Thanksgiving and Babysitting

I just want to send a big THANK YOU to Tania and Micah and to Tammie and Jess for hosting our Thanksgiving get together this year. I had such a wonderful time and it was so very good to be with all of you. Guys, I appreciate so much you letting us move in with you and bring chaos and mayhem to your homes. Your hospitality was awesome. The food was superb!! Thank you, everyone, for all the good food you brought. I felt like we really got to visit and have fun playing games and just enjoy being together. And the best part for me is getting to see the grandkids have so much fun together. And Adam, it was so good to be with you. Sorry about flaking out on the Capture the Flag--but it was so COLD! And Jerry, I applaud you for being brave enough to come to our biggest family function and live through it. It was a real blessing having you there and I really enjoyed playing games with you. I hope now that you are broke in, you will attend many more get togethers. So to all of you--it was great fun, fellowship and food. How blessed we are to have each other!

It is now the end of my second day of keeping Mason and Grant while Jenny goes back to teaching school. First day was a struggle trying to juggle them both. Mason wants me to play with him all the time and Grant wants to be held most of the time. He is doing great at taking the bottle but is mighty glad when Mama gets home and he is back to the real thing. He really is a good baby--just think he is missing Mama and getting used to me and all that. Today, Mason went to preschool so we had a quieter day. But he still really needed me to hold him lots--he just would sleep lots longer in my arms than in his bed. So consequently, I watched more TV today than in the past 6 weeks. Caught a good movie, lots of food network shows, and two I Love Lucy episodes plus a little news and weather channel thrown in. I even managed to get the laundry done, Mason's room and the kitchen cleaned, and finally finish going through all my mail from when we were in San Diego and New York. Grant was sure glad to see his Mama when she got home after a really long day--at 6:30--but not as happy as she was to see him. The long day had her in tears, she missed him so. Jenny is just meant to be a stay at home Mom. I am so glad I can do this little bit to help her out with this tough time right now. We had a nice spaghetti supper and quiet evening and both boys are sleeping now. Tomorrow I will have both of them again but I think we will try some outdoor time--go for a long walk or something.

Something funny: Yesterday Mason and I were playing tag out front and I was out of breath so I yelled "Time-out" and Mason corrected me by informing me you don't say timeout--you say 'Pause". Is he growing up in an electronic age or what??we even have to pause real games........

I am really enjoying my time with the boys. I am sure once we get into a little routine we can work into doing more fun and creative activities. It is just that it has been awhile since I did this .......

Our Thanksgiving

I'm Trying to Catch Up

Our life has been rather crazy and I am way behind in posting anything so am trying to catch up. We were in New York City on November 16. It is now Nov. 26 and I am at Jenny's house. Will blog more later about our wonderful Thanksgiving. Just didn't want to confuse anyone....

We Love New York!

Don and I love New York City. We spent five weeks here during 911 with Red Cross so really learned our way around the city. Twice we have had big family trips here at Christmas time, too. Each year when we go visit his family we make sure to spend a day or two in the city.

I love just exploring it--getting to just experience it and visit all the various parts of the city. I love the architecture, the different cultures, the foods, the sights, the sounds, the history, just all of it. We always buy a fun pass which allows you unlimited rides on the subway and buses so we zip all over the city.

Some of our standard/favorite spots to visit are:

• ride the Staten Island Ferry (free) to see the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty
• view from Empire State Building
• WoHops basement restaurant on a back street in Chinatown--best WonTon soup ever!
• Walking through Chinatown, Little Italy, Lower Eastside, Finacial District
• Upper Westside: Big Nick's, Hotel Newton, the great neighborhoods, fruit/veg. markets
• walking the Brooklyn Bridge (where Don proposed to me)
• Metropolitan Musuem of Art
• eating a hotdog from a vendor on the street
• Trinity Church--it is so very old and interesting
• Ground Zero
• Rockefeller Center area
• Riding the magic #5 bus up 5th avenue
• NY Public Library
• Chrysler building
• Grand Central Station

The list could go on and on. Suffice it to say we had a great but short visit to NYC. Just wanted to share a few pics with you.

New York City

More

We have much celebration around here. Big pasta supper for friends and family here last night and then the big graduation party today. Lots of good food and fun. Carol was overwhelmed with all the attention and admiration she got on her special day. She has been working on this degree a little at a time since 1992 so it was quite a celebration of her tenacity. I have no doubt she will be an awesome occupational therapist.
I have taken hundreds of photos of the autumn leaves--it is just so absolutely breathtakingly beautiful here. I just can’t drink in enough of this beauty. I had just had to post more pictures.

Check out my Slide Show!

Hello from New York

We left San Diego on Thursday for New York. What a long day of travel! We were up at 4am and left for the airport two hours ahead of our 7:20 flight. Traffic to airport was awful and the airport lines were even worse. We were thinking we would have time to grab a quick breakfast and Starbucks before leaving but that sure didn't happen. We made it to the plane just in time to walk on it. My body has sure gotten used to that strong Starbuck's coffee and I had a raging headache (caffeine withdrawal) the whole way to Cinncinati. Plane was fully loaded for that 3 hour 40 minute flight across the country. BUT, they did hand us a nice little snack pack for free that I was not expecting--crackers and cream cheese spread, raisins and oreos--so we did get something to eat and I got a coke for the caffeine but still did not fix my headache. When we got to Cinncinati we had to rush again to make our next plane which, of course, was at the far end of the next concourse. But I declared I was going to have my Starbucks even if we missed our connection so we grabbed a large coffee and a sandwich to go and were off and running. They were calling our names just as we entered the gate area so we rushed onto the plane. But, oh, that coffee and sandwich were so good. Great flight and we landed in Newark after being in a circle pattern for awhile waiting for an opportunity to land.

We had arranged for a rental car at Enterprise which was quite a bus ride out of the airport. But they were very nice and at last we were on our way to Claudia's(another sister of Don) house in Ridgewood, New Jersey where family was meeting for dinner. A home cooked meal--it was sooooo yummy and welcomed. Was so fun to see everyone. Don's dad and his wife, Lorraine had arrived that evening from Phoenix and his other sister, Chris, from Florida, had arrived earlier this week. A real family reunion. It was great. We are all gathered here for a big shindig on Sunday to celebrate Carol's (Barb's partner) graduation from college. She is getting her degree in Occupational Therapy. She has worked many years on this while working in the school system, too. She will be great in this field of work.

So that catches you up on us. Tania, I am busy collecting all kinds of leaves for you. Hope I am not supposed to be identifying them for you, too.........It was so good to get to internet and catch up with all you bloggers.

We love staying at Barb's house and after seeing the pictures I am sure you will see why. It is like staying at a lodge in the woods. So all is well with us and we are happy to be here. And God has certainly blessed us with beauty to behold.

Thank you, God!!

God is so good. I prayed for there to still be colorful leaves on the trees when we got to New York and it is beautiful. We are at Don's sister's house in Stony Point, NY--it backs up to a state park. Then last night it began to snow--the first snowfall of the year. And we got to see it! It is just so beautiful. I love it!

Look at me now!

I can drive the forklift now. I took a class so I would have my operator’s license to drive it on Red Cross jobs. It was a bit scary for me but I did it and it is fun. In spare time, I practice picking up pallets of stuff and placing them in a box truck then practice taking them out again.\
Things are winding down here. We are leaving on Thursday and I think most of our team will leave before then. Fires are out and the emergency is over. It will be sad to say goodbye to all our friends here. This has been a great experience.

After we left La Costa Resort they put us in another resort--Paradise Island. It is beautiful. I feel like I am in Hawaii--lush tropical vegetation and lagoons are everywhere. The true sounds we hear at night are like what you would hear on a nature sounds CD. The rooms are pretty standard--nice, but not super fancy. It is just a very nice family type resort--and much closer to our work site so no more 45 minute trips to work each day.
So Thursday we head for New York to be with Don’s family. Can’t wait to see them all. And Barb says the colors are really late this year so I just might get to see colorful fall leaves still on the trees.
Alisa says all is well at home with beautiful weather there.
We have not had internet since Tuesday when we had to leave La Costa so I sure miss my blogs.