As said by the Who's down in Whoville, although we are in frogville. We are really liking it here in CT. We feel really lucky to be in such a great house, it's typical New Englandy. With two big porches! It is a professor's that's on sabatical in Japan for the school year. So I know it will be hard to say good bye to it come May. It's got lots of room for the kids to run around in, and a nice big kitchen for me to play in. It also has a great guest room, so come visit!
So what about Frogville? Well our town is famous for the "Battle of the Frogs" during the French and Indian war in 1754. One night the village people heard a loud “shrieking, clattering thunderous roar.” Thinking it was the enemy, they prepared for battle. When the sun came up they discovered hundreds of dead bullfrogs from the dried up pond. Now there is a bridge with four large frogs sitting on giant spools. They've named them Willy, Manny, Windy, and Swifty. Spools- because it is also know as "thread city" because there use to be large thread mills here.
Now isn't that interesting?
And now they get festive and wear a cute red scarf.
I made Bryan take the traditional "first day of school" pose.
A fun carousal in Hartford.
One of the first weekends we were here we went to Cape Cod. It was beautiful. We walked on the beach and collected shells.
We went on a whale watching cruise which was amazing. We saw a lots of mom and baby whales, and they were like 30 feet from the boat.
Provincetown is another little town at the tip of Cape Cod. It's so quaint and charming- it's like a little San Francisco. We felt quite out of place.
There are a ton of Children's Museums around the area. We usually do a playdate with other moms in the ward once a week. The library has free passes to a lot of the museums too.
We did a lot of apple/peach/blueberry pickin'! Yum!
We went to see REAL dinosaur footprints at one of the state parks. In the 70's they were starting to build a government building and a machine driver uncovered a huge slab of dinosaur footprints. Neat-o huh!
We made a plaster of paris mold of one of the footprints. So now we have this 10lb mold we get to haul around. I probably wouldn't have kept it except we put our hand prints in the back so now it's meaningful I guess.
One beautiful day at the beach.
In October the kids and I headed home because of some awful news. It was the kids first flight and I was really nervous being by myself, but they did better than ever! They were really excited to fly, incase you couldn't tell.
The kids had a great time playing with all their cousins and grandparents again. I got to snuggle on these two, aren't they delish!?
"Little Ally" is what the kids still refer to her as. She was in bad shape, but is making a miraculous recovery! It's amazing.
Halloween at UConn. We missed a lot of the festivities because we had the time wrong, but the kids still got to paint pumpkins, get carmel apples, and see the hugest pumpkin ever!
Ward trunk or treat. It was a lot of fun! They had yummy food and fun games! We won "most creative" costume award!
On Halloween day we went to this Pumpkin Town. They make a whole town with pumkin people. Pretty cool.
Of course Anela finds the baby pumpkin.
I hope this isn't what's to come!
We missed Bryan's birthday when we were in Utah and felt really bad, so he made it up to himself by getting Celtics/Jazz tickets. We went with another couple from the MBA program, Kat and Charlie. It was Kat's birthday that day. I gave her props for willing to go to a basketball game on her birthday, but she was happy about it. Too bad the Jazz seriously suck! It was still fun though.
It was amazing the amount of leaves we had on our lawn, probably a foot deep! And of course we kept putting off raking them until the neighbors offered to help. They were so heavy and wet that we had to rake, we couldn't use the leave blower. The neighbors are a great older couple. A few days before they came over, Bryson told me that we need a grandma and grandpa in Connecticut. When they came over and he discovered they had grandkids he started calling them grandma and grandpa.
We've made some wonderful friends that are also in the MBA program and in our ward, Rachel and Richard. They've shown us the ropes around here and made it a lot easier to transition. They invited us to thier parent's timeshare in the Berkshires a couple weekends ago. It's where Norman Rockwell lived. Another cute, charming, quaint New England town. We had so much fun, swimming, mini golf, arcade games, board games, movies, shopping, and relaxing! They have two little kids, Reed and Victoria, that are just younger than Bryson and Anela.
Being the first year away from family, we decided to host Thanksgiving at our house this year for a couple of friends, Kat and Charlie, and the Seals, a family in our ward. It turned out really great and it was so much fun!
The kids table.
Look at that golden delicious bird!
And Friday we decided to brave it and head into New York for the weekend. Although I'm an idiot and forgot the camera! Just means we'll have to go again soon! I really wanted to go to the parade, but we are now planning that for next year. It was crazy busy though! Having kids makes toy stores fun again! Not that they were ever not fun, it's just gives us an excuse to act like kids with out looking totally wierd. We went to the Times Square Toys R Us and road the ferris wheel. Ate at ESPN Zone. Saw the ice skaters and big tree at Rockefellar Square. Disney Store and FAO Schwarz. Bryson was excited to see the all things that are in Home Alone; the taxis, the Plaza Hotel, Central Park, and the tree. He thought he was going to really see Kevin. As always, I love the city. Just being there has an awesome vibe! It was beautiful with the holiday decorations and the hustle and bustle.
