Four Part Harmony

I’ve been away from the blog for a while. You’d think that with the short days and wet weather that it would be easier to stay on top of, but somehow that hasn’t been the case. Still, we’ve had some fun adventures this past month so here are some photos…

We went to Cincinnati a couple weeks ago and there was a big family gathering. Milo met his great-grandpa and great-grandma Newman, as well as several of his aunts and uncles and cousins.

Another photo of Milo with his great-grandma.

And here’s a nice one with great-grandpa.

Anna also got to enjoy some time with her great-grandparents. She especially liked this morning book reading session with her great-grandpa.

Anna spent a lot of time playing with her cousins. Here she is playing with her cousin Rachael. Anna really adored all of her cousins, and they all seemed to have fun together.

This is the only photo we managed to get of all of the cousins together (they move pretty quick). Eating breakfast with great-grandma.

One afternoon, Nicki took all the girls on an exploring adventure in the woods behind her parents house.

Anna ended getting tired and came back inside early, but Nicki and her nieces ended up spending much of the afternoon hiking around. I think they hung the camera from a tree branch to take this photo.

Our Thanksgiving weekend was also really nice. We got together with the same group of friends we have for the past several years and had a very nice day/evening and a great feast. The kids amongst that group of friends continues to grow (go figure) and this year was a great year for the kids. They even set up a kids table this year which was pretty neat.

Our friends Owen and Molly were in town from Port Townsend, WA. They’re recently back to Washington after several years in Vermont. We hardly ever see them so it was a nice treat to spend an evening hanging out. We made some plans for a winter trip up to see them.

Sunday we went on a hike in Tryon Creek State Park, which was just the right end to the long weekend. Anna started out really well, then I think she started getting tired and wanting to be carried. The situation was going downhill until we started playing hide and seek along the trail, which totally rejuvenated her. We would take turns running ahead on the trail and hiding, and ended up covering quite a bit of ground that way.

Here’s Milo on the hike, I was carrying him in the sling, and trying to take this picture which turned out to be more difficult than you might think it would be. He slept a lot, but when he was awake he was very quiet and just stared up at the silhouette of the trees against the sky (this is a perennial favorite amongst babies, I’ve observed).

Finally, here’s a scene we almost missed while eating lunch after our hike. We looked over and Floydie and Milo were getting to know each other. Or more accurately, he was grabbing her neck and fur with his baby deathgrip. Thankfully Floydie seemed pretty happy for the attention and affection and she snuggled up next to him for a few minutes, purring, while he kept trying to pet her and grab her tail. It was highly entertaining, but pretty cute too.

And now you know what we’ve been up to this past month. Hope you all are well and are enjoying these last weeks of fall. So long for now.