Poppop Sassard's Traditional Ambrosia

For as far back as anyone can remember, one of the family traditions, which started well before my grandfather was born, was to make a citrus ambrosia for Christmas.

My mother's father, Poppop Sassard, was from the south. Growing up in South Carolina and Florida, citrus fruits were available in abundance. My Great Grandmother made this ambrosia for as long as my grandfather could remember back. This was passed down to him, who then took it to Baltimore where it was carried on as a tradition there every Christmas.

I have fond memories of Christmases past, where all the adults of the household were busy helping in the kitchen, peeling, and seeding, and dicing all the fruit that goes into the mix. So here my mother is, passing this tradition on to me....close to my 30'th birthday, and what I truly consider the end of my childhood. Now I'm an adult, spending hours in the kitchen, making this delicious Christmas tradition for my own part of the family.

Here's Mom and I workin on it.

The First Presents of CHRISTMAS!!!!

So the first box of presents arrived from Christmas this year. It's from my Dad and Sandy in Texas....and boy were we surprised! The kids just went CRAZY! It's gonna kill them to wait till Christmas to unwrap them, now that there's presents under the tree....but that's the rule of the house. Anyhow....here's a picture of the kids near the tree......and Thanks Dad, we love you.

I do know how Blogs work!

I know, I know its my job to update the blog. And I have only one excuse-okay well I guess I don't really have a very good excuse but I have pictures! We finshed OZ! Total OZ time 35 hours of practice and with 5 three hour preformance and a 2 hour curtain call 25 hours preformance time. Eli loved every minute of it and I have to say that he has a talent for theatre!

Caleb had a great month! He turned 6 years old!

And a Caleb with a couple of his birthday presents! Spiderman and a TV in his room!

Halloween----Pokemon's and Princess!

So I was able to get a few hours off of work to join Melissa and the kids at the down town trick or treating. Here in Kodiak, a lot of the downtown businesses stay open late on Halloween and host this event. Basically giving the kids a safe and respectable place to go and trick-or-treat, with minimal traffic crossings and a lot of CANDY!

It's cool, we basically walk main street and the strip mall area, then end up at the Kodiak Elks club for a little party. The Elks put on a real good shindig, with musical chairs, and "Monster Mash" dancing, and all sorts of games where they get yet....more CANDY!

We went with Chad and Candace Griswald's kids, Zach and Grace. It was a good time.

Anyhow, here's a few photos of the night!

OBAMA the Patriot!

I'm not a republican anymore, I'm not a democrat either......but I can darn well tell you I'm not voting for this guy!

Only in Alaska

We still need to get the munchkin pictures up. The munchkins were dancing and the pictures we took on Saturday were blurry. So we are going to try again on Monday. I had a few other things to share. The first are taken from the newsletter the school sends home. Good thing my kids don't walk to school. We have lived in Kodiak 5 years and still have not seen a bear.







I also have a funny song to share. Sarah if you are reading this you should find it hilarious.

You may have already seen it but I still chuckle when I see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngRq82c8Baw



And a picture of the kids for fun. This was a few weeks ago before going to AWANA.

Eli's a Munchkin.......No Really!

So the local arts council and the high school are putting on The Wizard of Oz this autumn. We took Eli and Caleb to try out and Eli got a call back. We decided Caleb needs another few years before he can stand practices for 2 or 3 hours at a time.

So we're 3 weeks into practices now, and Eli has it down. The director gave Eli a really good compliment the other day. She told all the other munchkins to watch Eli if they were confused as to where to go and what to do, because he was singing everything right and doing all the dance moves the way he should be! He's a natural!

Anyhow, I'm gonna go take some pictures of them practicing and post them here shortly.

Muffins for Mom's

Caleb is a Kindergardener this year! He is having so much fun! The boys go to East Elementary and really love school. We have awesome teacheres who think of neat things for the parents and kids to do together to keep school fun. Today was "Muffins for Moms" all three kindy classes met at the school to share muffins and juice together. The kids and I went and had a great time visiting with our friends and the other moms. We decided to have the school breakfast as well as muffins.
Sorry this picture came out so grainy. I am not sure what happened with the camera.

Inspector class.....bleh =(

So I'm sitting here in Fire Inspector class.....and really wishing I was sitting somewhere else. A/C Bill StClair is sitting next to me.....and he has perfect hair. With no gray....which drives me NUTZ! Since I'm salt and peppered now....nicely. Anyhow, BREAK TIME!!

I'll post more later

Lets Blog

Okay this is the third time I have tried to start this blog. Somehow my drafts keep getting lost in internet space. In order to feel some sense of accomplishment with this endeavor I am going to be short and sweet and fill you in later on the details.
We are still in Kodiak and still love it here! So here are some current pictures of the kiddo's and hopefully I (Melissa) and Aaron to of course will be able to keep our friends and family updated with some of our adventures and more then likely mis-adventures.