Days with the Dorans

Dear Joe, Ali Jane, Zach and Sean, Four years ago I wrote you a letter HERE about the last election. We've just had another election and I feel like I should share with you here my two cents on the matter. Jonasen and Ali Jane were much more aware of this election and Z and Seany, you heard things from your peers and of course you knew who dad and I were voting for and on a surface level~why. I know I thought the last election was ugly but NOTHING would compare to this one. Uncharted territory if you ask me but not in a good way. This election was hard. The tone of the campaigning was sickening and really upset and changed ME some. I heard some really ugly things and I had people who I cared about defending behavior that I thought could not nor should be defended. The morning of the 9th (the day after the election), I woke Joe up and told him, "Trump's president." to which he picked his head up and said, "Seriously?" and put his head ba...

Jodi turned 40 on the 3rd of November. It was my intention to do something to her house even though Randy said she wasn't looking forward to this birthday. I had my plans but it turned out being a rainy night so I aborted my plans and settled on the birthday texts, calls and dinner. It was supposed to be a grown-up dinner (husbands and wives) but poor Hughy wasn't feeling so well so he joined us. He did sleep through almost the entire dinner so I think Jodi still had a nice relaxing night out. I feel so blessed to still have her in my inner circle of life. She's someone that I can talk to and know she'll always be there for me. We went out later just the two of us to our old stomping ground (Olive Garden) and enjoyed our "usual" soup, salad and breadstick combo. I love that Jodi and I have remained such close friends since our freshmen year of college. I found the picture below from Jodi's 21st birthday celebrating at our favorite Kalamazoo bar ...

 It's hard being a teacher right now. I really do feel under attack- I'm sure part of that is election related- and little comments I hear from others. Sometimes I want to run and hide under a rock, do what I do, and forget the world around me. Thankfully I have allies in all of this that I care about. I met up with others in the WLEA for some fun free bowling and morale building! I STINK at bowling- I mean... REALLY bad. For participating, we each got a blue ticket and for every strike you got, you also got a ticket. I got ONE ticket (make that ONE strike- so really two tickets). Everyone around me was doing so much better and had loads of blue tickets. Although I'm a competitive person, I was laughing and having fun- my awful bowling didn't bother me one bit. And sometimes when you're just enjoying yourself, you are pleasantly surprised! My ticket was actually pulled out of the drawing and I won a bottle of wine!!! I never win anything~ so this was a s...

My dad got us some Michigan basketball tix. We actually had 6 this time (We usually have four and need to get two more). It was fun because we also had a parking pass so didn't have to park far and walk- which I like but the kids... not so much. There were people sitting in our seats but rather than ask them to move, we just headed up a few rows. Sean didn't quite like being so far up but he managed.  Michigan was playing some small school so of course they won and there weren't too many fans there- but my favorite fans had a blast! Sometimes it's not the game but just being together.

I was SO proud of our costumes this year, mostly because I made them myself and they weren't expensive. I used foam board (which is just thicker poster board) that I got from the dollar store, paint and duct tape. We got a lot of compliments on our costumes. A friend asked if she could buy our costumes and I also made a video HERE on how to make them since they were so easy.  I think that everyone thought the costumes were cute, but when the kids turned around and they saw the back of their ghosts, that made it even cuter. I painted the eyes and mouths with glow-in-the-dark paint which was a fun little touch. In keeping with tradition, Al and her twin went treating together. We all start out together heading down to Great-Nan's and then we seem to split. Scott went with the girls, Jeff and Papa took Seany home, Joe and Trev went out and I stuck with the Goose. Sadly, my Nan is not doing so well. She doesn't really know who we are and can't see or hear to...

We gutted and carved our pumpkins on the 30th. I still am in love with my little drill thing that makes pumpkin gutting a snap! The kids had them gutted and were off to carving in no time. The bad mom that I am I didn't take a single picture of their carved pumpkins (SOB!!).  I guess I was lost in the moment which isn't a bad place to be.  Separating the seeds from the guts is not as easy because of that tool. The pumpkin flesh is pretty ripped up which makes it small like the seeds. I spend a long time separated the seeds from the guts but finally got a system down of soaking the seeds where they floated to the top and the guts were a bit lower. Time consuming but I feel like the seeds were better than ever this year! We may have to get more pumpkins next year because everyone ate them up!

Our costumes for this year are a bit big and not really easy for parties. The Bigs came up with their own costumes for school. Joe didn't like any of the ideas Al and I threw out for him so he was "Joe Cool" while Al got creative and was a "Social Butterfly" complete with fake flower antennae. What I love about these costumes is they were FREE! The Littles (I didn't get a picture of them) chose old costumes and put their little spin on them too. They both said their parties were a blast. For my school costume, I joined my team and we were "Pigs in Blankets" and yes... that's the new blanket we just made. It was a cute costume and very practical since on Halloween we had a half day and were in meetings in the afternoon. It's all about comfort (and it, too, was FREE). My friend, Dawn, printed off the pig heads for us and did the tails too. For Angie and Ty's party, I used an extra foam board, covered it in dollar st...