Winter: Day Two of Two

We’d been on a bit of a getaway for my birthday to Bainbridge Island and decided to take a roundabout way home in order to visit my parents and Barry’s as well. We’d been really lucky with the weather on Bainbridge and were surprised to wake up to a bit of snow when visiting my mom and dad. It was exactly the right amount of snow for us to still get where we needed to go (home!!) and for the girls to feel like it was exciting. Truthfully, if our Winter Wonderland were only two days a year, I’d probably be okay. Maybe I just feel that way after stuffing everyone, myself included, into gear to get outside….bathing suits, water and warmth sound appealing. If I were ever to really get snowed in somewhere, I’d want to be at my childhood home. The best sledding is in walking distance and hot chocolate always tastes better next to the big fire. 

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Thanksgiving 2013

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We went to A-Town for Thanksgiving this year and had a fantastic weekend with our extended family at my parent’s house. We didn’t count-off at dinner, but I suspect there were about 30 people there. I also didn’t take many pictures of the actual Thanksgiving feast (thanks, Mom!!), but it was an enjoyable time. We arrived shortly before everybody else and I got my brothers, sister-in-law and parents to step outside for a quick family picture. For whatever reason, we didn’t have our group taken a few weeks ago during the Elvrum family pictures. I think we’re a hodge-podge group, but I love it. It’d be weird if we were all matchy-matchy. 

The day after Thanksgiving, Barry and I took the girls to the beach and we spent some time outside before it started to rain. Aside from that, I feel like I hardly saw Little Miss Maggie Mae. She spent most of the weekend, it seemed, playing with one of my brothers or with my dad’s cousin’s wife. Izak and Mags have a sweet routine worked out where Izak plays the piano and Maggie dances around. If Izak stops playing, Maggie kindly convinces him to keep it up…she’ll dance forever and is very dramatic about it. Maggie also helped Phil carve the turkey and I happened to only catch the tail end of it, Maggie watching, and eating hunks of turkey, while Phil carved and talked at length about it. Gross. (There’s probably a reason that job has never been offered to me…) Audrey has discovered the wonders of climbing and putting things into her mouth. She was pretty content to eat tons of different foods and ‘work’ on climbing the stairs. She’s such a happy baby and content to observe everybody from the comfort of a familiar person’s embrace. 

Barry and I were lucky enough to go on a proper date in town….dinner and a movie. We decided that we probably hadn’t been to a movie in over a year, and it might be another year before we decided to do it again. Time to talk uninterrupted is way nicer than a movie, but I’m glad we went. (Umm, Team Gale over here, people!) Saturday morning, before we headed back home, our friends, Adam and Alyssa, came to visit us. We hadn’t seen them in nearly a year and decided that, unlike the movie, we’ll make more of an effort to see them. They live next to Barry’s parents, which makes it an easy place to miss. It seems like some of our A-Town people and Alger friends get lost when we visit our folks, so we appreciate it when the effort is made to make a connection. Thanks, guys! 

Tomorrow we’re back to reality, we’re in charge of snack this week at school, our windshield on our car needs to be replaced and I’d like to finish Christmas presents…..so much for our epic visiting sessions that we had this weekend. Back to business…..

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Fake Camping 2013: Part One

I write often about how blessed and lucky I feel to be a mother, motherhood changed my life in so many ways for the better. Barry and I had a fantastic life that immediately got more wonderful once we became parents. That said, I would be a liar if I said that there were a few things I didn’t miss from my former life. Since sleep is the obvious thing that EVERY parent misses, I’ll go out on a limb and assume y’all either feel the same way or know what I’m talkin’ about. So, sleep aside, I think that I really miss camping and the ability to throw just a few things in the car and be set. The past FEW summers we’ve really abandoned that part of our lives and I miss it dearly. Without a shadow of a doubt, I know that we’ll get back into heading out with regularity, but we’ll probably have a lot more gear than when we were free wheelin’ singletons. 

Barry Packing
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  We took Maggie camping when she was just a fewmonths old and we just weren’t feeling that ambitious this time around. My brothers, Geneviève, and parents were willing to come ‘fake camping’ with us at Camp Janet for  a weekend in early August. It happened to fall on my mom’s birthday, as well as a weekend that my grandparents, Sue and Chach were able to come up to A-Town for a visit/concert. As far as Maggie could tell, it was one more time that a group of her favorite people got together, with the bonus of a tent set up in the yard at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. These pictures are from the afternoon of our arrival. . . 


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