Our Secret Mission to Mommy-golia

We just came back from my Temple University graduation trip to Philadelphia. I had two of the most exciting days of my life! During our stay I became Leslie Ann Shaffer Chamberlain, MMT, MT-BC, turned 28, and found out I was going on a secret mission to Mommy-golia. As we were getting ready to leave, our nephew, Harrison, hopped in my parent’s car, looked me square in the face and said:

“Yaya, we going on a secret mission to Mommy-golia. 3-2-1, BLAST OFF!”

Apparently, he has been enjoying the concept of “secret missions.” He also told Nathan we needed to join him on a secret camping mission to make a tent up in his room. As his aunt and uncle, we go along with anything he says. To match his secret missions we sang the Mission Impossible theme song for him. Too bad we don’t have video of him dancing to it because he had the camera, but he informed me it was better off “safe in his pocket.” I’ll leave it to you to imagine its brilliance. The following video is one of his first attempts at the word “Mongolia”.

Though she can’t say Mongolia either, we also spent some quality time with our niece, Parker. She has a spectacular smile! She is easy to entertain right now, so that helped our egos a little. She also looks a lot like my sister-in-law’s father. We kept trying to just imagine her with a beard. She is gorgeous without it, though.

Kendall Glouner Shaffer & Parker Glouner Shaffer

As a Temple University graduate I received, what I refer to as, a fauxploma. I now am the proud owner of a lovely cherry binder with the Temple crest to represent my diploma. Sadly, I will be in Mongolia when my real diploma arrives. Here’s my photo of the proud MMT (masters in music therapy) and the fauxploma.

LASC, MMT, MT-BC & Fauxploma

We’re looking forward to our “From Cleveland to Mongolia Chamberlain Stay-cation Birthday Blowout!”

Stay tuned for more details!

Open House in Wilmington

It's our going away open house in Wilmington today. We're looking forward to friends and family from points near and far. Our friend Kara and her fiancee had car trouble at the last minute, so we're bummed they can't make it. Otherwise, we're looking forward to about 30 people to help us celebrate.

Nathan's mom and dad have spent a couple hours each day preparing food and the house for company. We have a good spread of sloppy joes, potato salad, and quite the asortment of adult and family beverages. They've been the perfects hosts. We'd stay at this hotel again.

Nathan went golfing this morning with middle brother Kevin and former roommate, Michael Ray, who came in last night from Augusta, GA with Mike Wills, via Atlanta. The rain held off for now. Hopefully it holds off long enough to play cornhole in the back yard.

Dallas was fun

We had a great time in Dallas with Leslie's brother Stephen, fiancee Lisa, and Lisa's 8-year old son Ethan. Because they're getting married in September and we obviously won't be around, we were glad to spend some one-on-one time with them. They showed us a really great time, including a fun family Mother's Day gathering they hosted at their house, which was attended by Lisa's parents, her cousin and her aunt. We helped plan and execute the menu with Stephen while the others were at church. It included Chipotle grilled chicken, a strawberry Gorgonzola and walnut salad, rice and various fruits and veggies. We were also able to rid their kitchen of the largest Costco bottle of Riesling.

Speaking of Costco, we found a 320 gig USB hard drive for $170, and it's not much bigger than a deck of cards. We decided not to buy another computer, so the extra space for music and pictures really worked out great; and it doesn't require an additional power supply. We bought an 80 gig drive about 6 months ago for a little more than half that price and it was way bulkier. We feel like we won the jackpot with the new one.

The challenge as we wind down our time stateside is eating and drinking all our favorites, but to not outgrow our clothes in the joviality. Results have been mixed, to say the least. We need to exercise more moderation and exercise more, period.

Leslie received word that she got and A- on her final thesis. All that's left is the results from her final paper in her supervision class. Graduation is next week and we're confident everything should fine.

Our going away open house is this weekend at 3PM. Some of our favorite people in the world will be joining us for lunch, etc. at Nathan's parents' in Ohio. Some people we were hoping to see before we left won't be there for various reasons, but we'll still have a good time.

We're selling our car to Nathan's dad this weekend. With the cash from that, we'll pay off the credit card debt we've mounted in last few months.

The countdown continues...