November Things...

Because Jim's brother, Dustin, is deploying to Iraq in a few weeks, we had our Starling family Christmas over the Thanksgiving holiday. Here is a family photo of us, including Dustin's girlfriend, Shelley.



Grandpa Starling and Sammie enjoy some time on the swing before opening presents.


This is how Sammie likes to eat her suckers. Not that she has that many of them. This was her second one, ever. She does this with her toothbrush too. She watches herself brush her teeth and then cracks herself up in the mirror when she puts the toothbrush in sideways like that. Crazy kid.

Sammie and Meg enjoy a ride in the wagon.


Leigh and her sweet son, Liam.

A few weekends ago, some friends of ours from the FA Career Course at Ft.Sill came to visit Sammie and I in Modesto! Fun! Its always nice to have military friends to talk to since I don't really have any out here. They are currently at NPS in Monterey so they had a short drive to get to Modesto. Here is a picture...Eric and Leigh Gust, with their kids Meg and Liam. And of course, there I am with Sammie. We had a fun time. Meg loved playing with Sammie and Sammie loved looking at Liam and signing "baby" over and over again. I took them to our favorite mexican restaurant in town, a family owned place called Familia Juarez. My mom was holding Sam so I could eat, but she ended up kicking her foot up on the table (Sam, not mom) and hooking a plate of enchiladas and rice and beans with her toe, and tipped it all onto my mom's lap and then onto the floor. Poor mom! She handled it very gracefully. Later in the day I took Eric and Leigh on a short tour of Modesto and took them by the infamous home of Scott and Laci Peterson. Not a great thing for Motown to be known for, but hey, now they can say they saw it. Although Leigh said it looked different from the pictures and she didn't believe me that I showed her the right house! Oh Leigh. Then I took them to the Yogurt Mill which is the best frozen yogurt in America. I thought every town had frozen yogurt like the Yogurt Mill, but alas, they don't. I eat as much of it as I can when I'm in Modesto because I haven't found anything like it anywhere else. It's a definite must for the Modesto tourist.