Alec's 6th birthday

What a birthday week! Alec turned 6 on Wednesday, November 23rd. Birthday child gets to choose the menu for the day, so we started with cinnamon rolls for breakfast, hot dogs and hamburgers for lunch, and ravioli for dinner. A special playdate with his friend David rounded out his day.
Thanks Aunt Carla for the cool nerf gun!
Special birthday dinner plate.....
and thank you Aunt Sheila for the Catwoman addition to the Batman house.
Alec's requested dessert was brownies, since the birthday cake was saved for his party.....and now a pause for Thanksgiving......
resume for a birthday party on Saturday! Lots of friends, food, and fun rounded out the evening!
Birthday theme was Gormiti, which are action figures from Italy. The cake was the Island of Gorm, which has a volcano on it, so the messier, the better!

Birthday friends.....
and special visitors.....the youngest being 3 1/2 weeks old! Thank you Shullenbarger family, for making the trip from Maryland!

Darrell's creative pizzas were a hit among children and adults!

We are very thankful for a double garage that can host a wild tag game to burn energy out of the early elementary aged crowd!

A little flashback six years.....my how things have changed!

Fall Fun 2011

Fall festival at our church....Alec was Batman, Ann-Marie was Pippi Longstocking, and Evan declared himself too old to dress up, so he volunteered to be in the dunk tank to raise money for missions.

Do you notice who is first in line to dunk Evan? (above)
Of course, the pumpkin carving was a hit....
our guest, Glori, enjoyed herself also, and hammed it up for the picture.
We love going to the zoo in the Fall, and we have had an unusually nice stretch of weather......we actually haven't been to the Pittsburgh zoo for over a year. We were pleasantly surprised by several changes made to the zoo.
The rays are always a hit, as well as the meerkats....
and below is what Ann-Marie is looking at face-to-face.
We hope you and your family are also enjoying the beautiful Fall days!

Colorado - the places

This will be the last post about our Missouri/Colorado trip....I am getting behind and need to get some fall photos up! I tried to show all we did in Colorado, but it's hard because we packed in a lot. Above, the Air Force Academy Chapel....
playing in a penny arcade in Manitou Springs.....
discovering the Narnia Wardrobe at Focus on the Family.....
strolling around Cripple Creek, Colorado.....
holding up the Balanced Rock at Garden of the Gods....

touring the Olympic training center.....

taking the tour OVER the Cheyenne Mountains Zoo....


hiking up to Helen Hunt Falls.....

exploring hands-on activities at Starsmore Discovery Center......
not quite making it all the way to the top of Pikes Peak, but close......
and a little side trip and a shout out to a small but wonderful pumpkin farm in Iowa!

October Missouri Trip....the places....

If you go to St. Louis, Missouri, you have to go up into the arch. Here is our family picture at the top....and below, Ann-Marie below the arch. The kids actually went up into the arch twice, compliments of Grandpa and Amma.
We had two favorite eating experiences...the first was Crown Candy. If you're a fan of the TV show "Man vs. Food" then you might have heard of Crown Candy.....


Walking around St. Louis was fun....the city garden is a very interesting place to discover.
The St. Louis zoo was a short, but wonderful trip, compliments of New York Life. Highlights were the elephants, the penguins, and the big cats. We could have spent a day just in the insect building!

We enjoyed a morning at the Missouri Botanical Garden....the children's garden was amazing. What caught Ann-Marie and my eye was the Chihuly glass.
Another favorite eating experience was Pappy's BBQ....another feature on "Man Vs. Food." (I'm sensing a theme here.) We're not huge BBQ fans, but it was good. We loved all the silly sayings on the walls and shirts about BBQ....like the sign out front?
I found a motorcycle museum for Darrell....we all enjoyed seeing the foreign, vintage motorcycle collection.
The last night in St. Louis was the Beatlemania concert, hosted by New York Life. It was a lot of fun.....hundreds of balloons around for the kids to make silly hats, as you can see.
So this last picture proves a strong genetic link....Alec definitely has the Jerome sleeping gene....he can sleep anywhere....even in the middle of a loud concert in uncomfortable bleacher chairs.

Missouri/Colorado Trip - The People

We recently took a two week trip, traveling to St. Louis, Missouri for a New York Life Convention, then onto Colorado Springs, CO to see my youngest sister and her family, and finally making a one-day stop in Iowa on our way back to Pennsylvania to see my other sister and her family. What a wonderful trip! This post is about the special people that we were able to spend time with on our journey....the next post will be about the places we visited. Above, my dad and step-mother came to St. Louis to spend time with us.....
The pictures above and below are of the Campbell family: Kris (not pictured), Jennifer, Benjamin, Jonah, Abigail, and Nathanael (the baby). I have a long friendship with the Campbell family....I grew up with Kris, met Jennifer when they were living in Alexandria, Virginia, and we have managed to coordinate trips back to Iowa to see family and keep in touch since they moved to Illinois. On this trip, we stayed overnight with them the first night, then they were able to come into St. Louis to have dinner with us another night.

While we were in St. Louis, I was able to meet my cousin's wife, Katie, and their children at the Botanical Gardens. What a treat to be able to spend time with family we do not see very often! We missed seeing Steve, but had a great time with Katie, Dacia, Tucker, and met new baby Chanel.
Now, to Colorado.....my youngest sister, Sheila, and her husband, Kurt, and their family - Silas, Nathan, Abby, and Selah (the baby) graciously hosted us while we were there. How do you get two sets of children, seven kids - ten and under - to sit still for a picture? While they are watching TV!
Finally, the Iowa "day-trip" to spend time with my next younger sister, Carla, her husband, Richard, and their children - Isabelle, Wade and Will....yes, identical twins. In small town Iowa, Carla and I received several questions about whether we were twins...I don't know how Carla felt about those questions, but I loved it because it immediately shaved four years off of my age!

A big thank-you to Josh Westurn and Mike and Chelsea Johnston.....our Pennsylvania neighbors and friends who watched our house and took care of our dog!