In Summary...

Okay, this is the first time I've sat down, like actually sat down, with a laptop and some shred of my sanity, in the last two months. Being home is great, but it's the busiest we've been in years. Homeschooling has been stripped back to a bare minimum of maths and reading and me screaming, "DO YOU WANT TO BE STUPID LIKE GLEN BECK WHEN YOU GROW UP? THEN FINISH BUNNY GOES TO TOWN AND GIVE ME MY LIFE BACK!!" My gentle, natural learning philosophy is buried under a moving van somewhere between here and Dardanelle. That's exactly right. You have no idea what a Dardanelle is, and for your sake I'm going to leave it that way.

The up-side is that we've been very fortunate that our friends and family love us enough to re-arrange their schedules when we come roaring into town, so we've spent plenty of time catching up and seeing familiar faces. There are tons of pictures, so I'm just going to bombard you with them in one big post. I thought about spreading these out but I can't guarantee I'll be sitting down again until after the new year and I'm not gonna lie to you - my digital camera is about to explode if I don't get clear some of these pictures off.

Gramsy and Pops got a chocolate fountain. This is probably the
main thing the kids will remember from Thanksgiving.

Bekah stops mid-chocolate to pose

The epic Nerts stand-off of '11

We have eaten out very little since we've been here - mainly because our parents keep cooking for us and sending food home. But we found a cool little shushi buffet in Little Rock that Christie fell in love with. Sushi isn't my favorite, but the volcano roll is pretty good and there's so much other stuff I haven't tried it all. I'm not sure how I feel about the word "sushi" and "buffet" in the same sentence, but the place works. (If you're in LR, it's in the old Tony Roma's building across from Cozy Mel's on Shakleford).

From our second trip to Fayetteville. This is our gang from the
Benton County Homeschool group.

Brennan & Sasha

Rich with braces

Rich without braces!

We met our friends Anna, Aura, and Lavender at the
Fayetteville Library since it was too cold to meet at a park.
The kids immediately started playing outside anyway.

I got a haircut

Brennan got a mohawk trim

Mike Brown and Bobby Wright of PG-13 at Cajun's Wharf.
This is my favorite venu to play in Little Rock.

My bud Smitty and his girlfriend awesome girlfriend Karen.

Mr. James Ballentine from the Buzz. Yes, he looks like this
all the time. 

The Foley's Flat Stanlys on a LR cable car - that
will get it's own post next week.

The boys starting the advent calendars from Gramsey and Pops

Opening a mini-Christmas tree with hand-made, hilarious
ornaments from the Foleys. Awesome.

The boys are enjoying having all their stuffed animals
around while they can. In a week, most all of these
go back into storage for the time being.

Hummus, Gyros, Babaganoush, and pizza at Layla's on
Rodney Parham. Our new favorite LR restaurant.

There is not enough room on the internet for me to explain
how ridiculous it was to get all this crap in one place.

We've lived without any of it for 8 months. I find our human
obsession with Stuff fascinating.

Me with John Petrucci, the guitarist/songwriter for
prog-metal band Dream Theater in Dallas. 20 year fan, first time meet.
Sweet guy, but looks way more metal than me.

Part of the T2X crew. We made an awesome and critically
acclaimed PC game years ago. Dunan Cooke, Me, Dave Reigel, Suzy Madden.
Great to finally meet these folks after 12 years of talking and working together online.

My brother Mike took us to a replica of one of Columbus' ships.

Couldn't believe how small it was onboard. Cool experience for the kids too.

Brennan is learning how to make Cheese Enchiladas, one of the boys favorites.

Hanging with more of the Old Gang. Joe & Robin Brislane, Tiffany Thomas,
and Spencer Watson. 

The boys had Jacob and Jonathan (2nd cousins) over to spend the night - the
first time in a long, long, long time. 

This chocolate desert from Market Place in Conway will kill you
before you leave the restaurant.

And their Johnson cousins spending the night - Emily and Connor.
Pizza, sundaes, soda, Raving Rabids and lots of sword fighting.

Swimming with cousins. It was cool having a heated pool
in November.