More Visitors

The week after Thanksgiving Joe's parents and grandma drove up from Virginia, where they were visiting Joe's sister and her family for Thanksgiving, to spend a few days with us. It was wonderful to have them here, and we crammed in as much activity in just a few short days as we possibly could.

They arrived late Sunday night, after Madeline was in bed, so we stayed up talking for a bit, but Joe had to work early Monday morning so we had to go to bed soon after they arrived.

On Monday Joe went to PT in the morning, then got permission to spend the rest of the day with the family, so he came home around 10 am or so. In the meantime, Joe's dad hooked up the Wii he brought, which proved to be a standout activity of the visit. Of course as soon as Joe got home, they had to play a few games before we could do anything else. Finally we got to explore Watertown a little, and that night we had a small Christmas celebration.

Tuesday we hopped in the car and made the 3+ hour drive to Niagara Falls. Joe's dad loves the Hard Rock Cafe, so we ate there for lunch before seeing the falls. After lunch we went to go check out the falls, but it was so cold and windy that I think we were on the observation deck for a total of about 10 minutes and that was that. Just long enough to take a few pictures and we were out of there!

We stayed at a hotel that night in lieu of driving the 3 hours home and then 2 hours the next day to go to Palmyra and view the Church History sites. Joe's dad hooked up the Wii in our hotel room and grandma and Madeline stayed in the other room to sleep while the 4 of us had some rousing competitions late into the night. This involved lots of standing on the bed to get the "right position," lots of laughing, and my personal favorite - Joe's dad standing right in front of his mom to play, and her aiming her foot right at his rear to give him a nice little shove and throw him off, and then he stepped forward just in the nick of time, but he hit the bed anyway and we all collapsed into laughter. I don't think I have ever seen Joe's mom laugh so hard in my life, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Probably had to be there.

Anyway, the next day we went to Palmyra and got to visit all the Church History sites: Joseph Smith's farm and the Sacred Grove, the Hill Cumorah, the Martin Harris farm, and the Book of Mormon publishing site. This was their first time visiting, so we took all the tours and spent the whole day learning about the beginnings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is hard to visit everything in 1 day, but we did the best we could and I think everyone was able to strengthen their testimonies that The Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

Check out this cool wheelchair they have to drive through the Sacred Grove...
Madeline enjoyed it too!

Thursday morning Joe had to go back to work, and the family headed back down to Virginia for a few more days before flying home to Washington. In all it was a marvelous visit, and we are especially grateful that Joe's grandma made it out here - it's not easy to travel across the country at 88! Thanks to you 3 for making the trek. We love you!

Halloween & Thanksgiving

We had so much fun on Halloween and Thanksgiving that we completely forgot to take any pictures!

This was Joe's first Halloween with Madeline, and I think he had even more fun than she did. If you want to see her costume, the Paddy Cake Baker, you can check it out on this post. We just layered a bit more with a turtleneck and coat to go with the chilly temperatures outside. I thought we would have a nice leisurely stroll around the block, but Joe thought otherwise. He was determined to hit every house possible within a 6 block radius. Maybe that is exaggerating a little bit, but that's what it felt like. Every time I would say, "I think that's enough. Let's head home." I would hear, "Just one more street." By the end it was kind of a running joke. Madeline had so much fun. We taught her to say "Trick or treat" but she wouldn't really say it at the door. She would thank them and tell them goodbye, and then she would come running back to me on the sidewalk yelling, "Trick or treat!" and showing me her pillowcase (another idea of her dad's - give a 2-yr-old a pillowcase as big as her so she won't run out of room for candy). Near the end we stopped by our friend's house and warmed up a bit before heading home.

For Thanksgiving my friend Katrina came to visit from Boston. Though the snow from Halloween had long melted, of course it had to come rolling back in for the holiday weekend. It snowed the entire time she was here. On the way to the airport we drove 10 miles in an hour on the freeway because there were so many accidents.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with several families from church, and there was tons of food. The kids made little paper feather hats and the adults played games and chatted, and we all stuffed ourselves. Oh yeah, and we were all very thankful.

Katrina's trip was short and sweet but we had a great time and hope she comes back soon!

Falling Leaves, Falling Snow

A couple days after Joe got home he went outside to rake all the leaves that had fallen in our yard. With Madeline's "help" they raked 18 of those big, black garbage bags full of leaves - and that was just our front yard and driveway! That day I talked to him about buying a snowblower from our friends, and we agreed to get it.

Sure enough, the very next day it started to snow. Considering it was still October, we didn't think it would amount to much. I must've forgotten we live in the North Country. We got a lot of snow, and it wasn't even Halloween yet! Thankfully we were prepared and had just purchased a snow suit for Madeline the previous weekend. We didn't have snow boots for her yet, so we just put on her rain boots and had a ball playing in the fresh snow.

Joe stayed out and built a baby snowman to go with the big one, but I was way too cold by that point so I went in, and I guess I didn't get a picture of the snow family.