of them and we had a delicious dinner.  The boys loved playing with their marble shoot.

TGIF!

Trick-Or-Treat

 Tonight was our neighborhood's trick-or-treat night.  I was really on the ball with Owen's costume.  He wanted to be a red ninja (Kai).  We found one Online, but when it arrived he wasn't too impressed.  They don't usually look as good when you get them as they do Online.  He eventually liked his costume.  I asked Mike to stop by the Dollar Store for a ninja sword.  I saw they had them a while back.  Supposedly they were out. 

Again... the poses are all his idea.  I had nothing to do with them.

Thankfully a friend let us borrow his sword and it worked just fine.  Owen spent a lot of time running around the back yard hitting things with his pvc pipe sword and doing ninja moves (thanks Jenny!).

I feel a little guilty that Adam has worn a hand-me-down costume for the past two years.  I knew if I bought him one he would change his mind and not want to wear it.  That's just how he is lately so why spend the money?  We have a big bin of costumes and he kept changing his mind about what he was going to dress up as.  A few minutes before trick-or-treat he decided to be Elmo.  He looked really cute- just like his brother did 4 years ago.  Plus, it kept him really warm. 

We had a little, impromptu Halloween party before we headed out to Trick-or-Treat.  Kate and Bea came up from Philly for a visit.  The boys had not met their newest little cousin yet and were anxious to hold her. 

Her mommy and grandma made her the cutest butterfly costume. 

I loved holding her.  I could hold her all night and if it wasn't for daycare, working, college, and house size I think I'd be sold on #3.

Adam was in his element.  He ADORES babies and now he was holding a real, live one.

The boys and Bea walked around the neighborhood trick-or-treating.  Adam is at a really fun age when it comes to things like going house to house for candy. 

Some of the things he did and said were so funny.  He had a blast.  Owen had fun too, but like every year, he is over it quickly and would rather be at home handing out candy to other people. 

We had such a fun night and hope to start a tradition of Trick-or-Treating with Bea every year!!

Sandy

We survived Sandy... much better than last year's Halloween storm that knocked one of my favorite trees down on our deck.  Sandy brought very strong wind and some heavy rain.  We lost power for less than 24 hours, but my super handy, prepared for anything, husband had our generator all ready to go so it's almost like we never even lost power!  Mike and I were just about to plan our family beach trip to Avalon again this summer, but I think we may have to relocate.  I have a feeling poor Avalon will take a while to rebuild :(

Since we didn't know how bad Sandy would be and as of Sunday afternoon we were still planning on going to school, I had most of my school work done!  I also rushed to get all of our laundry done in case we were without power for a while.  School work and laundry can completely consume my weekends so it was really nice to have those things done.  I enjoyed lots of lazy laying around and snuggling with my boys.  If Owen's muscles seem a bit larger to you, it's because every time he got antsy/wild/rammy, we'd say "drop and give me 20" and he'd do 20 push-ups.  Our boys are not stay-in-the-house all day kind of kids so by Monday night we were running out of activities.  Luckily we were able to be out and about Tuesday (even though we still didn't have school).  We took the boys to the "libraly" and Club Kid.  We tried to go out to lunch afterwards, but everywhere was closed.

There was a lot of this going on while we were cooped up inside.

Thankfully Sandy went south of us and brought very little destruction to our little town, but that's definitely not the case for places by the shore.  I keep wondering how this gorgeous home made out...

A no good very bad week

So far this week...
My computer broke down twice and had to be revived by our tech guys
My car was broken into (while parked in my driveway... I forgot to lock it...oops!)
A student in my class tripped over a chair (on his birthday) and hit his head on his desk which he said didn't even hurt and he never realized his head was bleeding (a lot).  He ended up needing 4 staples.
That same day a wall partition in the computer lab fell on two of my girls.  They are fine, thank goodness, but that was scary.  It later fell on another kid during the after school program.  I was a little nervous to get in my car that afternoon to drive home! I saw maintenance  hauling it away early the next morning.
Adam was sick and I got very little sleep Monday night and had two other sleepless nights.

I could go on, but I won't.  It's almost a little funny that all those bad things happened in one week.
Here's hoping today is a better day!


Written Friday night...
My day didn't get much better after I posted the above.  As soon as we went outside to load the boys in the truck to go to daycare, Mike realized that his truck had been broken into as well.  Then, I got to school and my computer wasn't working again.

I hope my period of bad luck wears off before Sandy arrives!

A Fun Fall Weekend

We've had such a fun weekend full of lots of fall activities.

Friday was a strange weather day.

It was really warm and then in the afternoon it was sunny and thundering.  I heard later that a tornado touched down in Lancaster.  It was pouring outside after dinner, but no longer thundering and Owen wanted to play outside in the rain.  It was a really cold rain, but he had fun splashing!

Saturday morning we visited Ollie at the nursing home.

The fall decorations at Ollie's nursing home are so pretty I had to take a picture of the boys in front of them.

Owen was excited to push her in her wheelchair.  He does a really good job.  Both boys were very sweet to her, but Owen has always had a spot in his heart for Ollie.  When it was time to leave he gave her the same big hug he's given her ever since he was a baby.

Later that afternoon, while Adam was napping, Owen and I made pumpkin spice play dough.  My friend sent me the recipe.  The boys spend at least an hour a day playing play dough and now we have fresh, delicious smelling play dough!

As Mike was setting up our pumpkin carving area he noticed SOMEONE drew all over my mini van with blue chalk!!

As Mike was scolding Adam he (Mike) started cracking up.  Oh that boy!  He makes us so mad, but makes us laugh so hard too and sometimes it's really hard to keep on our "mean" face.

Once Adam was up from his nap we all carved pumpkins!

 

 

 

Feel free to leave a comment voting for your favorite pumpkin :)  Mike thinks our pumpkins kind of resemble us....?

1,2,3 or 4

Later Saturday night we all snuggled on the couch to watch It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  What a fun day!