Thanksgiving like home

Keeping with the tradition of the Johnson's we decided that although we had a wonderful time on Friday night, we wanted to cook our own turkey and have our own Thanksgiving dinner. Mind you I have never in my life cooked a turkey. So my first turkey cooking experience was going to be on a tropical island, far away from family, in an oven that doesn't cook evenly, (or have temperature gage for that matter) and I don't own a meat thermometer. Yeah this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen! Luckily there is God and he was looking out for me and sent me an angel. His name is Richard Teames and he is not stranger to cooking turkeys. He came over and stuffed our turkey, which i have never done before, and took charge of the turkey! YEAH!
The turkey turned out wonderful and all of us got together and had a wonderful evening. This time dinner was not as fancy. Just a nice table cloth, the expensive paper napkins, some plastic drinking glasses and nice styrofoam china. We ate in our regular clothes (which i think i took a bit to the extreme in a grubby t-shirt, but oh well) but it was so relaxing. We invited, Richard and Shauna (and I am so glad we did, Turkey Master), Dustin and Sara Johnson, Amanda Loveless, Travis McDonald, and our neighbor Dave...i don't know his last name.
Everything tasted so good! But I would have to say that the biggest hit of the night was the drinks provided by Travis. He brought some sparkling beverages. Richard couldn't get enough. For me however it was the fruit salad!
We also had pumpkin, banana cream and chocolate pudding pie to finish off the evening.
All in all it was wonderful and if anyone went away hungry, it is their own fault.

Super Fancy Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving last week just like the rest of America, but we did our celebrating on Friday instead of on Thursday. Grenadian have their own thanksgiving in October, so the students still had class on Thursday and we celebrated on Friday.
We all got dressed in our best and went over the our the Weir's house where they, along with the Monroe's put on a lovely, very fancy dinner. It was the most fancy Thanksgiving I have ever had. It was complete with linens, place cards, table decorations, party favors, and candle light. We had a wonderful time eating wonderful food. It was dinner complete with all the trimmings. We started eating around 7:00ish, and by the time we were getting ready to leave Dyson had fallen asleep, and it was all Ridge could do to stay awake. Ridge went as far as to smash a cup to his face! The boys were very well behaved considering we left the party at 11:00ish and bed time is between 7:30 and 8:30.
During dinner we all went around and told either something we were thankful for or a family tradition. Everyone had great things to say, but I think the best was when Dyson stood up and began a long list of what he was thankful for, most of which didn't make much sense. He was so cute and wanted to be apart of what the adults were doing and acted much older than he is. He is growing up so fast!
We were very thankful to the wonderful hosts of this meal. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

When They're Helping, They're Happy

Ok, so this video took all day to upload to the computer and when I started to write this, I deleted it! Luckily Jason saved me by telling me to push ctrl z, so I did and it came back!!
On Friday morning before our weekly book club I was cleaning and making sure everything was put away, and I decided to mop the floors. Of course this cannot be done without help from the peanut gallery. Trying to instill in them a good work ethic I decided to let them help me and the above video was the result. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen happen when moping the floor. After they were done i had to put them in the shower and it took me 20 min to mop up all the water! They had a blast and my floor got clean.

Blue and White and a balloon. All Right!

Today was a great day! We were invited to a friend's house for a party. It wasn't for any special occasion, in Grenada we don't need excuses to have parties, we have them because we can. My good friend S.W. planned a great get together for all the ladies and their kids. The theme was "Blue and White." There was food and a craft and games for all. You can see Dys with his art work here. S.W. made stamps out of potatoes and let the kids create their own works of art. Dyson had a blast but it only took Ridge 0.3 sec to stick his hand in the plate of paint and get it all over his clothes. I was worried about Dyson getting paint on him so I put a paint shirt on him (which was free from any paint when we were done) but I neglected Ridge. And so it is my own fault that the red soccer shirt that he wore to the party is now red and white. Oh well, what can ya do? After the craft we blew up a balloon and played "Duck, duck, goose" the kids had never played this game before and it was really fun to watch the kids try something new. Some of the kids understood how to play pretty well, others made up their own rules. It was so awesome to see them all play together and take turns, cause let's face it- that doesn't happen very often. After the organized game all the kids got a balloon and ran around out side playing with them. Of course in the heat, slowly the balloons began to pop and the crying began. Ridge was holding his balloon and it popped on his arm and left a big welt. He cried so hard. Of course he cried harder when he realized that his balloon was gone.
By this time it was way hot outside and we were all getting hungry so we went inside S.W.'s apt (where the AC was on, thank goodness) and had a yummy assortment of treats. Each of the kids had a balloon again and began to play their own version of "Duck, duck, goose" this of course does involve hitting people with balloons and running, but not in the same organized fashion of the earlier game. We had our share of injuries and tears, but for the most part it was a fun game.
It was a wonderful party and the kids had tons of fun!

What a gentleman

This is a picture of Dyson with his friend at their creative movement class. She was a little shy at first and Dyson was a great friend and would hold her hand and do all the movements with her. In this picture she wasn't doing the moves with the other kids and so Dys went up to her and took her face in his hands and told her it was ok and he would be there with her. He is such a cutie! Whenever all the kids get together he tries to be friends with everyone. Don't get me wrong, he still has his moments, but for the most part, when I'm around, he is always trying to help and play with everyone. He loves to take care of the little kids, like Anna and Spencer and Ridge. To me he kind of seems like the big brother of all the younger kids. I just love him!

Good friends

Being far away from everyone i know and love can be difficult at times. Luckily i have some great friends here to help fill in where i need it. in this picture from left to right is Bettina, Me, Casey, Shauna with her son Spencer, Sara Johnson and her daughter Anna, Sara Weir, and Kristina. I am so glad to have great friends here to help when things get tough.
Speaking of tough days, today was one of those. I could swear that i potty trained Dyson a year ago, but the events of today would contradict that in every way. Needless to say...I have tons of laundry to do tomorrow.

It's just bread?

This last Sunday was the primary program for our small branch. The kids did so well! They all had speaking parts and did so great when to came to singing the songs. I was so proud of them. After church was over we had cinnamon rolls for the kids. When we took the tin foil off the rolls and showed the kids what we had for them one of them said "It's just bread?" Inside I was protesting "this is not just BREAD! what are you thinking!?!" of course I didn't say this to children but even after I explained what cinnamon rolls are they were not impressed. Apparently they don't have cinnamon rolls in Grenada. Next time I will have to keep them to myself. Next time you enjoy a tasty sweet roll, remember how luck you are to even know what they are.