Picking and Carving Pumpkins

So, we decided we'd do this all right and  go to a pumpkin patch instead of the grocery store to pick our pumpkins.  We picked rather randomly from the places that you can both pick apples and get a pumpkin and I think we picked rather poorly.  When we got there, there were no apples to be picked because there had been a hail storm.  Then the apples that they had were like $2-$2.50 a pound.  Yeah, the grocery store has fresh apples for 99 cents. . . no thank you.  Then, the selection of pumpkins was rather limited, but the kids had fun anyway (as kids are wont to do.)  We found 2 great pumpkins and spent some time feeding the goats and playing with all the, hmm, what do you call those cut outs that you put your head through so you look like you are something else?

We had those pumpkins around for awhile and we carved them last night.  Jason and I decided we'd go all out with the carving and I had a ton of fun making some pretty awesome designs!!  The kids scooped, Karin helped with a couple cuts but mainly, I did the carving.  It was a BLAST and totally improved my mood!!

Jeremy's Birthday

Jeremy's birthday was REALLY low key this year.  We were JUST barely settled and didn't have much energy to have an actual party.  Instead, we just went to Chuck E Cheese as a family on Saturday and then on Sunday we had a cute little train cake.  Not my best work but considering I don't have any of my own cooking utensils, I think I did pretty well.  Oh, and Jeremy's on the phone with Grandma "Num Nums" who's singing him happy birthday.

The Trebuchet

So, my brother and his family live just outside Boston and they take a leaf peeper trip every year.  This year, we went with them for the first time since I was pregnant with Karin.  We decided to go see the Yankee Siege trebuchet.  It is the world record holder for "punkin' chunkin'" and we HAD to see it.  We watched them launch 3 pumpkins towards a castle they welded together out of sheet metal.  We then went and saw a bunch of covered bridges nearby.  Here are the photos.  

we've moved

Well, we are in New Hampshire now.  We got out just AFTER hurricane Ike.  It was an experience moving with no power, and not something I'd willingly do again.  This is what the swing set looked like after the hurrican passed.  It was a LONG night and all those pinecones you see were pelting the window of our bedroom for most of it.  

As we drove out of TX, we followed the path of the hurricane and we didn't stop seeing destruction for almost a whole day!!  It was pretty intense.  Thankfully, just outside of Conroe, there was gas again.  It wasn't cheap, but we had gas.  I can't believe that just over a month ago, we were paying $4 a gallon and now we're looking at $2.50!!  Oh well, at least the company paid for the move.  

We're loving New Hampshire and have had a ton of fun down at the beach and looking at all the fall colors.  Karin LOVES climbing around on the rocks at the beach and Jeremy thinks playing in tide pools is the best thing in the world!

Our trip to NY

We went to New York at the beginning of August and had a blast up in the Adirondacks.  We rented a cabin and stayed there for 3 days.  The kids thought that the cabin was our new house.  To this day, Jeremy asks now and again to go to our new house.  Anyway, my favorite part was going to natural bridge and caverns.  SOO cool, geologically speaking and everyone knows what a science geek I am.  A river comes through and just plunges under a GIANT portion of land and comes out a calm current.  SOOO cool!!  Karin thought she was the hiking guru.  She did SOO well.  Jeremy was just MAD to be there the whole time.  It cracked me up.  Anyway, here are some pics of that trip.  I just got them onto this computer.  They were on Jason's work computer but we kind of figure, we should get all those important things off there before we move!!

The beginning

So, I was sitting here reading some blogs of folks I know, and thought, yet again, how much I could use a blog.  My mind always has interesting things going through it (hee hee, interesting to me anyway) and I often want to share with others so here goes!!

Does anyone have any idea why an almost 3 year old would all of a sudden not be sleeping through the night?  I mean seriously. . . 4 times a night??  As if I weren't exhausted enough with just the moving preparations!!

On a funny note, yesterday a cool front came through which didn't cool things down significantly, but it certainly made things drier.  So, I'm walking Karin out to the bus stop (it's still hazy with humidity, but my hair is at least not curling) and her friend, Sasha joins us. . .  wearing a JACKET!!!  I mean seriously. . . only in TX would you find a child wearing a jacket when it's 70 degrees!!