Kids Chillin' Out on Vacation

It was cards, cards and more cards in between the pool, hot tub and game room at the resort!

Thanksgiving 2009

We celebrated Thanksgiving with friends this year in Wintergreen, Virginia. These are friends who live many hours away and we don't see that often. Both extended families were kind enough to understand and let us go away with friends. We had a ball! It was a blending of Thanksgiving traditions. Our family experienced our first fried turkey! Delicious!! We cooked all the sides on Thursday between the Macy's Day Parade and knitting. And we had our feast around 4. It included the turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, onion dip, corn pudding, gravy, cranberry sauce, and dinner rolls. Desserts were pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie and pecan pie. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with friends!

Knit one, Purl too!

On our mini vacation to Virginia with one of my best friends, I taught her to knit! While we were in Charlottesville we found a cute yarn store on the mall. I was looking for a project and she just jumped in with both feet. We both got a great yarn called fandango. We bought 2 skeins each and size 10.5 needles. The directions for the scarf were CO 18 and knit every row with both skeins. We started on Wednesday night and finished on Friday. Our friendship scarves is what we are now calling them. I had a great time teaching my friend and knitting in every spare moment! The best part was watching a great movie on Friday afternoon and knitting for 2 hours straight!

Tarheels visit UVA

Our family went to Virginia for Thanksgiving with some close friends. While we were there, we road tripped to Charlottesville, Va. for the day. It was a beautiful fall day! The kids had a ball at the outdoor " mall", at the giant chalkboard, at the bar for lunch and all around campus. We took lots of photos and had many more laughs. My girls are field hockey players and wanted to get a t-shirt from the student store to remember the trip by. I thought "great, no problem, cute shirts" but my husband just about lost it! It was as though the girls asked to get UVA tatooed on their foreheads. We are huge UNC fans and the idea of wearing another school, in our conference no less, was betrayal of the highest order! He even had my oldest convinced that it would jinx her chances of getting in Carolina (and in tears I might add). I ended up buying the girls' tees and he just tried to grasp the idea of them actually wearing them, which they did immediately!

We are almost back. . .

Haven't posted because I have been bogged down with a sick HUSBAND! He has had the dreaded H1N1 (or so he says!). I have called it the "whine flu", much to his chagrin. He has been home for 8 FULL DAYS. Which means i have added to my children! I have done a million loads of laundry because of the night sweats and frequently showers. I did not sleeping in the same room to avoid contamination which also increased the linens. Oh well, he seems to be better and I can honestly say " I am VERY thankful for his health!" It is too hard to have a husband home all day. It disrupts the flow of my day. Keeping my finger crossed no one else gets sick!

smile

I was having the girls' pictures taken from a professional today. It had been postponed 2 times earlier because of rain. We had to sandwich the photo shoot between events for a friends' Bat Mitzvah. I was begging my girls to cooperate, to make it as painless as possible, to smile, etc... Well here are the girls in all their beauty! Photos by the girls–not even the professional! Wow! thanks so much K, L, and M!

It's been raining for days. . .

It has been raining all week! The kids were out of school yesterday and it was a miserably cold, windy and rainy day! Yuck! Enough already. Last night the creek in my neighborhood flooded. This morning when I walked the dogs (don't ask) the entire park was under water, streets closed, traffic redirected. I hurried home with a million things to do to get ready for a book club, dinner for a friend, and busy weekend with guests, parties, pictures, church and more. About 4 hours later the rain had subsided and been absorbed into the ground. So I am pausing to absorb the silence in my hectic life (for only 5 minutes, but hey its a start). I do love those fall colors and all the leaves. Pictures by L.

Dogs gone wild?

Okay my sweet boys have gone nuts! Since Halloween, at least one of them has eaten all L's candy and started chewing off all our bike pedals. Weird! It is plastic pedals on a pogo stick, the bike pump and a variety of other plastic items outside. They are getting walked usually 2 times a day and played with and LOVED so what is going on? Yesterday was all about dog vomit (no pictures). So they are high maintenance right now. . . . but still lovable!

Field Hockey season comes to a close.

This has been the this first year for field hockey at my daughter's high school. K came home from our August beach trip early, to try out for the varsity team for a sport she had never even played. She worked hard and made the team! We were so proud of her!! We went to as many games as possible, most of them not in our town. She played lots and the team worked hard. Unfortunately they never scored a single goal. You would think that would crush their spirit but it didn't. In fact they worked even harder!! Go Pirates! Great first year and you will come back stronger next year!

Josie, Kitty and Cleo

HALLOWEEN on a Saturday is the best! I have to say that it was a rockin' holiday this year since it fell on a weekend AND daylight savings time began. The day started out with M loosing her top front tooth, pulled out by K. She was thrilled! My girls had many activities and went in many different directions. We did carve one of two pumpkins because one (my favorite) went south prior to carving. There were parties all day and into late that night. We had neighborhood parties with M., teen gatherings and drop offs at haunted houses for L. (thus no photos) and then a costume "juniors only" party for K. I did not ever cook- but was invited for a chili dinner with neighbors, which was delicious! Two out of three spent the night at home each with a guest and the third was at a sleepover. Even the rain held off until after the trick-or-treating! Halloween rocked this year!