Thank You Veterans - and other news.

I'm a day late here in New Zealand as it's actually the 12th, but it's the 11th of November in America and I want to say thank you to all who have served and who do serve us in the military. We appreciate your sacrifice and dedication to preserving our freedom.

Perhaps one day this will be the girl putting the wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier - we got her this t-shirt in D.C. because she totally has the personality to one day be Commander-in-Chief!

Lastly, we have had an incredible few days of sunshine! We've re-stocked the sunscreen and started doing some of our school work on the back patio to take full advantage of it.

Random Act of Culture

Read all about this here. Awesome.

Happy Halloween

For two years the girls have been begging me to let them trick-or-treat, but I was worried about letting them because it's not a generally accepted tradition here. We have seen the occasional trick-or-treater in years past, but my guess is most houses would be unprepared to have children knocking on their doors and asking for candy. My solution to the problem this year was to see if we could rope a few friends into joining us and then only go to each other's houses, ending here with some drinks and snacks for all. So that's what we did!

Josie the witch with her black cat, Katie.

I also told the girls they needed to forage for costumes in their closets, their sisters' closets and the dress-up box. Ellie, the angel, actually wore the flower girl dress that Chelsea wore in our wedding 13 years ago!

Meggie was an absolutely precious Anne of Green Gables.

One of the first houses the girls went to with their friends served up these tasty shortbread body parts - yum!!

We had a pretty large group which made it all the more fun!

The Sheppards had the kids try to eat chocolate fish dangling from string without using their hands, the girls loved it!

Richard was pretty scary when they arrived at the Hogg household - can't you see the fear in their eyes?

Finally all arrived here, I had made some snacks and planned to have them bob for apples but it was way too cold for that so instead the Wii proved to be adequate entertainment.

All in all it was a great night and we all had a ball - I think a Morrison Family Halloween tradition has been born! Hope you had a festive evening. xoxo

Orphan Sunday

This Sunday many churches in America will participate in what they call "Orphan Sunday". I don't really know a lot about it, but I do know that my heart aches for the plight of orphans around the world. As many of you already know I have investigated the possibility of our family adopting a child in need of a home and I continue to do so, but right now, in New Zealand, it is proving to be very difficult. There is only one agency in the country that works with international adoptions and they do a very limited number per year, and there are very, very few domestic adoptions. We went to a meeting about it and there were far more people there who were interested in starting a family through adoption than the agency even facilitates in a year. So, for now, while we continue to wait and see if God opens any other doors for us, I am in the process of learning more about the foster care program here. In the meantime though, I wanted to share this video about Orphan Sunday and then a link to a powerful, powerful post that resonated so deeply with me.

Creation Groans from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Here is the link to the post by Missy entitled "I don't want my children to be happy". Good stuff.

And one more video -

"Sometimes I would like to ask God, why He allows poverty, famine and injustice in the world when He could do something about it . . . but I'm afraid He might ask me the same question." Anonymous

Countdown to Christmas

It's November - time to get out the Christmas music! I love, love, love, LOVE Christmas music. Today Paige posted this on her blog and the girls and I have listened to it over and over, I hope you enjoy it. xoxo

Little Drummer Boy from gfc.tv Videos on Vimeo.

Quick Hello

We had a fabulous Halloween and I'll post pictures soon - I'm getting most of them from my good buddy Matt, so that will be Friday's post. In the meantime, last night at sewing I sat next to a dancer in The Nutcracker which the girls and I are going to see on Thursday. Also at sewing I discovered some new music - LOVE!! I'll be taking the girls to see this group perform soon - enjoy.

Oh and by the way - I hope all you Americans exercised your right to vote. xx

Random Links

So all the ballet lessons are just so the girls can one day dance a performance like this from the Royal New Zealand ballet:

I've been browsing real estate listings since our return because I am SO sick. of. renting! My fellow Americans would be surprised at how little there is on offer and how quickly the houses with decent sun exposure (VERY important) get snatched up. Anyway, today after dropping Meggie off at girls' club and heading to netball with Katie and Josie I passed this (click on pink word) and got very excited. It gets great sun, has five bedrooms and three bathrooms and is in a fantastic location (and I love how the listing agent wrote "Even Jacqueline Kennedy would approve). I knew such extravagance would come at a price, but sadly my husband just confirmed my suspicions. Looking on the bright side, we don't even know how long we are here and perhaps at the right time and in the right place the perfect dwelling place will become available - meanwhile we are free to dream!

In happier news, we got to spend the day with Kate yesterday. She is in town from Auckland for a class reunion and it was such a treat to see her and have her hang out with us. We had lunch here at the house then went to our favorite bookstore, Marsden Books, because Kate is friends with Anna who owns the shop. We also ventured over to Seatoun to have a quick look in Liz's boutique, but sadly she was out of town so we didn't get to see her. Wellington put on a beautiful show - the sun was out and it was a balmy 18 degrees, just perfect. Today it was a windy 11 degrees while I shivered on the sidelines of the netball. And they call it "summer netball". I scoff.

That's all from here - two posts in two days, I'm on a roll! xx