Happy Thanksgiving!

A week late, I know, but I'm still catching up!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday last week in Lexington. It was a family affair, and everyone pitched in to make the day a success:

Grandad got things started on Thanksgiving eve by baking a cake with the girls. As you can imagine, icing the cake is their favorite part! (note where Caroline's got her spoon...)

Jordi had been eagerly awaiting her chance to help set the Thanksgiving table for days. With Nana's help, she had made some place cards, and she took her setting the table duties very seriously. Here she is (pleased with herself) once everything was done to her satisfaction. (BTW, the idea of a boys' table & a girls' table was all hers!)

Here I am, showing off the bird! Doesn't it look good? It was! However, I can't take all the credit since I had Henri on standby to help fix all my problems as they arose!

At last, we eat! Here's a picture of the boys' table (our buddy Marty, and Tim, Aaron & Chris)...

..and the girls' table (Jordi, Nana & Caroline)!

It was awesome! We can't wait to do it all again next year!

Christmas Parade

Since we were in Lexington for Thanksgiving last week, I'm a little behind on my blogging. However, I'll do my best to get caught up over the next few days!

In Ashland, we are already so full of the Christmas spirit! Not only do we have the lights on in the park and our Festival of Trees & Trains, but last week we had our Christmas Parade, too! This is not just any little parade, either. It's the largest Christmas parade in the state, and the second largest parade overall in Kentucky!

I took this picture while we watched from our spot just outside the Ashland Plaza Hotel (the girls are sitting on a trash can so they can see). We did have an awesome bird's-eye view from the ninth floor (courtesy of Cathy & Bruce), but the weather was so mild that we couldn't resist watching it from outside for awhile. All in all, it was a wonderful evening!

Winter Wonderland of Lights

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Central Park has been transformed. It's full of magical Christmas lights, and Saturday night we took advantage of the mild weather to enjoy a trolley ride around our wonderful park!

We had some photo opportunity time while waiting our turn to board the trolley. Look what you can do with no flash! (However, I could have used a tripod as this is the only picture that came out!)

Ooooo...

Chris took this picture by holding the camera out of the trolley. We discovered that the general public walking around the park responds in a very friendly manner to us trolley riders, especially to little girls waving & hollering "Merry Christmas!" It was a very festive experience, and we're looking forward to sharing it with Aunt Renee while she's visiting us this weekend!

Festival of Trees & Trains

Today, we attended one of my favorite annual events: The Festival of Trees & Trains at the Paramount Arts Center! Today is opening day, and it runs through the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The main floor of the theatre is transformed by the addition of nearly a hundred beautifully decorated trees of all sizes. In the balcony, there is an elaborate scale model train display, complete with a wooden bridge that spans the crowd below. It's truly magical!

Luckily, we got to spend our time there with some good friends, two of which are pictured here with Jordi: Baby Ava and Mamaw Susie! We were checking out all the fancy gingerbread houses in this picture, although it looks like Ava's more interested in Jordi's pink balloon cat!

We were very excited to find out the our friend, Julie Thacker, was once again the official picture-with-Santa photographer at FOTT! We got there early so as to have plenty of time to enjoy the complimentary Christmas cookies & hot cocoa before our picture. Isn't Caroline smiling so sweetly in this photo with Nana? (Unfortunately, she wasn't so agreeable during our Santa picture, but that's a story for another posting!)

In addition to getting a picture with Santa, the kids could also make crafts, have their face painted, or even have a balloon animal of their choice made for them. Here's Jordi waiting in line for a balloon with her friend, Maria, from ballet class!

Here's Jordi with her balloon animal: a pink kitty cat! Julie had done a great job of working quickly through the large crowd wanting pictures, which gave Santa bit of free time. He was then nice enough to start conversations with a few kids, including Jordi; it was a sweet moment!

Opening Night

Tonight was the Opening Night of Ashland's annual Winter Wonderland of Lights. We love how magically Central Park is transformed for the holiday season, but little did we know what festivities awaited us!

Look at how wonderful the bandstand looks! In this picture, you can also see the big 2-school chorus (Verity Middle School & Blazer High School) on stage. They did a great job entertaining us with Christmas carols... and the National Anthem!

We were fed, too, with free hot cocoa & cookies. This was great news for the girls; they love sweets! (Also, please note Jordi's footwear - that gives you an idea of how pleasantly mild the weather was!)

Time to boogie! Jordi's got her jingle bells (someone in the crowd gave some to both her & Caroline) and some up-beat carols to dance to.

What a fun evening! This event is definitely going onto our "must" list of annual community events!

Good-bye, Aunt Donna!

Sad, but true! After a month long visit, Aunt Donna finally had to return home to NH. It was a wonderful visit, and we hope she'll come back soon. Besides being fun to be around, she also babysat, cooked dinner & baked goodies, let us drive her sporty 5-speed VW Jetta, took the girls to the library & read "Charlotte's Web" to them, and taught Jordi how to play cards (Go Fish and War). Whew - what a busy month!

We'll miss you very much, Aunt Donna!

Autumn's Last Hurrah

Yesterday was such a beautiful, warm day that we were inspired to take our lunch to nearby Central Park for what will probably by our last picnic of 2007. The sun was shining, the trees were full of color, and the temperature was in the low 60's. Pretty nice for early November in Kentucky!

Here we are, toasting our final alfresco meal of the year. (I know their winter coats don't indicate warm weather, but we didn't keep them on long once we started running around, as you'll see in the rest of the pictures!)

Central Park is has many slides of varying heights, and Caroline is not afraid of going down any of them. In this picture, she's climbing up one of the higher ones!

Jordi isn't quite as eager to go down the big slides as her sister. So, Aunt Donna decided she would help her discover how much fun going down those big slides can be!

Donna took this nice picture of me & my girls. We all had such a wonderful time... Fall, we'll miss you!

Happy Halloween!

Boy, did we have a great Halloween! Even the weather cooperated, as you can see in all these pictures:

Luckily, Aunt Donna is still visiting us, and she is an outstanding pumpkin carver! Jordi was eagerly awaiting her turn to help scoop out the pumpkin guts... until she felt its slipperiness for the first time, that is!

Ah, the fun part! You wouldn't think that jack-o-lanterns would be so interesting, but Jordi & Caroline entertained themselves for the whole rest of the afternoon with this new activity! A few years ago, when Jordi was 1, Grandma Henri sent this kit of wooden shapes that you see here that mix-n-match to make lots of different silly faces on your Halloween pumpkin. All you need is a few strategically placed holes, and you're good to go. They love it!

Finally, trick-or-treat night is here! I took this picture after we came back from visiting a few houses in the neighborhood. Caroline is dressed as a mermaid and Jordi is Disney's Princess Belle. Chris was in charge of handing out the candy at our house, and I think the girls had just as much fun hanging out with him on the porch, watching all the kids in costume come up the walk, as anything!

Once all our candy was handed out, we headed over to Nana & Grandad's house, with a stop at Miss Cathy's to check out her wonderful costume! I don't know which one of her dalmations that is in the background, but she makes an awesome Cruella! Very cool!

Most of the trick-or-treaters were gone by the time we got to Tim & Judy's, but that was okay, since the girls were more than ready to dig into their candy by this time. Here's a picture of Caroline not sharing with Grandad!

We also stopped by Susie's house to see baby Ava in her first Halloween costume, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the time. Susie took a great picture of all the kids together, which I'll try to post in the near future. Stay tuned!