No Blog November

Happy One Month Anniversary of the last time I blogged! I'm the worst, but let's celebrate by catching up. 

Here's what happened in November:

*I put the country in Country Club.  This will get a whole blog post of it's own.  It's a classic Prairie Princess story.

*We officially became parents of a TEENAGER when Dakota turned 13 on 11/11/12.  I'm still in denial.  I'm also jealous that she doesn't have the SUHweet, yet regrettable mall bangs that I had at that age. Kids these days, they look so much better than we, or at least I did, at their age. 

We celebrated with sushi, obviously.  So far her teenage years have been very uneventful.  She hasn't snuck out, stolen the car, gotten arrested for 3rd degree reckless throwing, etc, like *some* people I've heard of.  She's such a good, compliant kid, I think her teenage years are going to be a piece of cake, her brothers on the other hand........

*GI Joe and I celebrated our 15th anniversary on 11/15.  Here's our standard "on our anniversary" picture. 

We celebrated on that night by going out to dinner, where as we were finishing up an older couple stopped by our table, thanked GI Joe for his service and slipped him some cash.  GI Joe, always humbled by this, said "Thank you sir but you don't have to do that.  I love what I do."  But the man said it was the least he could do and insisted that GI Joe keep it.  After the couple left, GI Joe looked at the cash in his hand and as it turned out the guy had given him more than enough to cover our meal so we left our waiter a 75% tip.  Pay it forward right?  This was also the same day that the Hostess closure was announced so since we didn't have to pay for dinner, we felt justified in stopping at the grocery store on our way home and fillinga cart with Twinkies, Cupcakes, Ding Dongs, and all manner of Hostess goodness, oh and some brandy because I had a cold and needed my "medicine".  You should've seen the look on the cashier's face as he was ringing us up, "Looks like you are having SOME KIND OF PARTY!"  Yes, yes we were.  After all, 15 years is alot to celebrate!

*We shamed our dog Moose when he did this....

Someone had just sent me this website http://www.dogshaming.com/ earlier in the day.  And the FIRST thing I said after I got done laughing at the hilarity was "I AM SO DOING THIS THE NEXT TIME MOOSE GETS INTO SOMETHING."  I should've known I wouldn't have to wait long.  While we were at church that night he helped himself to a carton of eggs that was on the kitchen counter.  His shame confession says, " I knocked the carton of eggs off the counter so I could have a snack.  But LOOK I didn't break ALL of them!"  Thanks Moose for fulfilling your dog shaming destiny.  

*Attended Ryder's fall school concert and laughed hysterically when he came and got GI Joe out of the audience to do some weird song and dance with him and the rest of the 4th graders. Then I managed to snap one of the sweetest pictures ever of the two of them, that was completely unposed and in the moment, the weird song/dance moment.

*Had Thanksgiving at our house as per tradition.  This year GI Joe, inspired by a picture that was floating around Facebook, wrapped our turkey in bacon, like 1.5 POUNDS of bacon!  It was so SO good.  Well worth the high cholesterol meds we're now all on. 

*Also as per tradition, the Discount Divas went shopping on Gray Thursday/Black Friday.  The stores really threw a wrench in our usual strategy meeting/slumber planning party by opening at 8pm on Thanksgiving instead of early early early on Black Friday morning.  But it worked out for me this year because I had to be done by 7:30 a.m.  THere were only four of us this year, my sister Heidi, my mother in law Roxanne, my godmother Nita, and myself.  But that didn't stop us from having awesome shirts.  See?

Believe it or not we didn't get in any fights!  And I even parked like this....

What's the point of having 4 wheel drive if you're not going to use it?!? 

I shopped for a mere 11 hours and had to leave them to carry the torch because I had a plane to catch...

To be continued......

Here's a hint.  I was THIS happy about it!  ;)