Happy Halloween!

Pirate Caden - Argh!

Lily and Addie getting ready! I will be showing them this when they are getting ready for their prom some day!

Grampy Mark scaring the kids again with his unattractive body!

Jason and the kids carved our pumpkin this year.

Trick-Or-Treat!!

Well our annual Halloween party was like no other this year. It was scheduled for Oct. 29th and for the first time ever, a snowstorm hit us that day! We got about 6 or 7 inches of heavy wet snow. More people lost power in this storm than Hurricane Irene and that included us. It was 3pm the day of our party. I had just put beer bread in the oven to bake and out went the lights! Luckily, my cousin, Kim, lives around the corner and she had power so I ran over to her house with food in hand and finished my cooking there. Thanks, Kim & Jim!

Needless to say, the party went from over 50 people to 13 of us huddled around the fireplace to keep warm. The Kimball clan slept over and we used every blanket in the house to keep us from freezing. Most of us chose not to wear our costumes, but Grampy Mark won the prize for the best costume once again. He left us all wondering, where did he come from?? :-)

Hopefully we will have better luck next year! It was still fun and we can enter this Halloween into the history books. Luckily the snow did not damper our trick-or-treating time with cousins, Lily and Ava. The kids had fun and that is all that matters.

Bronx Zoo

I can't remember the last time that I went to the Bronx Zoo. We decided to venture there one warm Saturday in October and it was great! The kids enjoyed the animals. Mommy and Daddy got some exercise and in the end, we were all exhausted. If you have not had a chance to make it there recently, you really should. We were there for almost 5 hours and still didn't see the whole zoo. There were so many great things to see, but my favorite was the butterfly exhibit, where you entered this building with soft music playing and birds and butterflies were flying all around us. It was the most peaceful place I have been in a long time! There were several cool animals built of Legos on display. The bears entertained us and as we entered the zoo the sea lions were extremely playful. We hope to go back again soon!

Hurricane Irene

So I am a little late in posting the events of the past two months! Let's start with Hurricane Irene. We were fortunate to have never lost power, but we did lose some trees in our yard, which has been a bummer for our privacy! Our neighbors can now see clear through to the back of our house. Sadly my favorite tree in our front yard suffered some damage, too. Above you can see Jay and the kids inspecting its boo boos.

The day of the storm, we prepared with candles, flashlights, water, etc. Jay spent the worst part of the storm at the firehouse going to over 50 calls in 24 hours. I was at home with the kids by myself and quite nervous about it actually. That evening I looked out our kitchen window to see a frog stuck to the glass. He looked as scared as I did as the wind picked up that evening. The kids had a slumber party in my room, which was interesting to say the least :-) We are grateful that our house did not suffer damage and no one was hurt as our trees came down. The school year got off to a hectic start with all the damage in the area, but we survived!