What Do We Do

Now that my family is spread all over the globe, we really look forward to the times when we can all get together. My parents haven't complained yet about the long drive to West Point to pick up Paul. Charity is willing to change planes a million times to get from Florida to Manchester. Erin deals with the adjusting that comes from crossing a dozen time zones, and I'll even give up singing in an ensemble so that I can be home for Christmas.

If you have ever wondered if we all make our long pilgrimage to New Hampshire so we can sit at the dining room table, staring at each other and saying, "Isn't this fun. We're all together!" I want you to know...you're about right.

In June, when we were all home for a few days, we celebrated everyone's birthday, Father's Day, Mom and Dad's anniversary, and had a baby shower for Allyson. Which basically means that we ate a lot of junk, stayed up late, and created a lot of work for my mom, who loves us anyway. Everyone got to pick something for us all to do, so over the course of the week, we went golfing (sort of), yard sale shopping (for a few minutes, anyway), and did foot scrubs...(okay, just some of us on that one), and did some other random and sundry things including climbing in kid toys at the mall and eating desserts at Applebees.

When I came home in October, I got to spend half a day trying to convince the New Hampshire powers that be to let me register a car even though I was not a New Hampshire resident, the car did not belong to me, and there was a defect in the title. Praise the Lord, I was successful without either crying or getting angry. After that, Dad and I made a 12-hour trip to West Point and back in the pouring rain so that he could sleep on our couch for the weekend. But it was all worth it because I got to hold Violet and watch Caleb play with a tractor toy for a while. Before the weekend was over, I also watched "Follow Me, Boys." Now that's a quality waste of time.

Caleb provides a lot of our entertainment when we're home. This trip we have had a lively competition in seeing who can get Caleb to say their name the most times. Paul has an obvious advantage in this, since his is only one syllable. We did get something that resembled "Danielle" out of him a few times, though (it also resembled nanell, aaayaayay, and hippopotamus).

As for this trip...there's a lot I could say, but here are some pictures that will probably say it all and better.