Guest Blogger

Since Maddie, Ellie and I were off today, this morning I offered to write about our day and let Sam have a day off from blogging. The pressure from her 'followers' not to miss a day is intense! So I think it's fair to say she jumped at the chance of a night off from the blog grind while still getting new content posted. So here I am.

I was hoping to sleep in on my day off. Unfortunately Aggie had other ideas. A little before 6:00 a.m. she started licking, scratching and biting parts of her body. This can actually be fairly loud when it happens next to your bed -- I suspect it's a ploy to 'accidentally' wake us up so she can be fed.

Once we were all up, I wanted to run some quick errands and pick up a few things I needed to try and repair the xbox 360. Sam mentioned the girls needed to eat first, so I decided I'd just load them in the car and take them out for breakfast. As most of you know, eating out for breakfast is one of Sam's favorite things to do, so discovering she would miss this outing did nothing for her mood.

We ate at a local diner called Kings. Ellie had pancakes and scrambled eggs. Maddie and I had a breakfasty stir-fry rice dish with Portuguese sausage. I thought it was pretty good, but Maddie decided she preferred the first breakfast place we ever tried better, Jan Z's.

After that, off to my favorite place on the island...ahh, a little reminder of home.

Once we were done with that, I tried to find some ink for Sam's printer but had no luck. Epson, HP, and Lexmark seem to be the popular brands out here. We just can't seem to find Canon printer ink. And we can't order it through Amazon.com either; they won't ship printer inks overseas (worried the heat in transit will damage them). I have a few more places on the island I can try and call. If that doesn't work then Dad, you may be getting a two year supply of Canon printer ink mailed to you from Amazon. If you do, do me a favor and forward it out here.

At lunch, the girls and I were going to bring Sam her island favorite -- a chicken wrap (from a BBQ place on base no less). Unfortunately they were closed for Columbus day. Sam was just striking out all over the place today. We did manage to stop and buy her an apple pie and ice cream at the commissary. We figured we could present this to her in honor of Canadian Thanksgiving.

After all that, I got to work on the xbox. Here's a photo.

And after a couple hours of work...still broken. Oh well, I have a 'special edition' one on order that'll be here in about a month.

Sam and I wrapped up the day by going out to Capricciosa. It's has southern Italy style cuisine with very large portions. We split an order of brushetta bread, chicken caesar salad, and a chicken and mushroom fettucini. This gave us a chance for a trial run with the babysitter we have lined up for next Saturday's Navy Ball. Since it was also Canada's Thanksgiving, and Sam hadn't gotten much out of the day, it worked out pretty well on a couple of fronts. The girls seemed to have gotten along well with the sitter - so bonus there.

Well, that pretty much sums the day. Not much of a day off. I'm already looking forward to the weekend! Take care everyone.

-Kevin