Burgled

You see those nice Christmas trees and lights around our door, which I put up on Friday morning, well they looked much nicer at night but that's not the point. Last night they were all stolen. Yes, the two trees, lights and lighted wreath were stolen. Scary. We thought we were in a nice safe neighborhood.

We called the police whose only contribution was to inform us that its pretty normal this time of year, in fact his visit was the third such house visit that morning. Errr frustrating.

Thanksgiving Marathon Roundup

We just had a three-day Thanksgiving bonanza of friends, food and fun. I have three separate blog posts below on our day with Kaisa & Kevin on Thursday, Lisa & Brad on Friday and Randy & Lorraine on Saturday. Today, Sunday is our day of rest. I said to the girls this morning that if I eat another slice of pumpkin pie I’m going to explode. We had lots of fun, great to have such great friends. We did mange some of our own family activity. On Friday morning, as we do every day after Thanksgiving, we put up the tree. The girls were so excited but Connor couldn’t have cared less. Lizzie, our shelf elf, was also back.

Thanksgiving Part III

The final part of our Thanksgiving triple play was yesterday at Randy and Lorraine’s house who open their house and welcome friends and family for a wonderful afternoon. As normal, there was more food than we could eat, good friends to catch up with and an extremely relaxing environment. It’s a house were everybody feels so welcome they treat it like home. I took many pictures, some are below and others are here. Shown also is a picture of a Pileated Woodpecker who was also busily eating lunch outside. The picture of Randy and Lorraine is them watching the Gangnam Style video.

Thanksgiving Part II

We spent an extremely relaxing day with Lisa and Brad on Friday afternoon. The only goal for the day was to take it easy, so we spent most of it simply sitting around chatting. Lisa fed us some great food as usual, the kids decorated their house and generally had a good time. Thanks to you both for a great day. Despite the freezing temperatures (below freezing with a nasty wind), it’s not a real visit to Lisa’s without a trip to the vegetable patch and Friday was no different.

Thanksgiving Part I

We had a great afternoon with Kaisa, Kevin and their family for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. We had a full traditional dinner with ALL the trimmings and deserts. Kaisa’s Mum was also visiting so it was nice to see her again. The kids played all evening and put on a show for us after dinner. Thanks again guys for a wonderful day, the full set of photos are here.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. We’re taking it easy here this morning, trying to figure out how to entertain ourselves for the morning. We’ll be joining Kaisa, Kevin and family for dinner later this evening. Hope you all have a wonderful day. Shown below is Isabel and Connor’s artwork from school this week.

Isabel Looses a Tooth

Isabel lost her first official tooth last night. It’s been loose for some time but it finally popped out yesterday. Of course it looks like she has lost two from the picture below and she has, the first lost tooth was not through the normal process though. In typical Isabel fashion, a long time ago she had banged it on Anja’s head and over time it died, blackened and eventually broke off bit by bit. We’ve been assured thankfully it will not harm her future pearly whites or her endearing smile.

Kay for Dinner

Last night we got to host Kay for a change. She and Harry (her cat) travelled to Lafayette with me on Saturday for a Thanksgiving mini vacation with Randy and Lorraine. We invited them over last night for dinner and a relaxing evening. We had a roast, leg of lamb and I think everybody enjoyed it. Lynne had sole but it was probably not the best she's had. Poor Randy was the centre of everybody's criticism for most of the evening but was such a good sport about it all. Thanks again you all for coming, we enjoyed it.

Overdue Update

Fall (or Autumn) is truly here and we are currently enjoying some nice crisp clear sunny weather this Thanksgiving week. I have a couple of pictures of the kids to illustrate the highlights and low events of these past few weeks.

We’ve been busy getting the garden wrapped up for the year, managed to get all the leaves cleaned up and Lynne planted over 300 tulip bulbs (crazy I know) but they will look crazy beautiful in the Spring.

Either Brooke or Lynne snapped some beautiful shots of Connor and Isabel all dressed up the other morning for their school photos. You’d never believe they spend most of the time winding each other up (or rather he antagonizing his sister).

Finally, I was in Chicago this weekend, bad timing since two of the kids had fevers, nasty cold symptoms and were generally out of sorts. Lynne held down the fort with tough nights, vomit episodes, and not much sleep. Thank you again. All is much better now, luckily it seems to have been a short-lived bug.

Walk with Steef and Ginette at Purdue Arboretum

Today was a beautiful day in West Lafayette and we spent most of it with Steef and Ginette. Steef and the girls came over before lunch and everybody chilled out for a few hours, the adults with lots of tea and catching up whilst the kids entertained themselves. Later in the afternoon most of us took a hike in the Arboretum at Purdue. The kids really enjoyed it but the young ones did require shoulder rides at the end. Thank you guys for a great day and a very relaxing evening with great food. We had a a relaxing time today, much needed and as always, we need to do this more often.

Relaxing Day in Peace Symbols

Just finished a wonderful dinner that Lynne cooked. The kids are all hyped up but are finally down to bed. The doors are closed anyhow, who knows when they’ll finally sleep. Beautiful day here in WL today, cool crisp fall day and we mostly took it easy without any major activities. The girls were in these very cute peace symbol t-shirts today. They were hand crafted by the girls themselves with “lots of help” from Brooke. Thanks Brooke.

Rosie and Lily One Year Old

Happy belated birthday wishes to my nieces, Rosie and Lily who turned one year old yesterday. Sorry I’m a day late but I was away yesterday and I was hoping your Daddy would send me a recent picture :) Hope you all had a great day.