Chocolate Fondue and Testicles (no, I am not making this up)

**Disclaimer: if you are offended by the title of this post, then you probably shouldn't read any further. If you have been diagnosed with a medical condition such as glaucoma, high blood pressure, heart disease, or emphysema, then you should proceed reading with caution.**

Ryan and I have decided that Lauren and Brenna are both "too young" and "too old" to be watching the movie My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. This realization came to us when our daughters started talking about testicles during our traditional Christmas Eve chocolate fondue dinner. The conversation went something like this...

Lauren (or Brenna, it's hard to remember) asked, "What are testicles?" Being the serious health professional that I am, replied, "You know, they're those ball things that boys have." (to which Ryan rolled his eyes and muttered, "Unbelievable.") I shot back at him a grin that said, "Well then, you give it a try." To which he replied with a look that said, "Fine, maybe I will." At which point Brenna interrupted our non-verbal conversation with, "Lauren told me that they're in your knees!" To which Lauren exclaimed, "I did not!". "Oh, yeah," Brenna retracted, "You said that testicles were the things that hold your pelvis together - but that's your kidneys, right Mom?" "What?! No." I said (trying not to laugh, but laughing anyways). Then Lauren replied, "Well, how am I supposed to know?" and then asked, "What's a pelvis?" (to which no one replied).

Ryan, trying to get back to the original question said, in a calm manner, "Have you guys ever seen animals around town like goats, dogs..." Just then, Lauren interrupted enthusiastically, "and chickens!!". At which point I exclaimed, "What?!? No, not chickens!" At which point Ryan and I start laugh uncontrollably, and I think I started crying.

Just then, Brenna stood up, put one finger in the air, and with a look on her face like a lightbulb had just turned on in her head stated, "I've seen a cow with six testicles!!" At this point we all started laughing hysterically, and continued to do so for several minutes. This was until the laughter slowly died down, one of us gave the "post laughter sigh", and Ryan and I looked at each other as if to say, "What made us think that we were qualified to raise children?".

Don't worry, Addie missed out on this conversation because she had already overdosed on chocolate and "pencils" (pretzels - turns out she loves them and can't remember ever having them before), and was dancing around the table doing her impersonation of Maria from The Sound of Music (a much more appropriate movie for children).

Also, just to let you know.... when we finished eating we let the girls open one Christmas present. When they were done I told them it was time to go upstairs and go to bed. Brenna, quite surprised at this, even though it was already after 8:30pm, said, "But we didn't have a proper dinner!" At which point Ryan and I started laughing again, both at all of the "improper" things that had been said around the table, and at the fact that our 8 year old was complaining about having to eat fruit, cheese, chips, sausages, and chocolate for dinner on Christmas Eve! Oh, well... I guess that's what we get for raising our children at a British residential school.

Shrew Update

Tonight as Lauren left the house to go to prep (like homework club) a shrew ran inside, and ran straight into the trap in the kitchen! Seriously, this shrew has a problem... so, Ryan and the girls let it loose down the hill. We'll see how long it takes it to come "home".

One Nation, Reading Together

On Friday in Junior School they celebrated "One Nation, Reading Together", an event to promote literacy in India. All of the children were encouraged to dress up like a character from a book, and they had special literacy activities throughout the day. Lauren was Fern from Charlotte's Web, Brenna was Lucy from The Chronicles of Narnia, and Addie was Cindy Lou Who from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

In the evening we celebrated Thanksgiving with our American friends. It made for a long day, but we had such a good time with great friends. And we ate more food than I've ever eaten at a Thanksgiving dinner in the US - it was incredible!

Taming of the Shrew

We've had a shrew in our house for the past few days. We know it's been living in our kitchen, and we know that it came in through the hole where the washing machine drains (yes, we bought a washing machine!). However, we've been unable to catch it, even though we've tried, as you can see from the pictures. We didn't really want to kill it (remember how upset Ryan was when I accidentally shut this little shrew's brother in the front door?) so we got a box trap. And we caught it... twice, but it kept escaping. Then Ryan noticed that it was starting to pee and poo in the box trap. Great, so not only did we have a shrew living with us, but it was house trained!?! Well, it finally had enough of us tonight and it started shrieking in the kitchen (probably thought it was dying of starvation or somehow got shocked under the fridge), and so we chased it back out the hole from where it came in. And then we promptly mixed up some plaster of paris and plugged the hole. So, for now little shrew stay outdoors where you belong... until that unlucky day when you meet your demise in the front door.

Hollywood meets Bollywood

Twice a year the Student Council at Hebron puts on a dress up event. This semester the theme for the SC Event was Hollywood meets Bollywood (for those of you who don't know, Bollywood is the name of the Indian film industry). Being Americans, we jumped at the chance to show off our Hollywood style - and tried to convince our friends that we usually dress like this when we're in the States (yeah, right). Anyway, enjoy the pictures... Brenna is Maria from The Sound of Music, Lauren is Miley Cyrus from Hannah Montana, Addie is a princess (this is what she always dresses up like), I'm just some movie star with way too much make up, and it wasn't intentional but Ryan ended up looking a lot like Bono from U2.

Stop and take time to smell the flowers...

even if it's in a home store and the flowers aren't real - it will make for a really cute picture.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Today I got an urge to make Grandma Ketchum's Lemon Meringue Pie.  This is such a great recipe that we used to have every Thanksgiving.  Grandma would make it the day before, and it would be sitting on the washing machine out of the way of all the other food, along with a couple of pumpkin pies.  I haven't thought about the trouble that Grandma would go through to make pies for us, but I thought about it today because this pie is a PAIN to make!  Well, it's just a lot of work, and I'm not that good at it (as you can see by a sunken crust on the right and the strange meringue shape).  But, to my credit there were two power outages this afternoon that I was also having to accommodate.

But... it did make me think of a couple of funny lemon meringue pie stories that we've had over the years.  Once when Ryan was trying to make this pie he mistook the egg whites that we had separated out for the lemon juice (they do look alike) and added it to the filling instead of saving it for the meringue.  He realized it just as he was pouring it in and the mixture was turning into something resembling scrambled eggs.  We ate the pie anyway, and it was fine.

Another funny pie incident happened when some friends were over and I had a fresh pie shell cooling in the fridge.  We were all standing around ready to assemble the pie and then eat it warm when I accidentally  hit the pie plate against the door of the fridge.  The pie shell fell onto the floor and broke into a bunch of pieces (but luckily not the pie plate)!  We all just looked at the floor and then looked back at each other.  I said, "I just mopped the floor this morning."  So we quickly gathered up the pieces of the crust, put them into a casserole dish, poured in the lemon filling, and put the meringue on top.  After a few minutes in the oven and a few minutes of cooling we ate the pie with four spoons.  That was a great night!  (Thinking of you Derek and Chelsea - sorry that you're sick this week!)