Fall, birthdays, and more

Last weekend, I visited my sister and her family for my nephew's 3rd birthday. I had a great time spending so much time with my sister and her kids since my sister was on maternity leave. This was her first week back to work.   I took some pictures from the weekend. Here's some of the good ones. The first picture is Tyler blowing out his candles with Evee in the background. The second one is the birthday "cake" (cupcakes, really) that my sister and I made. I had a blast making it. The cupcakes were a mold that I bought. I was excited to be able to use it so soon! The third one is me and my two god-sons. Mikey is 10 now! He's growing so fast! And look at Tyler, he's such a ham!

I love fall, hence the next couple of pictures. I loved the leaves sitting in our yard and how they looked against the green grass. The panoramic picture is from the drive to the airport last week. The leaves here were at their Fall peak and absolutely beautiful. Today, I went to our back yard to take some pictures of the trees there in their fall colors. Unfortunately they are all still green. I stood in the middle of the parking lot and looked around. Out of the forest came 4 deer. They saw me, but saw that I wasn't moving and continued into the yard. They walked around and ate some grass for a while. I was there for a good 10 minutes before I looked into the woods and noticed a buck! It was the first buck that we've seen in the yard. I managed to get some great pictures of the does as well as a good video of them. I got a few pictures of the buck but only one of them was really good enough to see it.

Well, I'm having problems uploading the video, so I'll try to add it later. It really shows how close I was to the deer and how calm they were.

Family Time!

It seems like September and October are Family months.  I visited my sister for about a week in the middle of September. We had a good time being sisters (i.e. staying up late talking, going shopping, and loafing around). I'm glad I got to spend so much time with her (and the kids) while she's on maternity leave and not working. My parents came to visit at the end of September. It was the first time they were in Fredonia. From what I could tell, they liked it here. They seemed to enjoy themselves and even stayed till Sunday instead of leaving Saturday afternoon like originally intended. We visited the Festival of Grapes in Silver Creek and despite there only being a handful of grape-oriented things, we managed to come away with the fixings for a grape pie. Mmmm...

This past weekend my twin sister and her family came to visit.

It was the first time for them visiting Fredonia also. My sister is on maternity leave from having her second child. She has a (almost) 3 year old boy and a 10 week old girl. I got lots of baby time and toddler time in this weekend. Here are some great pictures of the kids and some of the things we did.

Next weekend, we'll be with Nate's family at their annual clambake. I feel like I haven't seen them in forever, so it'll be good to see them. We'll be celebrating the many October birthdays in the family. 

Then the weekend after that is my nephew's 3rd birthday party (as well as my other nephew's 2nd birthday party, but I can't make it to both) so I'll see my sister and her family again!

Somewhere in there, we're squeezing in a short visit to Chicago to visit some friends. It's going to be short, but we'll see as many people as we can. I'm hoping to see my co-worker who had a baby at the beginning of September.

Ding-a-ling!

This is really exciting. I got a call from the music director from church last week. She asked me if I wanted to join the handbell choir. How cool is that! We had our first practice yesterday. I had no idea how difficult it could be. Imagine taking a difficult piano score, with lots of notes on both treble clef and bass clef and playing only one or two notes at a time. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but it's so weird. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to playing some more. Our first concert is November 6th, I think, whatever that Sunday is. Thankfully she gave me a part in the bass clef so if I mess up, it's not part of the melody and it probably won't be as noticeable, or at least I'm hoping that's the case. This is just what I was looking for, something fun to get involved in. I just wish there were a few more people my age there. The director calls us her ding-a-lings. Ha ha!

I can't believe I did it

I tried really hard not to do it. I was curious, but I let everyone else tell me about it. I didn't want to jump on the band wagon, but I couldn't hold out any longer... I joined Facebook.  I tried joining LinkedIn, a professional networking site, hoping that would not only help me find a job, but to quench my thirst for social networking sites. I decided that there were too many people for me to keep in touch with that are all on Facebook. I found more people than I expected! As of right now, without even doing much, I have 31 friends already! It's only been 2 or 3 days.  I can't wait till I have more time to be able to check out the features of the site and see what cool stuff I can do. If you're on Facebook and not my friend yet, look me up and add me.

Funny YouTube video

This video is hilarious! The first time I saw it, I watched it over and over and laughed so hard I cried. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do. I can't resist laughing every time I see it.

Wedding picture

I couldn't resist posting this picture of me and Nate from the wedding we went to this weekend. I think we both look so cute, aside from the fact that we're looking right into the sun and I had a migraine. I love the color coordination and I think Nate looks stunning in that shirt. He went out on a limb buying this shirt for himself and I think he looks awesome in it! The visual effects of our reflection in the car hood is a nice touch. :)

Friends, marriage, and cars

This weekend we got to see some friends from Chicago when we went to a wedding of one of them. It was great to see them again and catch up in person. It reminds me how good I feel when I'm around friends.  Congratulations to JE and T on their marriage. Many blessings for your years together.

The best part of the weekend was staying with my sister. I stayed up talking to her till almost 2 A.M. Friday night/Saturday morning. It was great to be around her again. I just wish we could get together all the time. I loved talking to her. It was great that my month-old niece was able to hang out with us too. I can't wait to see them again at my niece's baptism in two weeks.

The best feeling in the world happened to me when we arrived at my sister's house Friday night. It was after my nephew's bedtime, so I didn't expect him to be awake or to see him till the next day. When I pulled in the driveway, my brother-in-law was in the garage and peaked in the house to say we were there. Out runs my nephew, who's almost 3 now, arms wide open, yelling my name. He ran into my arms and gave me a giant hug. It was the best feeling ever! I obviously don't have any children, so I'm not used to kids being attached to me. I melted when he did that.  He's the cutest nephew too, he always wants to talk to me when I'm talking to my sister. The other day she called me to ask me a question and then hung up. The phone rang a few seconds later and it was her again. She forgot to let my nephew talk to me, so she had to call back. He asked me to come to his house. Thankfully I was able to tell him I was coming that weekend, so as not to disappoint him.

So, while waiting for our Prius to arrive (it's been 4 months now and at least another month to go) it's been harder and harder to get around without a car. Yes, we have our bikes and that's been really handy, especially since my parents gave us their kiddy trailer so we can carry our groceries home,  but we had to rent a car anytime we wanted to do some major traveling. Last weekend we decided to buy a car in the interim. We had great luck when we went out on Monday. We picked up our car on Wednesday. It's a maroon ' 95 Buick Century with onlly 82,000 miles on it! We really lucked out. We got a good deal and a great car. We drove it to the wedding this weekend and got some great gas mileage too. We're falling in love with the car and will have to seriously think about if we want to keep it or not. :) Here's a picture of our girl...