I survived my first teen party

Joe turns 14 on Thursday, Nov 13th. On Saturday, Nov 8th, he had some of his best pals (and palettes) over to the house for dinner, fun and cake and ice cream.

Halloween

Halloween isn't very popular in Norway, although it seems to be growing. The American NATO folks get together at the NATO base at Jåttå and do trunk or treating in the parking garage. You decorate your trunk and hand out your candy from there. It is safe and fast. Lily jabbered the whole drive there..." 'trick or treat' and then 'thank you'" but totally froze up when she entered the fray of costumed kids. This will be her last year as Tigger...it won't fit again next year. This was the first time in 11 years we only had one child trick or treating....Joe went to a party and Tim handed out the candy for the Messina clan.

Rich's 40th birthday

On November 3rd, 2008, Rich turned 40! He said it was really just any other day...that everyone else made more of a big deal out of it than they should have.
One special thing that we did for him was to create a book of birthday wishes. I emailed his friends and family throughout his life (with help from his mom) and asked for a birthday message for Rich and a picture. I ended up wtih 61 letters and over 160 pictures. I used mypublisher.com and created a coffee table book that I had printed for him. He really enjoyed it! How is he going to celebrate being 40 this year? He wants to run his first marathon...the Berlin marathon in Sept 2009.