Weekend fun! We went to Longwood Gardens and did a lot of walking, played in the Children's Garden and looked for snow to throw at each other. Ellie found a cat (tiny video) and followed it around for a while. Later we helped John and Brenda pick out a beautiful Christmas tree and had some great stew and a cozy evening!

On Sunday we drove around looking for the perfect neighborhood on the R6 line that would simplify Mike's commute and didn't find it. Then we went to Swarthmore to see a great gamelan concert. Ben sat through the whole thing and really liked the drums and dancers! Ellie had to excuse herself in between songs during the 'quiet' times, but she really liked clapping and dancing to the music! Afterwards all the kids got to go onstage to see the instruments up close. Now time to get ready for Christmas!

SNOW! SNOW!

Today we had our first snow. Not much, but enough to cover the cars and make a few snowballs. It was a really pretty snowfall with big flakes and it was dry enough that they didn't turn to mush right away.

Here's some video of Ellie struggling to walk in her big snowsuit. She's a good sport. While I was photographing this Ben put a snowball on my head and at the end he put one on Ellie's too (just out of the frame). What a fun time today!

Look who's walking!

Here's Ellie, using all of her determination to plow her mower through the leaves last weekend. She's also walking a little more each day without the mower and is super-excited about it! We're working on a video capture and will include a link once I figure that out, so stay tuned! Go Ellie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fun day at home enjoying the wonderful weather, playing in the leaves, and just relaxing. Then we went to Johnny Mac and Brenda's house for a fantastic dinner - shrimp, homemade chicken soup, salad, 2 turkeys with all the trimmings, broccoli rabe followed by dessert - brownies and pies made by Amish bakers. Note to self: add cheesecake to the menu next year. Wow, all that and no dishes! Thanks guys! Ben and Ellie thoroughly enjoyed themselves and didn't overfeed the dog (at least not too much...) And thanks for taking our picture, John!

My favorite ice cream...

On Sunday we took the train downtown and visited the Liberty Bell, the new Independence Center which was really nice and where we saw a fantastic hammer dulcimer player, and walked around.

We also went to Reading Terminal Market to see if Bassett's Ice Cream was still there (luckily it was). They don't seem to use metal dishes anymore, so they can't slide your ice cream to you down the marble counter, but it was still good. Ben chose a cone anyway. We saw a guy in his 80's? enjoying some vanilla ice cream and he reminded me of Grandaddy Storey who ate ice cream every day (is that really true, Mom?)

Ellie LOVES ice cream. Notice how she holds her imaginary cone?

Goodbye new hat!

Here's Ellie in her new winter hat that magically stayed on. It was the only hat she didn't mind wearing. After 2 days we lost it on the train. So far SEPTA says it hasn't been found. It's so hard to keep track of everything. On Saturday morning a security person from our apt. complex delivered my wallet to the door. It was on the ground down the street, with everything in it except the $2 I had left. Whew! Ellie continues to take off her right shoe and sock whenever she's seated, in the car, shopping cart, stroller, etc. regardless of the weather... It was almost gone yesterday in Trader Joe's but we circled back to get yogurt and found the trail (pink sock by the deli section, kitty shoe by the milk). Maybe I'll try stringing them together through her pants the way they do with mittens.

So many leaves and no end in sight! Ben has been enjoying the kid-size rakes Granny and Grandpa brought when they were here for Ellie's birthday. Besides jumping in the big piles of leaves we like to make it snow leaves, too!

We're here....
and finally organized enough to start posting some pictures and bringing everyone up to date.

We moved into our apartment just over a month ago. We're in Drexel Hill, just west of Phila, and south of Mike's new job. It's starting to feel like home and of course it helps that we were familiar with the area. We're looking for a house and narrowing things down to a few neighborhoods. We really like Havertown and Media, but we're still open to suggestions.

We've caught up with some old friends and made it into the city a few times to show Ben some sights like Independence Park, Ben Franklin's house, our old neighborhood, the park where we got married, The Pink Rose Pastry Shop, Pearl art store, and the farmers market.


Ben is enjoying preschool and goes 2 mornings per week. It seems like an endless stream of projects and announcements come home in his backpack each time. I can't believe how much they pack into a 2.5 hour morning!
The transition away from working full-time has been a big one for me. I'm looking to get involved in at least a few activities with adults in the next few months, but it's been great to have more time to do things spontaneously with the kids during the week. We've been lucky to have some really beautiful fall weather to spend a lot of time outside walking and going to different parks.


Since moving here we've celebrated 3 birthdays:
Mike's magical number 39 in the first week of October(sounds pretty old, doesn't it?),

then mine (39 doesn't sound so terribly old now that we've had 2 weeks to get used to the idea),
then Ellie's first on 10/19. Now Ellie has more stuff to call her own and tempt Ben with. The telephone from Aunt Donna and Uncle Chuck was the favorite.

So what's not to like about a new place when you've been on one continuous sugar high? In one month we've had three birthday cakes and Halloween.

This was the first 'real' Halloween since last year was a blur (Ellie was 2 weeks old and we were all exhausted) but not too exhausted to go trick-or-treating! And like every year we bought candy a week ahead of time and ate it all and had to buy more before the big day. This year Ben wanted to be a mailman and Ellie dressed up as a bee.

Picnic at UCLA

Ben offering the squirrels some sandwich...
Ellie and Mommy

BEN!

a kiss from the chef!

What a great Mother's Day! Slept in, Mike and Ben made breakfast, went to the farmer's market, took a long walk until Ben and Ellie fell asleep, got a nap, then went out to dinner...

Mother's Day - decorating a star box at the farmer's market

Ben sliding at Monica's

Ben and Kaya

Kaya, Aksil & Ben

Ben helped feed Ellie this morning! (Banana-barley mush)

Ellie, grabbing a toe after Ben teaches her to build a block tower!

Ben and Daddy playing soccer across the street at the school.

Toby's Birthday Party

Ben in the bouncer

Ben and Aksil making mud

Ben, Toby, Oscar, and Aksil

Toby's party, continued

Ice cream cake!

Ben and Oscar sliding

Yummy avocado!

Getty Picnic in Malibu