Highlights

There are several things I feel like I need to mention and don't want to forget, but that don't quite have enough material for their own post...

Halloween


Thankfully, even though we live away from home, the embassy does a good job of providing traditional American celebrations for each holiday.  For Halloween they did a carnival and Trunk or Treat.  The funny thing is that when I read the invitation for the Trunk or Treat I thought it was the most clever idea I had ever heard!  (I have since realized that lots of organizations do this and have been doing this for awhile.)  I took lots of pictures that afternoon and then something went terribly wrong with our camera and I now have none of them.  I took one picture with my phone.

G was Curious George and J was his banana.  

All of the kids looked great in their costumes and they walked a parade route from the carnival at the club to the car trunks inside the embassy compound.  I had volunteered a trunk, not knowing until the day before that I was expected to DECORATE it.  Oh dear.  I am not very crafty and don't keep those sorts of things around the house.  And some of these people went ALL OUT with blackout material, lights, cobwebs and music.  I ended up making a black, orange, and white paper chain (you know like a countdown to Christmas chain) and hanging it from the trunk.  Oh, and by the by, I had to call my crafty friend here to even come up with that.

I don't know if any of you have seen Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, but once those kids started the Trunk or Treating it was like chum in the water for a school of angry sharks.  Seriously I just threw candy in baskets for about 4 intense minutes and then it was over.  (Some of you probably know what I'm talking about.) I think it was all a little too much for the G man.  He pretty much bowed out of the candy part.

Later that night Joe and I went to the adult Halloween party.  It didn't even start until 9 pm!!!!!  Oh dear me, don't they know we are usually in bed by 8:30????  I was very impressed that Joe even agreed to go- it is a big deal for us to leave the house after the sun goes down.  We got there at what we thought was a fashionable 9:30....and no one was there yet.  Nerd alert!  Coming up with costumes caused me no end of concern.  We had not yet received our shipment so the pickins were pretty slim.  After much debate we decided on being Coach and Tami Taylor from our favorite TV show "Friday Night Lights." (Which, once again, if you have never watched it before, you need to head on over to Netflix for $8 a month and stream it)  And yes, we know we look nothing like the Taylors, and of course no one could tell who we were, but I think we pieced together pretty good outfits:

Coach and Tami Taylor

There were also many discussions on whether we should go Dillon Panthers or East Dillon Lions.  We stuck with the Panthers. And just for the record, we stayed at the party until 11:40.


Thanksgiving


We had all but given up the idea of Thanksgiving for this year because of the Moroccan national elections that took place the Friday after (that I may have mentioned once or seventeen times).  On Thursday at 4 pm, Joe left to travel down to Western Sahara to monitor several polling places on the behalf of the U.S.  (He is working on his own post about his adventure)  So, we certainly didn't want to make a big feast while packing him and getting the kids and me ready for 3.5 days solo...for the first time in Morocco.

We were, however, invited to partake in some friends' already-planned feast.  Our contribution to the affair ended up being our house- it is the biggest of the 3 families and we actually have a great playroom and backyard for all the little people.

First annual family Thanksgiving picture (Jenny- we finally have a great front porch to take pics on!)

Our friend Matt, carving, made the hands-down best turkey I've ever eaten.

We seem to get really lucky in the "having friends that are photographers" department.  Geoff took some great shots that day.

Ready for take-off

Baby boys

G checking out newborn Baby A

When Joe came home we put up our Christmas decorations which really helped warm up the house.

I think I know how to do this...

Helping!

Black Friday

I may have already mentioned that it is pretty nice to be away from all of the crazy holiday shopping in the States.  It becomes so stressful, not to mention crowded, and all about more and more THINGS.  And after seeing some of the news footage from this year's Black Friday, I was actually a little ill.  Of course being away from the States....and in a Muslim country, you also lose out on the Christmas decorations and holiday "spirit" in the air.  Most of you know I do love shopping, and to start off the Christmas season a girlfriend and I decided to have our own Black Friday.  The shopping turned out quite nice- we went to the Medina and bought lots of gifts and of course it wasn't crowded!  For lunch we decided to try out the T.G.I.Fridays in town to celebrate our American "holiday".  Of course I tried to order chicken fajitas..."Sorry Madame, we do not have that today." OK, beef fajitas..."No, that will take over an hour to make"...I ended up with some questionable pasta.  My friend Whitney thought the club sandwich looked promising- it came out as a couple of pieces of white bread with one slice of ham on it. Yuck.  Oh, and the trip to the restaurant took about 2 hours from start to finish.  Nice.  

I'm sure this is what your Black Friday looked like too.  (Sorry for the terrible picture.  I don't  like to take my iPhone out and advertise it.)

I'm playing catch-up, so hopefully more posts will follow this week!