White Elephant - Doggie Doo

Some friends of ours host a white elephant party each year.  They moved into our ward over the summer so this is the first one we've gotten to attend...they were even nice enough to wait until we were back in town so we could join the fun.

There ended up being 11 couples in total.  We of course were once again the young ones.  I wonder when exactly it happened and if I'd feel the same way in the U.S., but age just isn't a huge factor here.  I've loved getting to know so many different people.

We had a blast at the party.  She is so good at organizing and making everything look perfect (honestly she reminds me a lot of Ryan's mom...that's a compliment). 

At the end of the game we actually ended up with two gifts we actually wanted.  I got some nice little serving dishes for sauces or small treats (that are oven, microwave and dishwasher safe) plus some sour cherry candy and big hunks.  At the last minute Ryan stole back the Doggie Doo game (that was actually the first present I unwrapped).

We didn't get home until 9:30.  I thought the plans was to get the kids ready for bed, but I turned to find Ryan getting the game setup.  This is the funniest game ever!  You feed the dog then squeeze the leash handle.  With each squeeze, the dog toots (think whoopie cushion style) and the kids bust out laughing.  Eventually the 'food' makes in through the dog and you scoop it up.  The first person to scoop up 3 pieces of poo wins.  Hahaha.  If you have kids and ever see this game it's a keeper!

...hopefully I'll get the video converted and uploaded sooner than later for you all to enjoy :)

Snow, Snow, Snow

I don't like snow...I wish it would go!

The kids have done a decent job at adjusting to the time.  I'm sure they would be doing even better if I would get up in the morning, but staying up til 3 or 4 in the morning reading isn't helping my cause.  I need to learn how to put a good book down and realize it will be there in the morning.

It has been snowing and sticking and NOT melting.  The first day I went out and swept off our trampoline and the back patio thinking the kids would want to play.  They did for all of 5 minutes before begging to go to the park.  I'm a sucker and we went...complete with bikes and all.

 They had a blast.  I taught Kherington how to make snow angels and she got adventurous and decided to go down the slide face first.  I guess she has a little bit of dare devil in her.

Kherington didn't make it to school for the first time until Thursday.  She was having too much fun with her new toys and playing with her brother.  It also didn't help my sleeping in meant I wasn't up early enough to get her out the door.

When she did finally make it to school, she cried at drop-off, but at pick-up she couldn't stop talking about the snowman Madame Sandy made, so it must not have been an entirely traumatizing day. 

Our first week back, I went grocery shopping, visited with a friend and taught her how to make toffee (yummy), watched another friends 5 kids for a morning, finished 1.5 books, cooked 0 real meals (I  don't count pasta with canned sauce or butter/garlic), put on one Activity day, and deep cleaned nothing.  Not a bad week but definitely room for improvement.

Home, Cold Home

As we drove to the airport in Myrtle Beach it was blue skies and 70 degrees.  We we landed in Brussels it was snowing.  Not exactly the best trade.  Our traveling couldn't have worked out much better.

Ryan need to change his ticket because his layover in Atalanta was only 30 minutes and considering if he missed our flight not only would I be traveling solo with both kids (not fun but manageable), but he wouldn't get back to Brussels until a whole day later if that.  The first time he called they told him it was going to be $1300 because he hadn't flown his Dallas leg, but if he waited until he got to Dallas it should only be $250.  We decided to suck it up and go for it so he called once in Dallas and they changed it for free because the connection time was so crazily small.

Next, I decided to pay for an extra suitcase going back.  Between Christmas, bringing back birthday presents for April, carrying on a car seat (we packed back a car seat and stroller for a friends so I could only check 2 of the car seats) AND only being allowed 20 pounds for Kevin's bag (which we didn't know til we got to the airport on the way out of Brussels) it just didn't seem like a good idea to try to make it work.  So we were going to pay $100 for an extra checked bag.  We got the airport and ended up spending 45 minutes trying to get checked in because they couldn't assign us seats out of Myrtle Beach...they couldn't assign us seats because they tied Kevin to Kherington's ticket instead of mine.  Then they release all our seats for our next legs, but I was already sitting next to Ryan.  In the end, we were for sure going to be sitting next to each other from JFK to BRU but ATL to JFK was a maybe.  Myrtle Beach is a small airport and the person checking me needed to be at the gate for an arriving flight, plus they'd made me wait forever with two kids and a pile of luggage so they said I didn't need to pay for my extra bag.  SWEET!  We made it to our next gate in Atlanta minutes before Ryan.  I'm not going to lie.  Getting both kids across the airport with 2 carry-ons, 1 personal item and a car seat was not easy but we made it.

Next blessing was that the flight was going to be full so the airline would check anyone's carry-on luggage through to their destination for free.  We happily gave up 3 carry-on's and a car-seat (keeping 2 personal items between me and Ryan that held all our electronic devices plus some snacks, toys and diapers/wipes.)

Next, we got all 12 pieces of luggage within the first 10 minutes of waiting at the baggage claim.  That is way impressive.  We did have a little issue getting out b/c the stroller was new and I didn't have a packing slip (apparently if you pack back more than 350 euros worth of stuff per person you have to pay 25% of the cost...ouch).  In the end they let me go b/c I was traveling with 2 other paid tickets and the stroller most likely didn't cost more than $1000.

Our friend was able to pick us up right outside the airport (thanks to a special NATO pass he can check-out), helped us grab our car from work and bring all our bags inside.

Pretty smooth.  I would like to note that while we did have lot of little blessings along the way, we still managed to lose Ryan's jacket.  The jacket he wore everyday.  It's a good thing I had pulled out an old wool coat right before we left so he doesn't have to freeze in this snow!

Now for getting us back into the swing of things...hopefully we still have friends after being gone so much over the last couple months :).