Where, Oh, Where Did October Go?

Wow, it doesn't seem like it's been a whole month... but then a lot has happened.

Quick picture summary of our trip to NY early in the month. We had a great trip. First stop after the overnight in Maryland was to see Cullen's cousin Amy and her little boy Sam. Sam will be 2 in January and we had not yet met him... we usually see them at Thanksgiving, but last year wasn't the typical Thanksgiving. Anyway, the boys all had fun together and it will be neat to see if they remember each other in a few weeks when we have a more typical Thanksgiving in Ocean City together. (Yes, this was the best picture... it's hard to take pictures of boys when they are having fun together.)

Then I cried a little, when we stopped to say Hi to Grandpa... it was hard to be at Grandma's house without her. I cried watching Scott and Blaise play on the Hoppity Hop thinking how much Grandma would have enjoyed watching them bounce all over her house. We introduced Michael to his Great Grandpa, who could not have been more thrilled to meet him. The pictures remind me of when Great Grandpa first held Scott. I cried again as we were driving from Great Grandpa's house to Great Grandma Jill's house and were telling Scott that we were going to see his Great Grandma Jill... he was so confused. He kept telling us he still needed to see his Great Grandma... his other Great Grandma. Then he clarified... he saw Great Grandpa and now he needed to see Great Grandma. He remembered and it made me smile inside, while I tried to re-explain to him that she's in heaven with Jesus now.

We spent a day with Grandma Jill and "Granny" Annie (who by the way, Blaise is still talking about!) It's always calm and relaxing to spend a day with them :) They made Michael a quilt and it's amazing, as are all their quilts.

Then we headed upstate to see Aunt Jesse and Darrell... not sure what to call him right this moment, so we settled on "Almost Uncle" Darrell. We are getting very excited about the wedding coming up in December and were thrilled to be able to "deliver" Jessica's wedding dress and see the basket that Scott and Darrell's neice will get to carry together... kind of a different way to do Ring Bearer and Flower Girl. Ok, so that was mostly just me being thrilled about that stuff... the boys were thrilled to play football with Almost Uncle Darrell.

We also stopped over at my cousin Emily's house to see her and her family and my Uncle Guy and Aunt Fran. Old Uncle Guy was enthralled with little Michael. I'm always sad that we don't get to see more of Uncle Guy living down here... maybe someday they'll come visit us! It was another good visit. Then we headed back down to New Paltz to start the homeward trek. We spent a morning with my Aunt Cynthia, and cousins Eljay and Allee, picking apples, pumpkins, and hanging out at Grandpa's house. The kids had fun with El and Al, as they always do... another one of those, it would be nice to be closer. (At the same time... it was COLD.) We went back to Grandma Jill's for the night and got to visit with Uncle Doc and Caroline too. I'm not sure why it is SO fascinating to my boys to watch other people play video games, but it is. I guess I should add this particular game is just Caro training her various puppies, feeding, and grooming them. Totally don't get the fascination... she HAS plenty of real pets.

Here's our little Tiger... couldn't be cuter... smiling all the time and giggling for me too, ever since we got home from NY. The trip totally threw off his night sleeping... we'll get there eventually, and I'm doing fine with it. He's growing up too fast! How is it that he's 3 months old already?

The other huge thing that has absorbed our month of October is a drawn out goodbye to our dearest friends. The ones we get together with monthly to play Settlers', the ones we're all friends with... whose little boy is going to room with Scott and Blaise when they're all at Clemson together in 2025 and whose little girl has so much personality! Here's Blaise and his buddy Silas playing in our backyard last week.

And this is Riley- she can keep up with these boys, no problem!

Then on Monday we took them to Riverbanks Zoo. What a fun time. Here are our boys on the dinosaur statue... Silas had asked if they would get to see Triceratops at the Zoo and Rachel had explained to him that he wouldn't. As we were getting in the car to go Silas looked at me and said, "Dinosaurs are dead," and shrugged his shoulders, "something happened to them." Too cute... needless to say, we had to take a picture on the dinosaur :)

I'm sure lots of other things have happened this month... can't think of them off the top my head at the moment though. I do have a few videos and I'll post them later... then tomorrow we are off to Clemson for Homecoming and we have plans to Trick or Treat there as Goofy, Pluto, and Mickey Mouse. Yes, I'll post pictures, when we get home.