I love fall!

Fall leaves are a great backdrop to pictures!


Rhinebeck, NY

What a great weekend was had by all. We really needed to get away from the craziness around here. We drove over to mom D's Friday night when Tim got home from work. Friday was an insane day for me because I had to get Patchy to the groom, and do all of the shopping for Connor and Aidan for the big wedding next weekend. I got them some really cute duds and they are going to look so cute...of course, when don't they? I do have to alter a couple of things and I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to squeeze that in this week.

The main purpose of our trip over to NY was to go to the Sheep and Wool Festival. About 4 years ago when we lived in Poughkeepsie, my parents came up for a week to visit and this was something that was going on when they were here, and I had suggested going because I didn't really know what it was. I was brand new to knitting and thought to myself, "Self, there might be yarn there". No one really wanted to go, so for four years I've pined to go. This year we went.

The day started out very cold. It was 40 something out and windy. When we got there, there weren't that many people there. It was nice to walk around. We watched the sheepdog trials for a little bit, but our little (or big) buns were frozen to the metal bleachers so we didn't stay there for very long. The kids found some carnival rides that they wanted to do. I was horrified to find out the tickets were 2.50 each for each ride. They didn't ride very much. Aidan and Tim went on a huge slide. You know, the one where you climb all the way to the top and sit on a burlap bag and fly down. Aidan's face was hilarious when he got to the bottom. His eyes were so wide and he looked like he was terrified, but when he stood up he exclaimed he wanted to go again. He didn't. Connor and Aidan then went on a big bouncy thing. I don't know why they love these things so much. They did this at Knoebels too. They take their shoes off and just jump and bounce in this huge thing that it blown up. They must have bounced for five minutes. I finally pulled them off of it when there were too many kids on it and I was waiting for one of them to crack their heads on another child.

I would say the highlight of the day for the kids and I was the Mad Science show. We saw both shows that were put on. We sat on the floor right in front and both of the kids got picked at different times to be assistant scientists. The guy that did the show was really good with kids and made it a lot of fun.

Aidan assisting with a dry ice experiment.


Connor had a shot at helping too. He did a great job!

So, you go to a sheep and wool festival in hopes to look at yarn. By the time we were done with the shows and lunch and the kid's rides, I was itching to look at some yarn. It was damn near impossible. There were so many people that had shown up for the afternoon that we got through one "barn" and I gave up. There were so many people looking at the stalls that we were getting pushed around. I don't like being in large crowds and the kids were getting tired so I didn't get any yarn. Boo. Oh well, I still have my blanket and Tim's scarf that I'm working on. I'll finish at least one of those projects before I start another one. I am thinking that I want to make another pair of socks next.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the festival got too crowded. We stopped and got a big bag of warm kettle corn. I have never seen popcorn that big and fluffy. I wonder what kind of kernels they used. The bag was so warm and the popcorn was so unbelievably delicious that I pondered paying ten dollars on Sunday to go back in and get another bag. We took our bag of popcorn and stopped back by the dog trials and sat for a few. It was really interesting to watch these workhorse dogs. They were so fast and they could understand what their trainer was telling them to do by different whistles. I felt bad for the sheep because they had all been shorn and were running around in the cold with no wool. After watching for a bit, we head back to mom's. Aidan had been begging for the hot tub all day so that is what he did. The rest of us fell in front of the fireplace and tried to warm up.


some cold sheep waiting to be moved by their dog

oh yeah, there were candy apples too

I have a picture of Tim right after we got married that looks almost exactly like this one of Connor. Creepy!

Nothing like a hot tub when it's 40 something out.

I think one of the other coolest things about the festival was recognizing other Obama supporteres. I had my "Obama Mama" pin on my hoodie. Thanks to Rita for my pin. I love it!! I wore it proudly. I caught people looking at it. One lady had a pin on that I noticed while we were looking at the freezing lemurs. She saw my pin and then whispered to her friend, "She has an Obama Mama pin on." The mad scientist guy kept calling me Obama mama when he was working with the kids to get their pearls out of their oysters. One lady walked by me and gave me a thumbs up and I saw she had an Obama pin on too. I actually saw a lot of Obama wear there. Hats, pins, shirts. It was so nice to feel the Obama love. It was so cute when we ran into Hannafords to get Kool Ade and stuff for poppers. There was a little old lady bagging my groceries and she asked what my pin meant. I said I'm a mama who supports Barack Obama. She said I was a good girl and said that NY was pretty much a democratic state and that he's got NY. I then told her that I was from PA, and she told me how great that was, and that we really needed to win PA. I told her that we were working very hard to do that. It was a funny exchange though.

This brings us to Sunday. Tim has been bemoaning the fact that we ran out of our picked apples in a week, and that the store bought apples here suck. I had mentioned that we should try and see if there were any apples left on the trees. I had serious doubts. I mean it is the end of October. I was wrong. About 7 minutes from mom's house we found an orchard that we didn't even know existed. Well, mom found it, but it was a very successful trip. The orchard had just opened up a section of trees and the trees were FULL! We got Fujis and Galas and Golden Delicious and some Empires. We have so many apples now, and they are so tasty. We were very excited to find this place. After picking apples we went back to the house to watch the Bills game, or so we thought. For whatever reason the game was blocked out on CBS. We ended up listening to the game off the computer while watching the plays on nfl.com. The Bills won and are now 5 and 1. Tim and I have been married for almost 10 years and never have the Bills done so well. I really hope they can get to playoffs. I think it's hoping too much that they'll win superbowl, but I guess stranger things have happened.

Gobs of Gala apples.

This is the road back to the orchard. Both Tim and I said we wanted to live there.

We got home around 7 last night and basically everything that was in our trunk is now on our kitchen floor. I have my work cut out for me today. I have to unpack, do laundry, do school with the kids (although I've got their schedules into block schedules now and I think that will be easier), I have to sweep and wash the floors, and start altering kid's clothes. I guess that means I should get my butt off this computer and get busy. We have three days home and then we go to Olean for four days for dad B's wedding. We are all excited for that.

I am hoping to get back to regular posting after the election. All of my free time has been going to that and I"m looking forward to getting back to enjoying fall. Fall is my fave!!

One of Ed's birdhouses. I'm sure the birds have headed south for now.

Patchy enjoys the fall weather too. He's going to spend a week with Grandma. We miss him already but know that he's having the time of his life chasing leaves and going on long walks with Grandma.