They're not award-winning short films, but these videos were each requested by the child involved!



And:

During my pre-trip research, I stumbled upon the fact that not only was there a local science museum, but also it was having a "Snakesgiving" event on Friday!  How could we not go?!


There was petting of snakes:


And wearing of snakes:


(And now the constant request for a snake for Christmas...!)

B's favorite part of the whole museum was the drawer of polycephalic animal specimen:


From there, we walked to a local brewery/restaurant and had a fantastic meal (not pictured)!

There was some PM Jenga action:


But soon enough, it was time to walk a few blocks for the Mayor's Christmas Tree Lighting.  Miss C REALLY wanted a close-in view, so she and the BG stood in the crowd for the entire thing, while the B-man and I roamed around a bit and then got caught up in the hordes of people and decided to go way back and stay out of the way.  (Note: is it scary being short in a huge mob of people.  When I discussed this with the BG, he just had no understanding of this predicament!) :-)


Post-festivities card playing:


And then it was bedtime for the kiddies and we got to enjoy our late-night delivery of dinner from a local noodle house:


Saturday morning, we hit the streets early again and this time, it really was BRIGHT!  (although you can see they hadn't yet picked up the trash from the previous night!)


Once it got a little later in the AM, we set out for one more stroll around town:


And made sure we went to one particular store when it opened on Small Business Saturday.  B and I had discovered this shop the night before when killing time before the tree lighting and he COULD NOT WAIT to go back in the AM.

I'm sure you'll be SHOCKED:


So many homemade soaps to sniff!

Check-out was at 11am and we just went ahead and left.  I would've loved to spend the day browsing all the cute little stores but alas, that's harder to do with a less-interested crew in tow.  All in all, though, it was a FABULOUS little getaway!!!

After we unpacked our stuff Thursday afternoon, we set out to find a grocery store that was still open.  Sadly (but not surprisingly), all the local markets were closed but there was a chain supermarket still open so we trekked there to pick up milk, snacks, etc.

From there, we decided to find a playground so we ended up at a park on the edge of the college campus.  We parked in the first place we found and were delighted to realize what the building was called:

(And yes, dabbing is still very present in 2017.  Sigh.)

The park was GORGEOUS!


Wondering about that little red house?  So were we.  The BG hoisted the kids for a look in the window and found....football equipment!


There was indeed a proper playground but the kids had more fun climbing rocks:


I was there, too:

As you can see from the above pic, the adults didn't have coats since we thought we were just making a quick food run. It was BRRR cold so we headed home shortly for some...cereal (and Netflix!):


Since we'd gorged at our diner lunch, we went with our typical snack dinner.  Someone was trying to get her hand on some salami!


Then we decided to dump out a 1000 piece puzzle we'd brought with us (from loyal reader Karen I's stash!).  Time stamp on this pic: 6:23 pm.


Early in the morning, the BG and I put on our winter garb and our sneakers and headed out for a walk.  The downtown was still all lit up (but not the official Christmas tree on far right...yet)!


Our destination was the town's Central Market, "the country's oldest continuously-operating farmers market."  It opens at 6am and we were there shortly thereafter.  Stall owners were still uncovering their wares:


I snapped this pic to send to Christy since we def would have bought those maple bacon wonders if they'd been with us!


Alas, the BG wasn't feeling that particular concoction so we went in a different direction.  Behold our treats from two different local stalls!


(The fritters are actually NOT apple; we got one peach and one blueberry.  Delicious!)

Time stamp on this pic? 7:18am


He seriously had stayed up until 12:30am working on this puzzle.  He's crazy.  (And it was done within the hour.)

And we're only up to Friday morning!  More to come!

As mentioned last week, we were on our own for Thanksgiving this year.  Since we had such fun going away last year, we decided that we'd do it again!  I chose our destination much like I do most of my location research: what has cute/affordable lodging, a walkable area with shops/bakeries, and some holiday cheer?  The BG suggested we go the other direction from our trip last year so BOOM-- we planned ourselves a little adventure to the north.

I made our Airbnb reservations for Thursday and Friday nights. Check-in wasn't until 4pm, although I heard from the owner earlier in the day that the house would be available ahead of schedule.  We had to make a pretty important stop on the way, however, so we left around 11am.  There was exciting bidness going on in the car:


(Reading us the biographical facts of every AG doll created.)

And:

(Why wouldn't you need a sword whilst reading?)

Our first stop?  Oh yes, we DID have Thanksgiving dinner (aka lunch) at a diner!


It was THE BEST IDEA EVER.  We may do a diner meal every Thanksgiving from here on out.  Here's the view from my seat--note that I have an entire spread! (I also ordered tater tots but they hadn't come yet!  ha! PS: I'd made potato soup the day before so mashed potatoes didn't seem like an exciting choice on this day.)


If you look at the very back of the pic, you can see the edge of what the BG selected as his Thanksgiving meal: yes, it's a Reuben sandwich (with corn fritters)!  While he is happy to eat most any food served to him, he is not one to be excited about turkey.  So apparently, when given the option, he will go in a very different direction for this holiday meal!

The kids were sooooooooooooo excited about their meal!  While Miss C ate some of my turkey and loved it (she is not picky at all), she still chose to have the same option off the kids' menu that her brother did: that Thanksgiving staple of cheese ravioli.  The best part? The dessert that came with the kids' meals far transcended any such offering they'd experienced before.  As you can see, B-man is enjoying what was the last order of the diner's homemade tapioca pudding, and C chose the ice cream which turned out to be a choice of about 15 flavors, with whipped cream and sprinkles!


Everybody wins!

After that stop (which had been researched ahead of time, obvs), we had about half an hour to our ultimate destination.  The kids loved using the key to get inside the house:


And this was the view right outside the door!


Next up: more of our adventure!  (Why yes, I am going to milk this as long as I can...!)  :-)

PS for loyal reader Sharon: you might recognize where we were!  I didn't have the chance to be in touch with you--and you might not even have been home yourself--but know that I was thinking about you guys living nearby!

Do you feel like this?


Hang in there!  We'll see you here on Monday for a Thanksgiving break recap!

HAPPY FRIDAY!  GO GET YOU SOME BARGAINS!

My general outlook for the next few days:


Status of baked goods this morning (with appropriate Garfield book included):


This is the first year in soooooo many (like 10+?) that we will not see Eric & Christy today. To try to ameliorate our sorrow, they dropped off their "free (pumpkin) pie from realtor" and we decided to go ahead and get going on that one last night by the fire.  Inside the pink wrapper is our "free (pecan) pie from [different] realtor." And we also might have had some fireside cinnamon rolls this morning, compliments of Sister Schubert. She does good work.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Yep-- all the rest of you are off from school already but these kids still have four hours in front of them today. They're pretty pumped to ALMOST be on break, however!  Miss C even gets to wear PJs to school!

(Although she couldn't look at the camera because that apple was tasty!)

I've been thinking recently about the way, five years ago, I summed up my thankfulness for little things. I found the post deep within my FB page and was thrilled to see that pretty much everything is still completely true--well, except for the demise of a particular website/app. (Guess it should say "Feedly" now!)

The title came from an experience a long time ago when, during a children's sermon with the minister at my hometown church, a kid shouted out "CHEESE!" as something for which he was grateful-- a rather hysterical departure from the other, more predictable answers of "parents/siblings/pets/God."  But I get that little dude. Cheese is awesome.  So, too, are other *small* things that give us joy.  May we always remember to be thankful for both literal and figurative fromage:

She loves to spend time out of the house (she and her daddy are called "The Outsiders") and climbing trees is pretty high on the list right now:


(She's also very much in a "look at me!" stage which the B-man never really did.  It's exhausting for us not-so-patient types. Sometimes I end up saying, "You don't have to show me EVERYTHING you do!" Please send my Mother of the Year trophy to my home address...!)  :-)

In any case, I didn't think the first pic accurately showed height so here's a different angle!


I just put the kids on the school bus.  Much of the country is off all week, I know, but in these parts, we go until 12:55pm on Wednesday!

Six years ago:


And this morning:

(Apparently growing "old" has worn out the boy-- he needs to bring the smiles back into his eyes!  At least she figured out how not to look scared by the camera!)  :-)

Happy Friday!

First, a note about yesterday's post: you ladies sure made it like a comments section of old!  Thanks so much for your commentary! :-)   In fact, that tableau was just waiting for me when I went downstairs in the AM to do some laundry.  Just two dressed-up babydolls hanging out in a produce box with some version of a video game controller on top.  No big deal.

As for today:  I'm a little late since the hard freeze over the weekend pretty much halted the fall colors around here.  Before that happened, however, I actually stopped in the middle of a street to attempt something:

Photo 1:


Photo 2:


Again, so much prettier on my phone screen than on my computer screen, but whatever.  In each case, I uploaded the pic, increased both the contrast and the clarity to the exact same points, and saved.

Do you know the one thing I did differently when snapping the first pic? Explains a lot about about my sunny outlook on life...especially in autumn!

A fab thing about both kids doing Sunday swim lessons is that another mother drives the carpool sometimes-- and that leaves the BG and me with free time for a lunch date!  We decided to drive up to an Indian buffet that came highly recommended by friends.

Loved all the colors!


Aaaaand...it was a massive buffet with tons of options.  I'm just going to go ahead and admit that the above plate was Plate #1 of 2.5!  :-)

The temps fell VERY fast over the weekend. None of this "few days on a downhill slide" thing-- out of nowhere, it dropped to 21 degrees overnight Friday into Saturday. Although the BG should have been enjoying his first football-less weekend in months, he still woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning...so he just went ahead and got the flames roarin'!

I joined him about an hour later and it was delightful:


Since we were up so early, we decided we should bake some sort of tasty treat to really enjoy the setting. I didn't take a photo but, 'round about 6:30am, we started making these Cinnamon Sugar Scones and they were delightful!  (Unfortunately, the recipe only made six so there were no leftovers!)

Sunday morning wasn't quite as cold but still seemed a grand morning for a fire!  We didn't get to enjoy it as long since we had to head to church early for us to teach the K/1st Grade Sunday School class.  (Spoiler alert: it was hard work wrangling this particular gathering of kiddies...but there were ample opportunities to practice, as covered yesterday in the parable of the vineyard, "ADJUST(ing) YOUR ATTITUDE"!)

We still found plenty of time for some morning hugs, however:


Hope you all had warm and/or snuggly weekends!

The fall colors around here have been gorgeous the last couple of weeks and this photo doesn't reveal more than a bit of it, although it sure looked pretty on the screen when I snapped it while walking with my neighbor earlier in the week.

(Side note: we've been victoriously NOT paying the monthly phone installment since our 2 years ended in April and we still haven't gotten new phones. I keep telling myself that these months of saving $$ on the cell phone bill is worth it-- and that's true--but I'm constantly disappointed by the reality of the photos so I think we might finally need to upgrade.  My phone is a 5s, y'all!)

It's supposed to get down to 20 degrees tonight so that'll be a sharp change. Reallllly glad we're not still playing football.  At the final game last Friday, we didn't even have to wear proper coats because it was crazy warm for November.

Kids have a(nother) half day today and the BG and I will make it to parent/teacher conferences. Taking them for flu shots first-- any guesses on how poorly the young sir will handle it?  Sigh.

Happy Friday!

If I'd planned ahead, mayhaps I would have taken a video this morning of the pajama-clad kiddies reenacting this romp five years later. The pjs wouldn't match, however, and there wouldn't be a rounded belly to be seen. The giggles might still have been there, though..

Post from November 9, 2012

 (That Wegmans bag o' bags is definitely still there....and all the carpet clutter, too!) 

We celebrated the B-man's performance with some bubble tea since it's in the same shopping center as the theater academy:


Perhaps little sister should sign up for theater classes, too?


I ran a PTA meeting last night and the staff liaison is Mr. B's teacher from last year. She went out of her way to tell me what a great job he's doing this month during his stint on the "Broadcast Team," aka 4th graders who do the announcements. She told me he should really get into some sort of performance class and I got to say, "He just finished an 8-week musical theater class!"  That felt pretty good.  :-)

(Less good?  Hearing all the scary info from our guest speaker, a Community Service Officer with the local PD. Ah, the realities of parenting in this digital and fast-paced, everybody-too-busy-to-know-neighbors age!)

At least, I think that's what I heard the B-man call himself last night!  ;-)

Right after the school year began, he walked confidently into a spontaneously-scheduled-by-his-mother fall session of "Bridge to Broadway" musical theater classes at a local theater academy. The class is especially  for 4th and 5th graders and B deserves so many props for his go-getter attitude!  Last night was the final session of the 8-week course and the 30-ish kids performed for the parents. The "newbies" did a scene from Shrek The Musical (see professional version here) and the more experienced part of the class did a song from Bye, Bye Birdie. Then the entire group performed "Revolting Children" from Matilda, which I'm pretty sure Uncle Geoff just saw in London this spring so that's fun!

Papa Bear (with...mouse ears?) waiting for performance to start:


Doing some dancing:


Second number:


He had both a spoken line and two sung lines and he rocked those--but I noticed he did not open his mouth a single other time during the performances.  Apparently he needs concentration to be that smooth with his dance moves and can't be distracted by singing?!  Gonna have to learn to multi-task if you want to be an ACTING STAR, Mr. B!  :-)