First off we'd like to thank everyone who has sent care packages recently. The Youngstown gang, including mom, grandparents, and UC & AG, Newark mom and dad, and Aunt Marcy. I think the post office is getting tired of us as they are now setting time constraints for us coming in to pick up the latest two packages between 8 and 12 noon, so I got myself out of bed one chilly fall morning and rode my bike down to the post office. After fighting my way up to the front of the "line" they brought out two packages full of goodies. Spices, candy, rain boots for Tiff and lots of other stuff.
We have decided that if we never reuse any of the reusable shopping bags we will still have extras to give away as wrapping paper for gifts! Thank you all very much for all of them but we have got more than what we know what to do with now.
What these weeks have been filled with are football of the American variety. We were out of town for the Marshall game (we left town on Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. the game was actually Friday morning at 1:30 a.m.) but we downloaded the game online to see it later in the week. The game we wanted to make sure we saw was the OSU- Miami game. We had a friend (Buckeye) come in from a town nearby and we made hot dogs, mac and cheese, chips and guacamole, pasta salad and had plenty of American candy to go around. This was the first attempt of watching a Buckeye game in real time over the internet. Here is the result: 
We moved the couch in the bedroom, set a projector on a table sitting on the bed and turned on the game. We watched the first drive of Ohio State and the internet went out all over Shkoder. (Aunt Marcy: I know what you were going through for the Marshall game.) The girls gave up on the game about 10:30 when the internet still hadn't come back, I went outside to let the girls sleep and the internet came back with a few minutes to go in the 2nd half. I watched the rest of the game outside, trying not to yell too much. When the game ended and OSU had won I was still wide awake and watched some of the Penn State- Alabama game, until I finally passed out from exhaustion. We got up in the morning to watch the whole game, and I tried to be quiet about who won. Of course everyone was happy once Pryor downed the ball the final time and all of us could say (a few hours late) that we had beat Miami (again)! Yesterday we could not find the game online to watch but we were able to listen to a radio broadcast of the game. It makes us feel more at home to know every Saturday and Sunday we can settle in behind the computer and watch (or listen) to the Buckeyes winning, and the Browns losing, although hopefully that will change soon. We hope to have at least one more Buckeye Big Screen showing here this season, and maybe more depending on when the games are. We do pretty well with the noon or 1 p.m. starts but the 3:30's require a mid day nap, and the 7s require going through jet lag again. We hope to watch the game against that team up north at the end of November, and maybe the Penn State game depending on the time. There is an actual tOSU grad here in Albania and she has promised Buckeye candy if we host another party. We might even invite the traitor from Berat who was born in Ohio but likes corn and blue better than scarlet and grey, just to give us someone to pick on. Hope all is well in the USA, hope your teams are winning, unless their name starts with and M and ends with an ichigan. Go Bucks! O - H...!
