A blog party, a big blog party...

Big blogs, little blogs, black and white blogs were all at a blog party. What a blog party!

If the introduction above doesn't make much sense to you then I guess the only thing that proves is you either don't have a 3 year old or you haven't read "Go Dog Go" in quite a while. If you feel slightly deprived by this just come on over and I know a little munchkin who will recite it to you:-)

I won't go into lengthy detail about our bloggy party since Meg already did a great job posting over a week ago (a trip to TN and the Good Cents store has limited my bloggy life lately!)

Here are a few pictures of our morning together...

I was so honored that the Princess hosted our party at her lovely (and I do mean lovely) home! Not only that but she didn't cancel the party after waking up that morning still under the influence of Nyquil (to me that is an amazing and very noteworthy feat).

Lots of hanging out in the hallway did take place. It was there that I discovered through conversation with these ladies the amazing store Ikea. And it was shortly after that discovery that I received an email from my husband verifying that a not-so-small-charge had gone through my debit card there. Oops.

Lots of yummo food! I was so glad everybody seemed content conversing and hopefully didn't notice that I spent a few minutes hanging out by the table by myself before sitting down with everyone else. It was really, really good food.

Group picture #1.

I had planned to put Group picture #2 up here as well but when I looked closer at the picture today I realized that our "silly" picture wasn't so willy with only one person making a silly face (that would be me.)

It was a fun morning!

There are a lot more pictures to post from our trip here but Sam's Club, TJ Max and Ross are calling!

Quirkiness

There are so many wonderful things about being back "home" with family! My child and I are being absolutely spoiled, for one. I almost feel responsibility free as my only chore (which isn't a chore) has been to put Karis down for her naps or to bed at night. Everything else has been enthusiastically taken over by her aunts and uncles! She is soaking in every bit of attention while at the same time missing her Papai who she mentions daily (she misses you, Babe!) She says "maybe we'll go home and see papai in a little soon."

Another fabulous aspect about being with immediate family is that I don't feel quite as quirky as I actually am. I mean, we all have quirky traits to some degree within our personalities (some more than others) but with family they don't even think about those attributes because it's you and they like you with or without those strange expressions, comments or gestures. If I say something completely off the wall that did not come out as planned I don't even waste my breath trying to explain myself because it doesn't matter. They don't care that I sound like a rambling moron...if anything we all laugh about how dumb I sounded. Hey, it may even become the new family joke for a week or so!

Somehow as I exit out of my wifely and motherly duties (that I really love) the childish part of me comes out even more. I not only feel 18 (like I do anyway on a daily basis) but I am now acting like I did when I was 18. And that is where last nights occurrences come into the picture...

It all happened at 2am this morning, five hours after I had gone to bed for the night. Karis woke up because she was hot and in the end had all three of us (Kimbosha, courtney and me) wide awake. Well, earlier Kimbosha and I had already talked about a slight prank we'd play on our brothers Matt and Ben but that was before I feel asleep while putting Karis down for the night. Now we had our chance! I guess I wouldn't necessarily classify it as a prank because in reality it needed to be done...whatever the cost. You see, our two brothers have these horrific sideburns which they refuse to cut. They aren't real sideburns but overgrown hairs that portrude in front of their ears. I've been calling them my "elves" this week because that is exactly what they look like. Kimmy scrounged around to find the sharpest scissors in the house so that we could take care of those nasty little boogars (the sideburns). She held her cell phone that has a light on it so that i could see but apprently the sharpest scissors in the house weren't very sharp. Since Ben is a heavier sleeper than matt we began with him but it took 3 attempts to finally get a clump of hair! We were afraid he'd wake up if I tried again so Kimmy said "that's ok, if you cut one he'll just have to cut the other tomorrow"...good thinking. So then we moved onto Matt. The first attempt failed because he moved as soon as the scissors touched the side of his face. The second attempt failed because he woke up, sat up and screamed "noooooooooo!" before I could cut. Kimmy ran while I hid the scissors and said "we just wanted to give you a wet willy" and then walked out. I thought we had failed with the task at hand yet gained a great memory and some good laughs. Then this morning when Matt got up he asked "were you in my room last night or was that a dream?" Kimmy and I played dumb while he told everybody in the family this strange dream he had about us coming into his room to give him a wet willy :-) The funny part is that Ben hasn't even noticed the chunk of hair i cut out (my mom still doesn't know...until she reads this that is). I guess we get another chance! I need to buy some decent scissors before our next attempt. Here is a picture right after we got the chunk out of Ben's hair. It looks like I'm crying but I think it was a combination of laughing too hard and the just-woke-up-at-2am-look.

Ah, I love family. I don't know when I'll get to laugh that hard again (maybe tonight if we find some sharper scissors!)

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday...

My beautiful and very fun sisters (we're missing you Stace!)

Time at the park (it was C-O-L-D!)

Karis' scandelous dress-up outfit from Aunt Leenie (grandma Kroeker's aunt). She absolutely loves it! It actually isn't scandelous but just appears that way from the strap falling down.

Well, we have a little bit of cleaning up to do before we head back to the Good Cents store. 10 & 2 everyday is when they put their new stuff out, don't ya know. Wanna come join us for some bargains?

Culture Shock

Hello Tallahassee! I have not been this sleep deprived in a very long time yet thanks to adrenaline I am pressing on, people. It is SO good to be in the U.S. of A. I love my life in Brasil but it is always so refreshing to be back with family, dear friends and familiar surroundings. Let me tell you though, it came at no small cost. The 26 hours it took to get here were some of the most miserable of my life. No joke...I am not even going to worry about sounding positive because it was horrific. I kept thinking "what was I thinking?" To make a very long story short (a 26 hour story, that is) my amazing child who awoke at 1am Monday morning to begin this journey decided to dedicate what energy she had to fighting sleep. If an award was ever given for fighting sleep she would have won hands down. She became so hyper and out of control for most of the trip...I have NEVER given so many empty threats in one breath like I did for 15 hours straight. Even though now I feel like the 26 hours of misery was worth it if you required me to go through it again in order to stay here I would have to think about it for a very long time. A very, very long time.

But don't feel sorry for me! Our first day here has come and gone and it was simply wonderful. I'm not really going through culture shock. I mean, we've only been gone for 8 months so I was mentally prepared for a lot of things. However I have had a few "whoa, what?" conversations today.

Converation #1) Mom was telling me some recent happenings with some friends and said (I quote) "she called and blessed her out" with a very negative tone in her voice. "She B.L.E.S.S.E.D. her out?" (said I) "Yes, and she was really upset" (said she) "wait mom, she B.L.E.S.S.E.D. her out and that was a bad thing?" (said I) "yeah" (said she) "kinda funny, huh?" Yes, it is funny...I've only been gone 8 months and I already feel like the English language has moved on without me. One more expression to add to the "expressions that don't make any sense" list. Sheesh, I'm so glad I won't ever have to learn English as a second language.

Conversation #2) We were in the van today and Courtney was telling me about a man they heard speak in the library. Courtney said (and I quote) "yeah, but instead of using Power Point he used this old machine thingie that went cachunk everytime a new picture came up." "It was a slide projector" my mom chimed in. That doesn't have much to do with cultural differences except that this technology inclined country of mine always surprises me in some way shortly after my arrival here. On furlough it was a lady in the bathroom stall next to me talking to her friend on the phone. I was very close to answering her "how are you?" before I realized that she was not interested in knowing how the stranger to her left was doing. Thank goodness.

So the one thing I always enjoy immensely in my home country is how cheap (C-H-E-A-P- cheap!) everything is. After spending 20 minutes in Big Lots I was ready to ask if we could spend the rest if the day purusing all of the aisles in that wonderful store. But we had a deadline to make because the Good Cents store brings out their new items at 10 & 2 everyday (the Goodwill store where they take everything that doesn't sell...mostly things that are way overpriced in the store that they then price for less than $1 at the Good Cents store). It is a wealthy-challenged shopaholic's dream store! You gotta be dedicated and you gotta be ready to dig for treasures. There are few things in this world that bring me as much pleasure as hitting the Good Cents store twice a day (thankfully I'm not that way by accident but inherited whatever strange gene my mom passed onto me who is just as enthusiastic as I am to make that trip across town twice a day!) And I got some really good treasures. If I didn't know that my wonderful hubby would read this at some point I'd list out a few things...but I don't want to bring any useless stress into his life if I don't have to (like why is my wife bringing back that junk with her?) Just think about it this way, honey...I didn't buy a vhs/dvd player/recorder for $65, or Thanksgiving decorations that were 75% off. Yes, just think about how wonderful that is!

Ok, my eyes are closing on their own without any help from me. I better wrap this up. Mom did tell me to mention our Bloggy Party that will be taking place at the Princesses house this Friday (I think it's Friday). How fun to not only have an immediate family and a missionary family but now I have a bloggy family. I'm really looking forward to partay! If you're near us here in Tally and a part of our bloggy world please join us. I don't really know what time or where the Princess lives but I'm sure she or Meg could help you out (even though I don't know where she lives I could tell you all about her beautiful home:-)

Good night, good people. Good night.