Thanksgiving Week

Our Thanksgiving week was a busy one. We left Monday for Iowa. As is our tradition with three little kids, we went as far as Joliet, IL, just on the other side of Chicago off I-80 and stayed over night. Tuesday we drove the rest of the way and spent the 2nd half of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the Waterloo area visiting Janet's family.

Friday, we departed for home, getting as far as Elkhart, IN, where we stay overnight in a hotel. Saturday, we got up and went the rest of the way home. After unpacking at home, we got out the Christmas decorations and set them all up! Four out of seven days on the road!

What a week! You can see some pictures of our adventures here.

Swimming in November

Austin and Lindsey have been enjoying swimming lessons over the last couple of years. They've both gotten better and better. Here are some pictures of our little fish. We're fortunate to have a YMCA in Green with a couple of heated pools. Otherwise, swimming in November in NE Ohio would not be likely! Lindsey hasn't quite gotten the hang of swimming by herself--without holding onto something or being held up by a flotation device, but she's getting there. Austin is doing a great job at the back stroke with one little problem--he has been swimming crooked into the lane ropes. I told him once to use the beams in the ceiling overhead as a reference to help keep him straight. He said "oh--I never really opened my eyes while doing the back crawl!"

Playing in the Leaves

A few weeks ago--when it was actually still WARM, I undertook a little project related to a big Maple tree in our front yard. The kids were eager to help as well, as you can see below. What happened to the warm days? Winter is coming--soon instead of moving leaves around, we'll be moving snow!



I have memories of this time of year as a kid strongly associated with the smell of burning leaves. It was the only time I was really allowed to play with fire. Maybe if we lived a little further out of town we'd be allowed to burn the leaves. We're in a spot where we're too far out of town for the city to come by and pick them up as well, so we have to bag them or fill up trash cans and take them ourselves to a yard waste site about 3 or 4 miles away. Kind of a drag!

Walk in the park?

Here are some pictures of a little hike we took on a trail about 1.5 miles long. It's actually not in a park, though there are many in our area. This hike is at The Chapel's Green Campus. (It's called the "Green" campus because the community in which it's located in known as "Green.") This is where I go to work everyday. We walked around the 80 acre campus on a newly completed trail. Even Reece walked the whole way!

It has never been easy to get the kids to pose for a picture--especially Reece. But at least here you can see the newly constructed bridge that completed the trail.

You can see what we had to work with--a sunny day and a perfectly picturesque setting. That little "dot" on the trial is Lindsey.

Janet's sister Lynette was here visiting for the weekend (also helped us celebrate Austin's birthday).

Reece didn't want to stop. He didn't want to hurry, but he didn't want to be carried or to stop. He did the whole thing on his own!

Near the highway (I-77) you can see the church in the background and the newly completed ballfields and back stop in the foreground.