2008 Review Continued

Growth

Fun

Old Friends

Family

New Adventures Inspired by Old Loves

Swim Teams

New Places

Giggles and Laughter

Drums and Dancing

and... Mosquito Bites

We will not miss you 2008. We shall look back fondly on all the opportunities we seized, the adventures we went on and the growth we accomplished! We embrace 2009...who knows what it will bring!

Farewell...2008

Seeing that I haven't updated this thing since Halloween....I figured I'd do a year in review in no particular order....

A balloon from my FIRST ever time going to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

The awesome scarecrows we built the week before Halloween!

Stephen's class from at his Thanksgiving Day feast.

Lady Fame - An angel atop a marble pillar at John's West Point Trip

Our Holiday card sent this year via e-mail - we saved money and trees all at once!!!

To be continued!

Happy Halloween! 2008

A really scared Daddy-o

Some really rockin' punkins!

Some awesomely spooky ruins (check out the orbs!)

A werewolf, three aliens, batman, a fairy, an dead egyptian princess, a skeleton zombie and a hippy chick (our posse).

Ooooooooo ... scary

John's parade

Some campaigning

Guest appearance by Sarah Palin

First parade (Stephen)

A spooky story

A visit to Slime Hall *no pix*
and one visit with Cousin It - the best Halloween yet!

What's been goin' on, been goin' on, been goin' on (you know you're singin' along)

Last week...we went to find that elusive water fall ...AGAIN.

We knew it'd be easy this time, only .5 miles ... right?
But, we missed the trail head and wound up bushwacking through the woods. We came upon this cliff and found

This...Daddy-o is very happy. Freshly dropped 4 point deer antler.

Then, we finally came to this...uh oh...

But we perservered and Victory!

Hmm, where's the waterfall?? That doesn't look like a waterfall.
Well, it's actually behind us...I forgot to take a pic...cuz the swing

and the rope

was just ...

too much fun!

So there!

What a lovely day :)

Thursday was apple picking day. We woke to our day off from school to rain, but it soon turned warm and bright! Woo hoo for us! I'd recently heard about a new orchard I thought we'd try out - Masker Orchards...I'm so glad I did!

Half a bag full - Macs and Reds - pic taken by Stephen.

What a good sister he has!

A lovely man walked by and asked to take our picture!

Don't be surprised if you see this pic around the Holidays!

This was only a small part of the view all around the orchard! Serenity!

Lovely little flowers.

John chased and chased this butterfly until he could get just the right shot!To round off our apple picking, we stopped at an amazing local creamery for homemade ice cream!

You can even visit the farm in October to watch calf milking, etc. Awesome flavor selection! Stephen had the mint chip, Alex and John the cookies and cream and I had the black dirt blast ... YUM!

Here's a little friend that I found, ahem, in the bathroom. Had to share with the kids.

Alex's turn at the camera! What a goof!
We missed the Daddy-o, but we've found our place for apple picking next year!

The last last last dregs of summer!

To celebrate our last hoorah of the summer we went to the Rennaissance Festival! I hadn't been there since it first open ....ahem, a LONG time ago! The kids loved the day! This is Crepe Suzette (Suzy) at the Scorch and Pyrus show!

Little man on a lovely old fashioned horse.

The live chess match! It was HOT HOT HOT, but so much fun! I totally recommend it! Great food, great costumes - even better people watching! I think this is the last weekend around here, so if you can get there, go on line and look for coupons and have fun!