Thanksgiving by the numbers

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday.

17-pound turkey

14 potatoes (mashed)

10 different dishes

9 children

6 adults

4 pies

3 families

1 bathroom

So many things to be thankful for, including... Logan and Heidi's engagement!! Congratulations.

Trunk is Done

The trunk is finished. I'll start this week on a new bed. Also thinking about a kitchen table.

School Field Trips

Today, Micah and Maddie made the annual school field trip to a nearby chocolate factory. The highlight of this trip is the opportunity to design your own chocolate bar. Choose your chocolate, specify additional accouterments and pour into the mold. It's far cooler than picking the toppings for ice cream.

Pause now for parenthetical but relevant digression. Speaking of ice cream, my oldest daughter long ago learned to choose carefully when ordering ice cream. Pick chocolate or vanilla and her dessert was likely to be taxed by a certain blog writer. Choose more strategically and the bowl would be hers and hers alone. These days, she's partial to mint. Bleck.

Anyway, back to my point. Micah made 2 lovely dark chocolate candy bars filled with sprinkles, smarties and jelly beans. He offered them to Piper and I for dessert after dinner tonight. We opted to pass.

Tomorrow, Tess has a field trip to an Astronomy school in Heidelberg. I'm signed up to escort. Yippee.

Photos and Random Happenings

First, a commercal. I have been given a kindle and my uncle Bob is publishing a book. The cosmic balance of the universe appears to be in balance. I'm impatient to buy a copy. Uncle Bob, who is freaky articulate for a math nerd, has been maddeningly silent on the plot these past 2 years.

4 members of teamfordham survived halloween with no casualties or injuries though the sugar rush has not yet abated. Piper took the evening off to see a show with a German friend. Quite clever of her to plan that out 2 months in advance, I will admit.

We are freshly back from Belgium and Luxembourg. I'm still a bit twitchy from driving our American van through tiny European streets for 3 days.

Piper bought the kids gourmet Belgian waffles with chocolate sauce while we were in Belgium. Maddie pronounced my Bisquick waffles superior. You can't buy loyalty like that. I'll bask in that memory of that praise until she hits puberty and her taste buds mature.

A new record was set during this trip when the kids enjoyed not one but two different museums. Normally, they find museum tours to be mind-numbingly boring grown-up stuff. The chocolate museum in Belgium and the Military History museum near Bastogne were both declared exceptions. Sadly, they were less amused by the 3-hour tour of Luxembourg (in the rain).

Here are photos.

Happenings

Piper has successfully survived the first 3 days of the fall break with absolutely no assistance from her deadbeat husband. We are off to Beglium tomorrow for 3 days. Piper has decreed that it is time for for her to learn to order Cappuccino in Flemish.

Maddie survived an interview with a prospective violin teacher. She was accepted as a student. Alas, fortune did not smile equally upon her violin and it was deemed unworthy. Piper is off to the store to rent a better one.

Beglium update to follow next week. Also, I have Halloween pictures that I promise to post.