The Shaving Cream Disaster

The kids went to bed at the normal time-7:30pm, and Joel, my Mom, sister, and I sat down to a nice evening of game playing. Around 8:30, my sister says "Wow, the kids sure are quiet tonight"...normally it takes a little while to get them to sleep with them all in real beds and sleeping in the same rooms. But hey, my kids go to bed pretty easy so I wasn't worried. Then around 9:30pm, we hear Asher and Anna both wailing at the top of the stairs. HHmmm, that is strange....and what did we find?!? Two kids covered, and I mean COVERED, head to toe in shaving cream. In their hair, all over their faces, chests, legs. We start to laugh despite the tears and head to get the camera when we notice Anna standing in a pool of blood. Needless to say all camera thoughts went out the window. It took quite a long time before we discovered the chunk of skin missing from her pinkie toe...there was just so much blood. After 3 days, it still will start bleeding uncontrollably when we change the bandage. But thankfully there wasn't a more serious injury. No stitches required and no appendages missing. The "blood trail" in our bedroom indicated that after destroying most of the room, they found a can of shaving cream (now empty) and a razor from my suitcase and decided to try and shave....can you imagine if Anna tried to shave her face?! My mom has a trail of blood on her carpet in 2 of her rooms...huge spots in certain places. Where are the CSI people to tell us how to get blood out of a carpet? You would think something much more serious happened. This morning, Asher saw a can of shaving cream and asked me what is was. I said "shaving cream", and he says "I don't like shaving cream Mommy". Yeah, I bet he doesn't!! What a laugh. In retrospect, I wish we had gotten that picture, but you will have to use your imaginations!!

Tomorrow is the big day...next blog will be from Hawaii!

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!

I would say Happy New Year too, but we aren't celebrating that holiday this week :). Yesterday we had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast, with time playing outside with the kids, football, and the Macy's Parade where we saw the Highty Tighties marching (and they looked good!). Today the kids were lost in piles of wrapping paper as we celebrated Christmas together (we are doing it now because we won't be together on actual Christmas). and boy, Christmas with 4 toddlers sure is a lot of fun....very fast moving as paper and toys are going everywhere. Now we are refereeing the sharing of new toys and the eating of too many cookies and pies. Also my older brother Ricky is coming to visit today with his new wife and 2 step daughters...it has been a very long time since I have seen my brother and have never met his new family. We are very excited about bridging this gap and seeing our families together. I would post a few pictures but this dial up is killing me!!

And for those who are wondering, we had a fundue night with our dear friends on our last night in MA. We played games, laughed, cried, and shared a wonderful evening together. We are so blessed with what we have (and I say HAVE because we still have it) there. We were also blessed enough to share in a miracle with our friends there too. He is just so good...and congratulations to Rick and Wendy again!!! It was so nice to leave with a smile on our face as we think about your miracle.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! We love and miss you guys with all our hearts.

Temporary Address

Today is our last day in MA. Tomorrow we head out for the long drive to WV where we will get to spend Thanksgiving (and Christmas in our own way) with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and my niece and nephew. I am sure it will be a wonderful time. Then we fly to Hawaii on the 28th. So for the next 9 days or so I will be in the land of dial-up internet service which means I have no idea how much blogging I will be able to do. Our address for the time being is...

General Delivery
90McChord St
Unit 5000
Hickam AFB, HI 96853

my cell: 339-223-2730
Joel's cell: 339-223-2765

emails: marythorson01@yahoo.com and 2turkeys@gmail.com

We are renting our home so much to Asher's delight, we still have our blue house for the time being. Maybe God is holding it for us until we come back ;). I will write more from WV or HI. Aloha!!

Lost in Boxes

It is finally happening. Our lives are being packed into boxes, put in crates, and taken away. The movers have been here since Tuesday and we feel like it is a never ending process. Even though we are very thankful we don't have to pack ourselves, it is still very frustrating to watch strange men handle all your things. And then I always realize about an hour too late that I didn't want them to pack that certain thing because I still need it! Oh well. But the thing I find the most frustrating is what they won't pack up. The other times we have moved, we have traveled by car to our new home so we could carry with us those random things. Now I am grieving over my candles, lotions, and bubble baths. I have about 5 bottles of Bath and Body Works bubble baths (you know-not cheap!) and all of them were left behind. I took a bubble bath last night just because I had to use some of it! But it was perfect having a nice long bubble bath on our last night in our blue house in Dracut, MA. Anyways, anyone need some bubble bath?

The First "Last"

Today was Joel's last day at work. They had a very nice farewell party, gave him some VERY nice gifts, tolerated our hyper-no nap children, and we spent a long time there today saying goodbye to Joel's fellow coworkers. We felt like it was the first stage of really saying goodbye. Joel really enjoyed his coworkers and it was a sad day. A few girlfriends have said to me this week "I can't believe this is one of the last things we are going to do together". I have pushed these thoughts out of my mind for so long that I feel I have put a wall up so that I don't have to deal with the emotions; scared that if I let them surface I will never be able to pull myself back together. I realize now that the "lasts" have started and don't think I will be able to keep the wall up much longer. Thank you to all who are making these lasts so very special.

GO HOKIES!!!

Little hokies in the making :)

We are New Englanders

Joel and I had this big discussion in order to answer the question, "Where do we tell people we are from in Hawaii?". We had never really thought about this before. He is from Minnesota, but lived everywhere in the world. I grew up in West Virginia. We met at Virginia Tech and lived there in Virginia for the first 2 years of our marriage. Then we came to Boston. What a hodge podge. But, we believe we are New Englanders. We are from Boston, MA. This is where we have spend the majority of our married life together growing as one as God intended us. This is where our 2 children where born, again defining our marriage in a new way. This is where we have watched them grow (so far). We LOVE the Red Sox. We love Boston. We have loved our 4.5 years here and all God has given us here making this more and more our home together. So as we watched our express shipment being packed up today (Asher tearful of his toys going on the big truck and saying "See you in Hawaii!"), we have decided...we are New Englanders.