As much as I love to visit family, it’s always nice to be back home.

Today I’m finally getting things unpacked and getting back to my regular duties. We had a lovely time with Mike’s mom, siblings, and the cousins on Thanksgiving. There was more than enough food to feed the entire city of Excelsior, and everyone got to take lots of leftovers. Sadly, I was lazy and didn’t take one single picture from the day (or any days for that matter). You can head on over to Shoebox Princess’ site to see some of those. I got to spend a full day with two of Mike’s sisters, Sara and Jessie. We mostly just hung out giggling and eating, but a little stamping got done, too. It was a really fun time. Since we’re closer now to Mike’s family and can visit more often, we made the effort to see more friends this time. Hopefully, we’ll be able to catch up with other friends on future visits.

On Saturday morning, Uncle Jake cooked a spectacular breakfast for us. I wish I had a live-in chef. Afterward we headed over to Anut Dorothy’s house to pay a visit. We were not able to attend the funeral for Uncle Tom (Dorothy’s husband), so it was nice that we could at least spend a little time with Dorothy before leaving town. The last part of our day was spent with the Evans Family. We did a family photo shoot in a cute part of their town. I took their pictures, and then Sara did our family pictures. I’m pleased with so many of them. It will be hard to choose some for the Christmas card. I’ll just show a few here. Then see below about a slideshow of all the images.

The Evans.

The Hawleys. Yes, I only did some funkier stuff with our pics because I didn’t want to scare Sara.

I had a nifty slideshow embedded directly to here, but Sara says it’s not working for her. So here’s the direct link which also has much larger images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/snappychic/sets/72157610655200062/show/

We headed out of town on Sunday. While Mike and I were packing things up the girls got to frolic out in the snow because it snowed a few inches. Brother Dave was generous enough to play along with Mike and give him some oil for his “project”, and we ate lunch at one of his hip and delicious restaurants. I had the butternut squash raviolis. I asked Mike if he thought Dave would give us the recipe for it because it was AWESOME.

Over the river and thru the wood,
To grandmother’s house we go;
The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh,
Thru the white and drifted snow, oh!
Over the river and thru the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

Over the river and thru the wood,
To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bell ring,
“Ting-a-ling-ling!”
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day-ay!
Over the river and thru the wood,
Trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and make sure you gain those obligatory 10 pounds. We’ll be back Sunday.

It’s hard to tell sometimes that this a man in his mid-30’s since he seems to have the personality of a strange 13-year-old. I thought it would be fun to show the progression from sweet, little boy to weird 35-year-old “man”. His sisters didn’t warn me about the “true” Mike before I married. Sure, I caught glimpses of it before the official day. I actually found humor in most of these things and thought they were, dare I say, cute.

Here he is during his elementary school years. Mike gives the impression that he was a well-behaved and delightful, young boy. Looks can be deceiving though. After attending his 10-year-high school reunion I quickly discovered that in 2nd grade Mike was allowed 5 minutes at the end of each day to do his stand-up routine for the whole class only if he behaved himself all day. Word on the street is that he only got this chance a couple of times.

As you can see here Mike had no fashion sense during his teen angst years. This should have been a little clue about what was to come later in life.

And the hair. Someone who can feel comfortable with that mop of a mane is someone who really has a boat load of quirks.

This seemed really funny to me when I first saw this picture. Actually there is a video of this event floating around. Little did I know that Mike was just trying on a look that he would indeed want to wear regularly as an adult. He’s even said that when he’s done with the military he wants to grow his hair long again and perm it to look like Mike Brady during his curly-haired days. Please someone help me.

Of course, seeing all these pictures of Mike camping and being outdoorsy didn’t make me realize that I was marrying Mr. NRA Boy Scout.

Then there’s the eye. This really should have tipped me off, but I was too smitten by this point to truly see what I was getting myself into.

Had I truly understood all these things early on would have I married this man? Hmmm. Of course, I would have. I know I complain about Mike’s oddities, but I really do love this man with all my heart. Life is definitely interesting spending it with Mr. Hawley. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not laughing. A lot. He makes me very happy, and I hope I do the same for him. Even if I have to be embarrassed to be seen with him in public, he still is the best man whom I could have ever ended up with.

When picking up Mimi from school on Friday I was told by her teacher that we would have a weekend visitor coming home with us. Her name is Rita the Rabbit, and the girls were ecstatic about her presence. Rita has her own daily journal in which I will chronicle our weekend. The girls made sure to make her feel at home and included her in all their activities.

Mimi shows Rita how well she can color with markers.

Annie brought home a game from school which practices the use of number lines called “Monster Squeeze”. Rita and I joined the girls in a few rounds.

Rita’s favorite movie is now “Sleeping Beauty” after watching it with the girls.

On Saturday I had to go to the cannery with a group from church, so Rita and the girls went with Daddy to cut down a tree for a friend from church. They got to go for a ride on the 4-wheeler. Rita said she had the time of her life.

After a day full of activity and no naps Mimi and Rita are beat. Here they are cuddling on the couch together.

As a farewell to Rita, the girls decide to have a tea party with her. They told knock-knock jokes. They discussed the high price of furniture and rugs and fire insurance for bunnies. (A prize for the person who can guess the song reference here).

Of course, Mimi didn’t understand that Rita was only “visiting” us and would have to be returned. She hid Rita under my bed on the morning of Rita’s departure. Mimi was not happy to give her back. The girls still enjoyed what little time they had with Rita and are glad they got the chance to spend the weekend with her.

Also during the weekend Mike went on yet another hunting excursion with a buddy from church. They each came home with one duck and one goose. I asked why he and his friend are each posing with Lucy, and I was informed that Lucy was trying to “get at the birds”.

Concerned Citizen can now get off my back for the blog’s “inactivity” for a whole 5 days. I’m sure it must really seem to everyone that I’ve just let the blog go dormant.

Since he’s a veteran Mike received Veteran’s Day off from work. However, he only got Tuesday off, whereas our friends at other bases got Monday and Tuesday off which gave them a 4-day weekend. Oh well, Mike still enjoyed his day off and went on 2 hunting excursions. The first was an early morning outing for geese. Mike’s luck was with him, and he returned home proudly with 2 geese. Mike decided Lucy needed to get warmed up for her pheasant-hunting trip next week in SD. Together they traveled to Bong Recreation area (yes, that’s the real name) to hunt pheasant. Apparently, the park puts out pheasants each day for hunters. Unfortunately, Mike’s luck was spent on the geese, and he and Lucy returned empty-handed. I’m sure they’ll have success in SD; they always have in the past.

So yesterday Mike calls me to tell me that the base is offering free flu shots to dependents (that would be the girls and me) and to go right then to get them done. However, Annie was in school, and I didn’t want to make 2 trips. Fortunately, Annie’s school lets out an hour and 15 minutes early on Wednesdays. I called up the immunizations clinic and found out that their last injection is given at 3:30 giving us enough time to get there for that last injection. In spite of that, it seemed everything was working against us. I’ll list out the bad luck we had.
1. Annie’s bus arrived home 15 minutes late.
2. The traffic was unusually heavy on the way to base.
4. I arrived to base at 3:05. My base entry stickers were expired, and they guards wouldn’t let me enter until I got new stickers.
4. I went to get new stickers and had to go back and forth to my car 3 times to obtain the proper documentation for new stickers.
5. I got lost finding the hospital. Base is all made up of one-ways, so I had to loop all the way back to the front of base to get back on route to the hospital adding several minutes to my journey.
6. Finally, we arrived to the immunization clinic at 3:27 only to be told we needed to bring our medical records with us, new policy that started this year. However, our medical records are with our civilian doctors back in Kenosha.
7. We had to go to the patient records office to see if they could issue “temporary” records. There was a sign on the door that said, “Be back in 5 minutes.” The records lady arrived but promptly told us that they don’t issue “temporary” records in a scolding tone. Grrr!
8. We went back to the immunizations office to plead our case.
9. They finally gave in and allowed us to get immunized.
10. Mimi freaked out when she thought she was going be getting a shot.
11. She was quickly calmed when she was told she was just getting a squirt in each nostril. She did fine.
12. Annie freaked out when she realized that something was going to be squirted up her nose. We eventually convinced her it would be okay.
13. They made me get a shot:( My arm hurts today.

Mimi hearts Lucy. She asked me to take this picture.

Ok, one more quick story. Mike received his new jumpsuit in the mail on Tuesday. When he pulled it out of the package to show the girls, Annie was giddy with excitement. She exclaimed, “Daddy, you should wear it to your church meeting tonight!” I started laughing so hard that I could hardly breath. Mike couldn’t understand what was so funny. I said that we should’ve recorded that statement from Annie and play it for her again when she’s a teenager to see if she still feels the same about Daddy wearing his jumpsuit.

Annie insisted on taking this picture of her Daddy in his new jumpsuit.