Oh dear...

Boy, life just took a huge bite outta my butt didn't it?  "I'm going to try to blog EVERY DAY!"  Yeah....nearly 5 months later, here I am again, peeking in around the corner. 

A lot has happened to me in the last few months.  Of course we had the standard American family holidays of Halloween, which is also my birthday.  I'm old you know.  My children will tell you this.  Thing One, once asked me what kind of horse and buggy my family used when I was little.  Grrrrr...No, I did not eat her.  Though I did gain a new level of understanding for creatures that actually do eat their young!  Then we had Thanksgiving, which was a strange one this year.  It was just the kids and myself as Sailor wasn't home, so we went and saw the opening show for the latest Harry Potter movie and had McDonald's of all things for dinner.  But we had fun, and that was the most important part of the holiday.  My children and I had a  wonderful day, a silly dinner, and made a great memory.  Thing One even won a black cat Webkinz for Beastly from a claw machine at the theater on base!

We had a really great Christmas this year.  All the kids were happy with their loot, and weren't lacking too many of the things they wanted.  But I'm not dishing out cell phones and iPod Touches to them when they want a few hundred dollars worth of other stuff too, ya know?  They're gonna have to give up all the kiddie stuff to get the big kid stuff!  Not to mention, we should be moving in under a year, and I can't see getting cell phones that we'll only use while we're here.  Thing One can borrow Sailor's when he's not home.  We had a big Christmas dinner at our place this year with a dozen or so guests, maybe 15 or so?  We have done this nearly every year that we have lived here.  I didn't do it in 2009 seeing as Monkey was only 6 weeks old, I just wasn't up to it yet.  But we try to invite most of Sailor's division to our place, some times it's a party and there's drinking, but not always.  This year was just a nice dinner, a couple of games, and a gift exchange.  Everyone had a good time I think, I thought it went really well. 

The New Year rolled around, and while Sailor was home, he had duty.  So again, just me and the kiddies.  Thing One, Thing Two, and Beastly all made it to the New Year and we toasted with sparkling grape juice.  :)  Monkey slept through it all of course.

One week into the New Year, my father passed away.  Lucky for me Sailor was in port and able to take some leave time.  He stayed here in Japan with the kids, while I went home to be with Mom and my brother and the rest of the family to bury Dad.  It's been almost a month now, and I think we've adjusted alright.  Mom has her good days, her sad days, and sometimes her mad days too.  Which is good, that mad will get her though the harder parts.  I think that's why we have it during the grieving process, you know? 

During the week that Sailor had to solo 4 kids who are all home, all the time he realized just how hard it is.  He declared to never get mad again because the house is messy, so long as it isn't dirty, which works well for me.  He didn't have to do bills, or run all the errands because we did that before I left, and the kids didn't have to do their school work while I was gone because he's not used to teaching them, and while I know he could do it, there really wasn't a reason to make him.  However, by the time I got home he had made up his mind that it's crazy to try to home school so many, and that it would be better for the girls to go back to school.  The whole reason we started home schooling was because of problems with a certain school, which only Thing Two would be going to now.  So Thing One is  back in as of last week, and Beastly will start again tomorrow.

Thing Two will finish this year at home with me, and Monkey of course will be monkey-ing about the house.  It'll be interesting to have only 2 instead of 4 all day for sure.  Next fall who knows what will happen, but with luck we'll be back in the States and everyone will be back in the public school system.  I don't mind teaching them, but it's a very big job with 3 different grade levels.

Sorry for the lack of humor in this post, but I'm tired, and it didn't seem right when I was doing a summary that included a death.