Christmas Parties

The last week of school before Christmas was very busy. Everyone had parties! Peachies class had a little potluck and small gift exchange. One of the students in her class is Philippino and her mom brought in a huge dish of yummy food. It was rice noodles and chicken with veggies and just plain yummy. Another mom had made salmon dip with crackers. There was fresh fruit. Grapes were on sale at the commissary (yeah) and a cupcake for everyone. I laughed about the typical Kodiak mix of ethnic food and salmon.
Friday was the East Elementary School sing-a-long. Basically the whole school meets in the gym to have a top ten Christmas song count down. There were even quite a few religious songs with Joy to the World and Silent Night was number three. One of the island drummers performed and they sang using a Russian Orthodox Starring whatever it is. It was neat. The school really does a great job of encouraging each child and the teachers are very supportive, warm and friendly. I really do like their school. Afterwards both classes had parties with lots of good treats to eat.
Friday night was Peachies pre-school performance. Its a very short but sweet yearly show with about three Christmas carols and a visit from Father Christmas.
Peachie was a super start and struck an awesome pose after each song. The Koehlers came to watch which was so sweet of them. Aaron had to work so it was nice to have our family there. I don't know what I will do if they don't get to stay here a little longer.
Sing It!


Peachie with Father Christmas.

Christmas Cheer

Since I left you guys with such a poor me post last time I thought I would perk things up around here. You may be glad to hear that no one has vomited in ...3 days which is awesome! We visited Santa on Saturday and the kids had a good time. Peach really loved seeing him and gave him a big hug.
Sunday when Aaron got home from work we started decorating. I must confess we did play hookey from church. We had an awesome family day! We started by going to breakfast at the Shelikoff. It was nice except for the four gentleman ( I use that term loosely) sitting next to us that cursed numerous times and talked about visiting a bar in Anchorage with, well it was a bar only gentleman would enjoy. After they finally left Aaron and I were like "Thank you for leaving." Aaron said "Those men did not use good language." Our kids were like "What do you mean?" So I don't think it registered with them. But give me a break there is a woman and three kids sitting right next to your table have a little courtesy. I guess that's what we get for not going to church!
So after we got back from breakfast I started emptying out the boxes of indoor decorations and Aaron started lighting the outside of the house. He had a near disaster on the roof so we decided to just light the porch and the trees out front!
We worked hard while the kids played outside. Finally we went and picked out our tree. This is the every other year so we got a real one this year. It smells so good. At the end of the day 7 hours later the house was decorated. All the boxes were put back in the crawl space and the house looked beautiful.

Peachie ran to see Santa come in off the fire truck.
At the Santa day they were giving away a toy to each child. Some were big, some were small. I am not sure how many years ago they started setting this toy out but something tells me that no one was looking to get in shape.


Here's our tree this year. I tried to take pictures of some of the other decorations around the house but I am not a very good photographer so they came out really fuzzy or the flash went off. Thanks for reading my post.

Orphan Flu Round 3?

I don't know what is going on here but last night around 11pm just as I layed down in a nice hot bubbly bath with a new book I heard the all to familiar sound of a child vomiting. Yes, once again I found myself mopping up the dinner contents of my baby girls belly. This one was a hard one as there was quite a bit of it. To make matters worse Aaron won't be home today as he is now working 72 hours on 24 off through Christmas Eve. That means he will be home 2 days between now and then. We don't have our tree up yet. Its hard to feel merry.
So I got the girl all cleaned up. She got to sit in my bath. This time she was really weak afterwards. Even today she is just starting to perk up. We had planned to go see Santa. This is the "real" Santa. He arrives either by helicopter or fire truck. Its looking like a helicopter day as the weather is clear. I am waiting to the last minute to decide if I am going to drag her out or not. I kinda "need" a few things at Wally world too, as my fall decorations aren't put away yet. I need to get a bigger tote and I wanted to print our photo cards so I could get those out on Monday.
So if you could send us get well and stay well vibes I would really appreciate it!

A Funny Song About Kodiak

This song is so true! My mom bought the DVD at a craft fair and happened to meet Mr Whitekeys the song talks about how it always rains in Kodiak which is true, but when they came to film it was one of the sunniest days in Kodiak. Unfortunatley, the song is cut short by a plea to buy the DVD so you don't get the whole thing.

The Orphan Flu Returns

We almost made it but alas Eli scummed to the force that was the orphan flu! Actually, Peachie had a little touch of it too. I don't know what it is but I am pretty sure it happens for every mom. Peachie woke up at 4 am on Wednesday crying and I just new that she had thrown up. Something about the way she was crying so anyway Aaron was the first one to get to her because I pushed him out of bed! We got her all cleaned up and then she seemed better after that. She felt a little yucky and tired all day but we were leaving that night so I wastrying to get her better. You know with mom power! Please Lord don't let my child be sick on the flight. Then Eli started complaining that he wasn't feeling good either. The poor kid had to go to the airport and lay down on the bench waiting for our flight. That was when I looked over and saw that look on his face. You know the one. So we ran to the restroom. Let me tell you if your kids ever puke grape juice. Well, its exactly the same color and smells terrible. After he emptied his belly he said. "Wow, I feel a lot better can I have a chicken sandwich?" Sheesh! Thank goodness our flights only an hour. Although you are flying in basically a pop can powered by a slingshot.

Our Trip So Far

Well, we have big in Anchorage for about 5 days now and we are having a great time. Wednesday we met the Koehlers at IHOP for breakfast and then hit Toys R Us and Target! Target was fun we didn't look at everything. Its funny that whenever we get to these huge shopping centers we get a little overwhelmed. It doesn't help that its Christmas and everyone is shopping. The kids were just dying to get to my moms house and see Grandma and Kierra (her foster dog).
We went to dinner at Benni Hannas with the Koehlers that night and had a really great time.
We have been to the mall and enjoyed just spending time relaxing at Grandma's. We did find that we had to go and get internet here at grandmas house for a few days. I have a few class assignments still due in and needed to get on the internet to research and turn stuff in. Aarorn and I took the boys to an Aces game and that was a lot of fun. We didn't know it was Millitariy Appreciation night. There were over 600 service memberes there in uniform and many more not in uniform . They did a lot of special millitary appreciation ceremonies. We have been sledding a couple of times too which is great since there is not any snow left in Kodiak. We don't head home until Wednesay so I am srue tat we are ging to have alot more fun stuff to do.