We’ve had another week full of family fun and traditions! Our first mission was to cover the greenhouse at mom and dad’s during our Thanksgiving weekend visit. The weather was unseasonably warm and nice this year! Dad, Kevin, and I covered the house in good time and little wind – we even snapped some photos this year. Next up was taking a little spin (and drive!) in dad’s new MG TD! First, dad drove me on a quick errand down the street to the drugstore. Then, Kevin, Finn, and I took a little spin around the neighborhood. I drove first, then Kevin took a turn. It drove really nice and was quite fun!
The kiddos played and acted silly together while the “adults” worked on packaging up the seed orders for this years Hostaworks Seed sale. It was a banner year! It was certainly a family effort, from the web design, order process, order tracking, label printing, seed sorting, order assembling, and packaging – we got it done in really good time! This is the first time, I think ever, that I didn’t plant seeds with dad. The days just went too fast and there weren’t enough hours in the day 🙁
Finn got a new cot to sleep on at Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein’s this trip! It was the first couple of nights he’s not been in a pack-n-play (sigh, tears) as our boy is getting pretty big!On Thanksgiving morning the kids helped make breakfast – little egg nests! A bit later we headed to Enon for the Armstrong Thanksgiving at Gayle and Dave’s home. The weather was so warm and sunny – it was unusual and nice!And then a later dinner at the Beilstein’s before a quick nights sleep and then on to Black Friday Shopping! We started with our traditional breakfast at Bob Evans followed by a full day of shopping at Polaris and Easton. We capped the night with dinner at Bon Vie – yum! Saturday we spent the afternoon at Chad’s house watching the OSU-Michigan game. He and the kids have a new puppy that Finn loved following around and petting. Next up: Christmas Tree Expedition 2015. We went to Cackler Farms again this year and found a lovely tree! Kevin and Finn worked hard cutting it down, only to find it had poison ivy vines growing up the trunk through the tree. Yikes! So we left that tree in the field (and told the staff there why) and kept searching…..and we found yet another 13′ beauty (of course ensuring it didn’t have poison ivy before we cut it down!). Finn was a really great helper! Ruh Roh!!! Guess we’d better find another tree – as this one had poison ivy! The search continues….
Vacation! We were fortunate to spend this week down in Pigeon Forge, TN for our annual fall getaway. We again stayed in Sherwood Forest in a two bedroom cabin. The weather was lovely – warm and enjoyable everyday but one! And we had made plans earlier in the week when we knew the rain would be coming to make that day an indoor day. We were on the go a lot so it certainly wasn’t a very restful vacation. But certainly a time to be away from the norm of our regular activities and chores and tasks and just be together.
The first night we stayed in downtown Gatlinburg this year. Our hotel has a nice pool and hot tub – but boy, have we realized how spoiled we are by taking swimming lessons at Goldfish! The water anywhere else isn’t ever as warm as Goldfish!! We arrived at the hotel and went swimming before heading off to dinner at Kevin’s favorite place, Smoky Mountain Brewery. They have really yummy food (pizza in particular!) and this year I tried their seasonal Pumpkin brew (no surprise there, I know) and it was delicious. The next morning we woke up and headed for the Pancake Pantry where we had the best seats ever! We were right along the front windows of the restaurant which looks out onto the main street of Gatlinburg. Prime people watching and lots of bright light. Afterward we walked around the strip and then new this year, we went to Ober Gatlinburg. We took the big sky tram up to the resort-like area where we spent the next few hours exploring the wildlife encounter (cool bears, sea otters, and the like), riding kids rides, and Kevin took Finn on his first ever roller coaster! Kevin was really excited to take him and they had a fun time. It was hard to get a good picture as they were pretty far away, so I took a video of them heading up the hill!
We spent Monday night, our Anniversary, at home with a tasty spaghetti and meatball dinner. Afterward we all took a dip in the hot tub – a new thing for Finn this year too. Kevin lowered the temperature so it was more like bath water and Finn loved it. Our cabin had tiny rubber duckies in the bathrooms and he brought one out into the hot tub. It turned out to be a perfect toy!
Finn also loved playing pool this year! In past years we’ve used the pool table as a changing table, or ignored it altogether, but this year each morning Finn woke up he would say “please, may I go play that game up dare”. He had some fun for sure!On a nice and warm day we headed to the Smoky Mountain National Park and drove through Cade’s Cove. We were there two years ago and were feeling all nostalgic as we visited certain places – so we reenacted some photos we had taken the last time we were there when Finn was only about 8 months old. the ones in the field and along the fence, in particular. And Finn had the special treat of riding in Kevin’s lap through portions of the park as we drove from one area to the next. As you can see, Finn is really in to balancing and walking on logs, standing up on logs, and such. Even his preschool teachers have remarked how well he can balance himself!
Kevin got out of our car at one point where we had just left the park as we saw several people looking up into the woods. Turns out there was a bear up there – if you look close, you can see it. That’s about as close as we got to one!By the time we were on our way back home, our little guy was really tuckered out! Another day we went to the Island which has several retail shops and lots of entertainment for little ones. This year Finn was big enough to be able to do several of rides and since he is in to trains we all rode the train together, which takes you on a 10 minute route throughout the Island.
It’s also tradition to take Finn to the Dixie Stampede. We enjoy the show, but mostly enjoy watching Finn watch the show and see how he is so mesmerized by all of it. And of course petting the horses at the end of it all is pretty fun too. He hardly ate much this year (there is dinner during the show) as he was so into watching what was going on! We did have some lounge time at the cabin too. Can you believe it was nice enough to leave our cabin door open and Finn to be running around in his swim suit!
I looked over one time and saw all of our shoes lined up like this thanks to Finn. He actually completed the ends, making them symmetrical!And here are our “official” photos from our fun at Dollywood, the ferris wheel at the Island, the Dixie Stampede, and the roller coaster at Ober!Finn was sporting Kevin’s new slippers for a bit before we left the cabin on our last evening to head to dinner at Paula Deen’s restaurant. We enjoyed delicious southern food, family style, and left there stuffed!
Finn is really good in the car, though he rarely will sleep more than an hour. He played a bit with his trucks and scooped some raisins, lol. And Finn was happy to be home and see Lily and Cam Cam. He really has been such a great helper with Cammie. Each morning and evening he helps me fill up her food bowl and take it outside. He opens and closes the door, and if the weather is nice he also likes to wait on the patio and watch her!
This week it has been all about leaves! This one Debbie took of Finn one afternoon at Inniswood Metro Park. Then on Saturday afternoon while Finn was sleeping Kevin was out mowing and cleaning up the leaves in the yard. He decided to make a giant pile of leaves for Finn to play in once he woke up! It was just before the sun went down so, unfortunately, many of the photos aren’t the most clear but they surely capture the fun my two boys had together (and Lily too, eh, a little).Right after the fun in the leaves we headed to Mansfield for a short visit to Mom and Dad’s. Kevin spent a lot of time upgrading the Hostaworks.com website this year, enhancing the shopping cart system for one and also an overall update to the aesthetics of the site. He added more imagery and gave it a more modern look. Very pretty, don’t you agree? We had one slight glitch with the launch of the seed shoppe, so we headed up to go over everything in person rather than over the phone! Everything turned out fine and we had a fun visit complete with Leaning Tower Pizza and Sub. Yum. Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, we took Griffin with us in the morning to go vote. He helped each of us cast our ballots and he was given a fun sticker, just like us. Afterward we headed to Annie’s Kitchen, a small diner right in the heart of Powell. It’s a yearly tradition. In other “new things” Kevin and I headed out with our friends the Mannings for drinks one night. We had all decided since we would be nearby that Abby would watch all of the kiddos for the first time. Finn of course loved that he was able to play with the “Manning durls”. They watched a movie in the family room and when we walked in the door he was having so much fun! On Sunday, during our family Cgroup night, the kids packed boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Kevin and Griffin went shopping for all kinds of fun toys to put in our boxes this year. We are sending 2, one to a boy and one to a girl, aged 2-4 years old. It was fun to watch the kids make cards for the kids who will receive the boxes. Kara asked who would like to pray for the boxes and for the kids who will receive them and it was sweet to hear Amy and Talon offer their prayers. And many thanks to Abby who helped Griffin with his card. We are going to track our packages this year to see where in the world they end up! The weather has been really nice lately and Debbie has taken Griffin and Sam on some fun adventures, had lots of crafty time, and made some goodies in the kitchen too! Here are some photos from their week. The first one is them loving on Cameron and helping her to feel better. They are both so affectionate and good caregivers to her – petting her and bringing her water, especially when she barks to let someone know she is thirsty!Finn also made a pumpkin pie at school this week. They are learning about senses and to demonstrate, they sprinkled real cinnamon on their pumpkin pies!
Next up was taking a little spin (and drive!) in dad’s new MG TD! First, dad drove me on a quick errand down the street to the drugstore. Then, Kevin, Finn, and I took a little spin around the neighborhood. I drove first, then Kevin took a turn. It drove really nice and was quite fun!
On Thanksgiving morning the kids helped make breakfast – little egg nests! A bit later we headed to Enon for the Armstrong Thanksgiving at Gayle and Dave’s home. The weather was so warm and sunny – it was unusual and nice!
And then a later dinner at the Beilstein’s before a quick nights sleep and then on to Black Friday Shopping! We started with our traditional breakfast at Bob Evans followed by a full day of shopping at Polaris and Easton. We capped the night with dinner at Bon Vie – yum!
Saturday we spent the afternoon at Chad’s house watching the OSU-Michigan game. He and the kids have a new puppy that Finn loved following around and petting. 
Next up: Christmas Tree Expedition 2015. We went to Cackler Farms again this year and found a lovely tree! Kevin and Finn worked hard cutting it down, only to find it had poison ivy vines growing up the trunk through the tree. Yikes! So we left that tree in the field (and told the staff there why) and kept searching…..and we found yet another 13′ beauty (of course ensuring it didn’t have poison ivy before we cut it down!). Finn was a really great helper!
Ruh Roh!!! Guess we’d better find another tree – as this one had poison ivy! The search continues….
