Thanksgiving 2013!

This year for Thanksgiving My whole family flew out to my house to celebrate the Holiday with us.  I frankly told everyone it was just too expensive for us to go to Utah.  We have to buy 7 plane tickets vs. their one or two plane tickets.  To my surprise and delight, they all agreed and decided to come out.  We had a house full, there were 8 adults and 6 kids.  Yes in my family, the adults still out number the kids!

 Guess who's in the house??

a baby is in the house.  It was a special feeling to have a baby in the house again.  I have to admit, even though I am completely OK with being DONE having kids, I do miss the specialness babies bring.  Thanks for coming to visit little Liam.  We so adore you!

 My parents, sister and her husband took a red eye flight.  This is how my dad spent most of Thanksgiving morning.  You would think this would be after the Turkey...but nope, it was before.  It was a rough night for them.

 The knitting duo.

 Liam cuddles are the best!

First meetings.

This was the first time that my parents have seen Liam.  They, of course fell in Love.

Another Grandson for my dad.  This one to carry on the family name...he isn't proud or anything.

Would you believe that in 16 years of marriage this is my first full size turkey I have ever cooked?!  It's true!  We have always either eaten at someone's house and they cook the turkey, or I have done a small breast for our family.  I was extremely nervous, and we had some issues with the brine, but all in all I think it turned out pretty tasty.

 

This picture isn't from Our big Thanksgiving dinner, for some reason I didn't take a picture of that one.  We did a "mini-Thanksgiving" for just us once everyone left.  I used all my pottery just like I did for the big Thanksgiving.  I think it turned out lovely.  Polish pottery makes me so happy :)

Turkey anyone?

Relaxing after dinner!

What's Thanksgiving without a few family games?

Trudy and I challenged my dad to a game of cribbage, his favorite game of all time.  It was an amazingly close game!  Liam was the referee, because my dad is known for cheating!!

 The Turkey finally took over...

 More Turkey slumbers....

 We took some family photos.

Here are the Grandparents with all their grandkids.

 All the Overton grandkids.

It was a great Thanksgiving.  I am so glad that my family loves me enough that they willing to sacrifice the expense of traveling to come enjoy the Holiday with us.  It was a fabulous day!

We Meet Baby Liam!

My awesome Sister-in -law is from New Jersey.  Her family lives about 40 minutes from where our hotel was.  It just so happened that she and Liam were in town on a visit.  It worked out that we were able to meet at her parents home for a wonderful evening.  Boy did they spoil us.  They were so generous and hospitable, with a beautiful dinner and a surprise for later, it was fabulous!

 One of the best parts was the kids meeting their new cousin Liam.

It was Love at first sight!

 Cora's a pro with baby boys after her brothers!

 Uncle Matt!

Liam napped with his uncle for quite awhile.

 until we pulled him away for some group photos.

Here are all the Overton grandkids

 Jack was fascinated with Liam.

He kept saying how cute he was, Look mom cute toes, look mom cute leg, look mom cute hands.

It was incredibly cute, I tell ya!

 CUTE!

All of us together.

Thinking of my brother, Liam's dad, serving a deployment in Afghanistan.

So proud of him!!

and so glad we got to spend the evening with Nicole, Liam and her wonderful family!

 Here is the surprise!

This day was the 13th of October, the boys birthday is the 14th, and Nicole and her wonderful family had planned a little birthday party for the boys, complete with an ice cream cake and cupcakes.

There were even presents.

Now, how thoughtful was that?!!

Incredibly!

The boys were so excited!!

Thanks Aunt Nicole (and family)

for the awesome party, the stomp rocket (which is still a top favorite!) and our awesome shirts which are now called our birthday shirts!

What a great way to end our trip to New York!!

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!

Matt had a four day weekend for Columbus day in October (of course), but the girls had NO days off (of course), so we compromised!  We took the girls out of school on Monday and the Friday before we left as soon as the got off the bus for a fun weekend trip to NEW YORK CITY!

We are only a little over 5 1/2 hours away, so it was an easy trip for us.

I am the only one that has really been to NYC, and even then it was just for one afternoon when I was in Jersey for my brother's wedding.  Matt and the girls have never really been, so we thought, what the heck, let's go!!  This was just for one weekend, so we barely scratched the surface of what NYC has to offer.  We hope to go back at least one more time, hopefully more, but this was a great introductory trip!

 First stop: American Museum of Natural History!

 Some of my Humanity

 This is a huge museum, massive, so we breezed through most and stopped in detail with just a few exhibits.  I love this picture, it looks like the dino is going to eat Hunter (I think).

 My awesome cuz met us at the museum and had lunch with us, but then we parted ways.  Why don't I have any pictures with her?  What was I thinking??  Next time!

So after lunch we walked NYC, because that is what you do in NYC!

We walked down through parts of Central Park, 

and saw the "Enchanted" movie bridge.

 We walked through Times Square

which was having a mad series of concerts like on every corner.

It was a serious Madhouse, but we were surprised at how kind and considerate everyone was as passed through with our mini parade.

 We made it over to the American Girl Place.

I think the girls were in Heaven...5 stories of shopping floors to look through!

We spent some time in the Rockefeller Center Square.

Oh how the kids wanted to ice skate, but...

 we settled for some acrobatics instead.

 on our Night walk of NYC we passed the New York Public Library.

The kids thought this was the coolest library they had ever seen.

Hannah told us that it looked like something straight from Europe.

 We ended the night at the Empire State Building,

and took a ride to the top of course!

 My picture

You can kind of see the Statue of Liberty off in the distance if you look close.

Matt's picture

I think he was going for the modern, abstract, art look, you know I have to tease him!

 I like this abstract of Anya!

 There she is, The Statue of Liberty

Our story:

This trip ended up being executed right during the government shutdown fiscal crisis.  This was not the issue when we planned the trip, had we known we would have made other arrangements for sure!  So, government shutdown means, all national monuments, parks and sights are closed as well.  Anything that has to do with the government that is not mission essential was shut down temporarily, to include the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Yes, these two top NYC tourist attractions were CLOSED!  We couldn't change the dates of our trips because we had made arrangements that were non-refundable, so we went with plan B.  We decided to take the Staten Island Ferry, for Free, and see New York Harbor, which also gives a lovely view of the Statue as well.  The funny thing was, New York decided to pick up the tab of running the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island until the Fed. government got their ducks in a row.  Of course, they didn't decide this until the morning we were going to visit the Lady.  So frustrating!  Tickets were so unattainable that we just stuck with plan B!  My awesome Cuz and my Cuz in law (her hubby) met us at the ferry and went on the fun journey with us.  After we went down to right outside the village on Bleeker and had some awesome NY pizza.  So yum!

I should also mention that that morning we had walked past Ground Zero and the small church beside it.  What a moving experience to walk along that site with church bells ringing in the distance.  We had a great morning and afternoon in NYC, but now it is time to say farewell until next time.

A Little Getaway part 2: The Beach!

Our family LOVES the beach!  

We are definite beach bums and we try to hit a beach whenever we are close to one!

Virginia beach has always been a favorite of ours for over 10 years now.  I think the first time we went was when Anya was two and Hannah was just a baby, maybe 2 months old.

Sadly there have been many changes to the area since we first started going.  There was a small Army base along Virginia beach called Fort Story.  We used to stay there at the Cape Henry Inn for pretty cheap beachfront.  Then we would hang out at the military beach, which was hardly ever crowded, even in peak summer.  Well, last year Fort Story started to shut down and Cape Henry Inn is no longer there...so sad!  We didn't even check to see if the beach was still going or not, but opted to just go to the main beach.  It wasn't too busy because it was mid-September, but still a gorgeous warm day!

 My boys have no fear with the water...here is Jack.  He would lay and wait for the waves to wash over him.  Crazy kid!

 Anya got in on the action too...

 So did Cora...

 Hunter liked it as well...

 Here comes a wave...

 and Rolled in the water...

 whew, that was wet and fun...

Lets go again!

What better way to end a day at the beach then relaxing, buried in the soft warm sand!

Until next season beach, have a great winter!