October-November (crammed in one post)

Long time no blog dear friends, and for that, I am sorry. There is so much to catch you up on in the life of the Rateikes!

October 30-November 13, Clif was in California for SERE school so I went to Indy. So glad Clif can check SERE school off of his non-negotiable checklist for the Marine Corps. Poor guy went through a lot and can't even talk about half of it because it's all "classified information". This whole classified information thing will take some getting use to because I hate not knowing things, it makes me want to know about it that much more. Most importantly, Clif is back safely and completed SERE school successfully. He said it was a great learning experience and walked away with great confidence.

Indy was filled with adventures. I went shopping with Anita in search for living room furniture. Her orignial plan was to purchase a couch and oversized chair for reading. However, once we actually went furniture shopping, we just decided to throw in the love seat, I mean why not? W"e had to coax Don on the idea of this, which was not easy. After we had looked at two furniture stores, we went back home with excitement at a deal we had found. When we told Don, he sent us to a third store to "make sure we weren't missing out on any other deals", or that's what he told us. I think he was just prolonging the pain of purchasing new furniture, and also getting two excited women out of his hair. Today, Don and Anita are enjoying their new living room furniture. Glad I could be of assistance. We also hung out with Jill several times which led to more adventures to McCormick's Creek, the meat market in Spencer, and the amish store in Spencer. 

Here are the pictures from the State Park:

Yes, we had somewhat of a photo shoot at the park. But now Don and Anita have a nice picture for their Christmas cards this year and an updated family photo (minus Clif and Brad).

I also had the opportunity to go to a Butler Basketball game with Nick and Anne Stanley. Butler won, therefore the Stanley's have granted me permission to sit with them any time I would like (and they have front row seats).

The Stanleys

                          All in all, it was a good trip visiting with the Rateikes.

After a week of getting settled back in from our trips, we had Thanksgiving. We celebrated Thanksgivng with Ben & Julie, Steve & Katie out our house. It was a great time of fellowship with great friends that God has blessed us with while living in North Carolina. We love these guys and were so grateful to have spent Thanksgiving with them since we are so thankful for them.We also had a massive amount of food, which to my surprise there weren't too many leftovers. Our menu consisted of:

Appetizers:

-Jalapeno Poppers

-Cheeseball with olives and crackers

-Cranberry Orange Bread

-White Wine

Dinner:

-Turkey

-Stuffing

-Macaroni and Cheese

-Squash Casserole

-Green Beans

-Mashed Potatoes

-Homemade Bread

Dessert:

-Chocolate Chip Pie

-Apple Pie

-Chocolate Pecan Pie

Apple Pie

Chocolate Chip Pie

Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie

I think the pictures say it all! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well. We all have so much to be thankful for. 

Here are some more pictures from the Thanksgiving festivities:

Katie, Julie, & I

Julie & our neice Lucy

getting ready

Place settings

Table

making chocolate covered strawberries 


It's hard to blog when you haven't blogged in so long. So much has happened in just the last month since I last posted. This pretty much covers the end of October through the month of November. I will definitely being following up with a December post being that Christmas is my favorite time of the year!! Stay tuned...