Honestly...

Honestly I should blog more. I have so many funny things happen to me, I even rehearse in my head how I would write the blog for that funny incident, and then time goes by and I completely forget about it. The worst part is, today I looked at my blog and realized it is boring. Seriously, the Melbourne cup, Jacarandas and a missing wallaby? What about the usual posts, laughing at the chaos of trying to celebrate American holidays abroad? Lets rewind!

Halloween:

This year for Halloween Olivia was a Devil and Mary was an Angel (I love what you can do with two girls close together). Thomas was Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. When I asked who wanted to be what, Mary said she wanted to be the Angel. Then Olivia decided that she wanted to be the Angel just to make Mary mad... clearly Olivia should be the Devil :-) Then we went to the store, Target! Me: "Hi can you tell me where your Halloween decorations/ costumes are?" Store helper: "we don't have any!" K-mart--me: "Halloween? do you have anything?" store helper: "no" 5 more stores later I trudge my way to the information desk at the mall and ask where I could find anything with a Halloween theme and they tell me the Dollar store!! Of course...what was I thinking going to target?!? I go to the Dollar store and they have three costumes: A Devil (score), A witch, and a vampire. Once Olivia saw the devil stick she wanted to be the Devil and she put the stick to good use! This year Stan and I went as vampires. For the record, this was my first time being something scary b/c I wasn't allowed to be scary things as a kid (my moms rule).

Our church was doing a trunk-or-treat so I invited some kids from school. For the record, when I invited our friends I said "would you like to come to a Halloween part at our church, it is ON Halloween" an hour after getting home from the after school pick up I get a phone call (Note: it is not Halloween yet) "Hey we are all dressed up (woman has three kids) and we don't see anyone at your church!" me: Oooooo--The Halloween party is ON HALLOWEEN. Today is NOT Halloween, today is just the day I invited you to come.... it is in a week! Usually trick or treating is ONLY done on Halloween...." I felt so bad for the lady...I just assumed she knew what day Halloween was, but then again....it is not on any Aussie calendars!

Trunk or Treat: So a week later we dress up and go. It is kinda empty (we are the only Americans at our church) and there are A LOT of people dressed up as Devils, Vampires and witches, because that is all you can find in the stores. Lucky for anyone who didn't come in a costume, I bought extra vampire teeth and capes...so we really DID have a lot of vampires. After the trunk or treat we went home. No pumpkin carving--there are no pumpkins in the spring here and I am not buying an imported one for $40.00 from the USA. Moving onto the next holiday!

Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving I had a very eager Aussie/Korean friend who loves to cook. She offered to cook Thanksgiving for us and even topped the event off by inviting lots of "people" over b/c when she read online about Thanksgiving it said you do it with PEOPLE. So we had a South African/ British family, a Chinese missionary (luckily paired with an American) and then her family who is a mix of Kiwi (NZ) and Korean.

The meal was close...a good try... but not quite American. We ate outside on the veranda in the evening and got a bunch of "mossy bites" the kids jumped on the trampoline!

We had some mango's with the cranberries because "it makes the cranberries taste better!" She was probably thinking, who would eat this stuff straight out of the jar? Me thinking: Well, Americans do once a year. So the mangos were unique! We did have potatoes, gravy, stuffing and turkey, so all in all it was close enough. The South African girl was in charge of pies and they were again close.

The pie crust was there and something was on top of it but it was more like a cookie! The whole ordeal made me smile (especially because it was obviously for MY AMERICAN FAMILY) and it will be a fond memory when I think back on it all! So thankful for friends who try!

Christmas: So it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas....and the 4th of July! Lets face it Christmas is in the dead of summer here so when people talk about their favorite Christmas foods the examples given are "ice blocks (Popsicles), Mango's, and BBQ's" During Christmas people go CAMPING. We were invited to camp in someones back yard for Christmas eve and I thought that was the funniest/ weirdest invitation I have ever received! All of Stan's co-workers were recounting their fond childhood memories of camping during Christmas. It is a big deal out here and everyone does it. We know because all the camp grounds are booked up for the holiday season and we just didn't book fast enough (like a month in advance) for a patch of cement in a national camp site. What will we do? Probably stay at home and go to the beach everyday :-)

Merry Christmas everyone, and I look forward to posting about New Years, Chinese New Year (huge here) and Australia Day ...all of which are in January!