Fall Chores

Our game of catch up is almost complete. Falling behind on the blog saddens me. Our intent is to keep this going as a chronology of our family. Occasionally, I go back and read some old posts and that's what makes this thing so rewarding. I can't imagine how cool its going to be in 20 or 30 years!
Last year when we attempted to involve Julia in our Fall leave cleanup, pretty much all she did was cry. What a difference a year makes! She's all about it now!!! When I took her outside to rake, I gave her a little sandbox rake while I went to the garage to get my rake. When I came back out, she already had about a four foot circle raked up!
She helped with every aspect of the job...raking, bagging, running sprints up and down the driveway, going down the slide, and most importantly jumping in the leaves!

I think she had a blast...hope she still feels that way when she's fourteen and I'm waking her lazy but up early to rake our leaves! When we finished, she and I were walking up the driveway to come inside and she says to me, "Boy Daddy! Raking leaves is hard work!"

For the second year in a row, we "hosted" Thanksgiving. I say that because this year, Courtney's Dad (aka the Big Man and Pop) had a procedure done and in order to make it a bit easier on him, we packed up and took the show on the road. It was like a Top Chef challenge where they change the venue on you mid stream...so it was pretty cool.

Everything went smoothly and I'll be honest...it was a pleasure to cook at Grandmom and Pop's house. Ma Jones has a pretty killer kitchen. Although it was weird preparing a meal in an oven that was accurate.

After dinner all the grandchildren helped with the tree decorating. Jules (of course) was all about it! Although I don't really remember this part. I think I had fallen victim to a tryptophan overdose!-Andy