Happy Thanksgiving!

We haven't posted for awhile, so we thought we'd catch up with some pictures from recent holidays. Halloween came and went by so fast we hardly even had much of a chance to have as much fun with it as we wanted to. Then, Thanksgiving was upon us before we know it! We had a nice turkey dinner here and had Lisa's parents and her brother and his family over. There was plenty of food and desert to go around a couple times, and then some. The boys and I had a four day weekend. Lisa and Melissa had to work Black Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday too. Skyler and I put up the Christmas lights Saturday. Kyle and Alex were too busy with other activities to help. Sky climbed the ladder and he put the strings of lights on the hooks as I fed him the strings of lights and spotted him on the ladder from below. He sure felt like a big kid! Susan stopped by the house Saturday evening for a short visit on her way back from the coast where she had been with Wendy's family for Thanksgiving. Monday its back to school and work. Only another 31 days until Christmas!

Here's Sky on the ladder hanging Chistmas lights



Here is our annual turkey day family tradition of visiting the Fremont Troll. When I was little, my Dad used to take us to the Zoo and to feed the ducks at Green Lake every Thanksgiving morning to get us kids out of Mom's hair so she could prepare dinner in peace. Since they don't let you feed the ducks at Green Lake anymore, and admission to the zoo is a small fortune, visiting the troll every year somehow became a replacement tradition for our family. The kids get a kick out of this. This year it was a beautiful (but cold) sunny day, so we went to Gasworks Park after visiting the troll. All of this after going to Krispy Kremes for breakfast doughnuts.

Trick or Treat!

Kittens!

Lisa’s cat, Sadie, ended up getting out the night before she was scheduled to get "tutered" (fixed). She was in heat and I guess she was bound and determined to find a way to get out. Just our luck, wouldn't you know she'd get knocked up! So several weeks later we ended up with a litter of five kittens. The kids got a kick out of having kittens to play with. But as soon as they were old enough we found good homes for four of them. We ended up keeping one kitten because it had six toes on each front paw. It was so cute and freaky that we just had to keep him. We initially called him "Thumbs" because his extra appendages would stick out (like sore thumbs) when he walks. Then we called him "Darwin", and then finally settled on Hemmingway because Ernest Hemmingway had a lot of six toed cats. But I just call him Ernie.

Back to School!

After a busy but way too short summer, our kid's all went back to school. Melissa to NSCC, Kyle started his senior year at Shorewood HS, Alex forth grade and Skyler second grade at Echo Lake Elementary. As per tradition, we took back to school pictures the first morning. Everyone was eager to get back to school, especially mom & dad! Melissa and Kyle decided they were too old to have their pictures taken.