My Little Pumpkin

I went a different direction with my pumpkin carving this year. I saw the idea on pinterest, and Lily is a good size to try it out. I don't think she enjoyed it nearly as much as I did, but the results sure are cute!

School Days

In January, we'll be moving again (such is the Navy life). Zack has taken orders that will send him to Afghanistan. We girls are going to move to Cary, NC to be close to family. When we move, we've planned to put Ela into preschool at the church where my mom works. There are lots of advantages to sending her there as opposed to any other preschool.  Mostly, it's good because we know the staff and we know they'll be good with her.  Also, it's right where Grandma works, so they can "carpool" so to speak once in awhile. 
This week, we were visiting Cary, and the preschool gave us the go ahead to send Ela to her class just to try it out, even though she's technically not signed up to be there until January.  (This would be another of those advantages I was mentioning.)  So Monday morning, we got her up and dressed, showed her the lunchbox that will hold her snack, and off we went to preschool.

Ela embraced this new experience relatively quickly.   She carried her lunchbox proudly, and marched right into the room full of other kids to play.  She came back out once to find me, but was easily redirected back into the room.  They tell me that she came back to look for me once again after I left, but wasn't too upset that I was gone. 
After her first day, she hung out with Grandma in the office until her work was done, and came home with her.  She had paint in her hair and wouldn't tell me anything about her day (she is two, after all), but from her babble, I gathered that she'd had a good time and learned a little about the class.
On Wednesday, Ela went back for another round of preschool, and was very excited about going.  She brought home the pumpkin she'd painted on Monday, and I think she enjoyed it all greatly.  I'm hoping this trial run will make things easier in January when we move.  She'll have so much change at that point, I want her to at least be familiar with something.  We'll see if it works.  I just can't believe she's big enough to send to school!

Reunion Time

Every year, my family tries to set up a weekend where we can get together and hang out somewhere. Last year, we had a super time in Pittsburgh, so we were really looking forward to this year. My mom and aunt set up a trip for us all to the mountains of West Virginia, which was a central location for all of us.   They rented some cabins, arranaged meals, and even researched some activities for us to do. 
On the first day there, Ela got to catch up with some of her second cousins. Sammy gave her a "make-over" with some help from Maddy.  I was strongly reminded of the times when my cousins would give my sister and I make overs when we were young. 

The next day, we all went out to see a bridge.  If I wasn't so busy chatting with family, I might be able to tell you all why. I know it's very high off the ground, and I can tell you that next weekend it's Bridge Weekend there, and people will be parasailing and bungee jumping off of it.  I was pretty happy to just look at it. 

We took a group picture at the bridge, but my camera seems to have gotten passed over in the hubub.  Then we split up and half of us went white water rafting (and had a blast from what I hear), while the rest of us took it easy and got a tour of a coal mine and town.  Ela loved it.

I'd have a better picture of that, but my camera battery died.  The weather was perfect all weekend long, and we spent a lot of time just catching up with family.  It was very relaxing, and a lot of fun.

But Wait, There's More!

After a really cool day trip, we also got to go to North Carolina last weekend. We dropped Ela off with her grandparents, and then we took the little one went here:

To see these people:

 

It was a lot of fun.  Ela got to go to the fair and to the pool with her grandparents.  From what I gather, she had a really great time.  We got to see a lot of old high school and college friends and visit our alma mater complete with typical Boone weather: snow, sun and sleet all in one day.  It was nice to get caught up with everyone one.  It was kind of a whirlwind trip, and there's lots more travel planned for this month, but it was well worth the effort. 

A Day Trip

We've been planning to go to Gettysburg since we lived in DC. Last week, we finally managed it.   We left in the morning, and got there just in time to have a wonderful lunch down town.  Then we headed to the museum, which is new so none of us had seen it before. It was excellent. We took in their movie and cyclorama (a painting made of the battle with a narration done over it, but it's way cooler than it sounds).  Then we rushed through the museum itself to keep the kiddos happy.  Ela made a new friend.

Having gotten our history refreshed, we headed out to the fields. We drove a good bit of the auto tour while the girls slept in the back seat.  We were pressed for time, so we didn't get a chance to take nearly as many cool pictures as we could have, given the beauty of the day.

 

It was a lot of car time, but well worth it to see such a historically imporant site.