My Portion & Dessert

Cruising was good. Will I cruise 10 times a year and vacation no other way? No. But I did enjoy not cooking, not cleaning and seeing cool places while staying in one place. That was really the best part. And the staff actually do customer service, all the time. Dubrovnik was the coolest, Santorini the prettiest, and Kusadasi/Ephesus the most interesting. And Venice I just loved with all the time we spent there. I gained 5 pounds and one truly authentic Turkish rug. I plan to hang it on a wall some day soon.

Hope mom & dad enjoyed it. We did. And we're really glad they came. One of the surprises was the quality of the nightly entertainment - only 3-4 of which we caught. Full of talented dancers and singers that put on rousing shows I liked. The biggest disappointments were corny 'directors' (of the cruise experience, of the port experience) who were full of themselves and sounded like infomercials. We ignored them. My experience proved my practice... heavily research, plan, and negotiate your own vacation - no matter the 'all-inclusive' promises and deals. You will always come out better in the end - financially and experientially.

After a long battle in which I finally vanquished the laundry pile, we returned to normal life. The St. Martin Lantern Walk with the kindergarten (kids eat giant bread-men and adults drink strong wine after), Parents' Night for Eli's class (he is one of the kids they have zero worries about), Mary's first hair trim (she watched daddy and Eli go first so no problems), and organizing the growing local John Deere expat group. I missed a lot of regular neighborhood thingys and friends over the last 6 weeks so have been catching up socially and getting back into homeschool with Eli - who begs constantly to do math, of all things.

Somewhere in there we had a genuine Thanksgiving Dinner at church with yum yum turkey and stuffing. I had to bring the homemade Mac-n-Cheese.... huh? They swore it was traditional in the South. New to me but I followed orders and the crockpot was empty at the end of the night.
But mostly I have been preparing for CHRISTMAS! I think it's more exciting when you have excited kids. I can't wait for the kids to open presents and have been diligently preparing by tossing old toys and looking for a new toy cabinet. More to come.