Thanksgiving 2013

For Thanksgiving this year, we had another big crowd!

And to think that for all the years Brian and I lived in NYC, I cooked a full meal for just the two of us!

I went a little nuts with the decorations.  It was a bit of a woodland-esq theme...

Brian kept insisting that it was a bit much but why start being practical now, right?!

The guest list:

My mom and Seth

Ken and Lynne drove down from Virginia 

The Garcia's--Holllee (Brian's cousin) and her husband, Carl and their kids, Katie, Logan and Aimee 

The Days--Caroline, Jeff, and their children Ryan, Regina, Brady and Emalee (our neighbors and dear friends)

Menu:

Turkey, mashed potato casserole, Meme's cornbread stuffing, cold green bean salad with red onions, shaved brussell sprouts, sagopanauck corn pudding, Hollie's broccoli/cauliflower casserole 

The kiddo table

It was a fun evening...There was many a topic covered...and many a laugh was shared!

Halloween-- 2013

 I headed over to the elementary school for the annual Halloween parade...

 Ellie was some sort of spooky queen?  Never did get a final "official" title for her costume.  My mom bought her the dress so she wanted to wear it but wanted to be scary too... (hence, the black lipstick)

Reilly chose to be a baby...

I'm tried getting her to think outside the box a little, but she seemed determined that this is what she wanted to go as.  More power to her!  One thing is that at least she was warm!

Here she is with one of her best friends, Emily Sontag

I signed up to be a helper for Ellie's class party...

Ah, yes...it's the old toilet paper mummy game

Ellie with her friend, Jordyn doing a craft

Solebury Orchard--Sept 2013

It just wouldn't be autumn without a trip to Solebury Orchards!

So...I loaded up the gang (The Day's joined us) and we headed on over to the orchard--

The honey crisps were ripe and ready for the picking...

Sadly, I don't have a picture of the best part of the trip...the fresh squeezed apple cider and the cider donuts...they were gone before I even had a chance to take a photo.  Luckily, I called the farm earlier on in the day to request 2 dozen of these delicious little devils be set aside for us.  It was a good thing because they were sold out by the time we got there.  A few people even approached us and asked if they could buy them from us. 

Jake and Brady decided that next year, they are going to buy up all of their donuts and sell them on the corner for a higher price.  I suppose I should be glad that they are thinking creatively, but somehow, this wasn't what I had in mind--

First Day of School--September 2013

The middle school gang...
Jake's second year in middle school...8th grade...WOW!

Reilly--5th grade--Mr. Molenari

Ellie--3rd grade--Mrs. Kralik

And...another school year begins!

Grange Fair--August 2013

This is always one of our family's favorite time of year...

The Middletown Grange Fair...

This was the first year Jake showed "Georgie".  (our buff cochin)  Sadly, "Sunny", the black cochin that he has shown for the past few years, died a few months before.  We're not sure what happened except that we think an egg broke inside of her...

Georgie always has such a poopy back side.  I think it's because she's so massively feathered that it never makes it to the ground.  Nevertheless, the rest of her is glorious, and she Jake ended up with another Reserve Champion.

This was Reilly's first year showing.  She showed "Fern" who is one of our "elderly" ladies.  She's about 5 years old and she's a sweet little bantam buff laced cochin.

I love seeing my kids talking to people about the chickens.  It is such a self esteem booster for them to have to answer questions about raising chickens.

I always find it amazing how fascinated people are about chickens...

Parker joined Jake on one of his nights of chicken sitting...

They were responsible for making sure the chickens had food and water

Ellie's 9th birthday

Never has there been a girl more excited for her birthday to arrive!

Ellie anticipates this day all year!

We usually spread out the cheer by having a dual celebration...(a party on her actual birthday at home and one at Granny's in Butler when she goes out to visit for a few weeks every summer).

Because of the nature of having a summer birthday, we tend to lean towards having her birthday parties be a family affair...So many people are out of town in the summer and it always seems hard to coordinate having her friends over...

After a dinner of steak on the grill and twice baked potatoes, (per her request), it was time for "cake"...

Her favorite "cake"...coconut cream pie!  Just the name coconut sends her into a fit of giggles...

(never quite figured that one out!)

Since her birthday fell on a Sunday, we all change out of our church clothes and get into pajamas...(hence the "dressed down" approach for Ellie and I.

She never lacks enthusiasm, that's for sure!

Ellie is one of the kindest, most genuine and thoughtful people I've ever known.  It never ceases to amaze me at her ability to recognize when someone is sad or feeling left out, and her ability to forgive when someone has been mean to her is amazing.  

Our family wouldn't be complete without her...

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Yellowstone Trip--part 3

After saying goodbye to all of the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents,

we started driving back...

We stopped in Utah see Brian's grandfather who lives in a beautiful assisted living facility in Layton.

This was a great opportunity to have Grandpa Parry give Jake his patriarchal blessing.

We had a nice visit with him and then headed over to see our dear friends, the Merrills and Brian's brother, Kreg and his family who live just a block or so away from Rob and Heather.

The kids got to visit with Jen and Larry's kids again (since they had just driven back from the cabin in Idaho a few hours earlier).  They got to stay overnight there while we went to dinner with Rob and Heather. 

Brian and I stayed in a hotel that night.  It was nice not to have to share our space with the kiddos...

From there, we drove through Glenwood Springs Canyon and Vale, Colorado.  We stayed in Aurora that night.

We then drove on to Independance, Missouri where we were able to go to the Liberty Jail visitors center.  We got to see an interesting presentation about Joseph Smith's time there.

Look at how thick the walls were in the jail!  

We stayed in Independence that night...

The next day, we drove to St. Louis, (fyi...one of my least liked places).  It was unbelievably hot and humid...(especially oppressive since we were used to dry heat at that point).  The kids wanted to go up in the arch but the lines were so long and my patience was waning at that point.

There was an interesting (and more importantly, air conditioned!) museum at the arch where we were able to get our National Park pass stamped as well as learn some new things about the Louis and Clark expedition.

One of the only highlights of our stop off in Missouri (for me, anyway) (besides the airconditioning) was the fact that we got to see a rainbow...!

Which must have been an omen of good things to come...

Shortly after seeing the rainbow, the girl that was house/pet sitting for us sent me this text.  My cat was stretched out in one of our window boxes.  After seeing this, I started feeling super homesick and was anxious to return to non-nomad living.

When we returned the rental van, the final mileage that we ended up putting on it was 6070 miles...

It was definitely a trip to remember...A trip of a lifetime, really...

But it was good to be home!