A Military Thanksgiving

Since Thanksgiving and Christmas are only a month a part we usually don't travel home for Thanksgiving so we can for Christmas.  This year our niece Megan and her little boy Ben came for a visit for the week.  Her husband is deployed and we are the closest family to where they are stationed. YAY us!  We really enjoyed having them here.

The first night they arrived Mark's brother James (who is in town for training), our other niece Geneva and her girls came over to have dinner with us.  It had been many years since Megan and Geneva had seen each other.  It was nice to be able to have a mini reunion with Mark's side of the family. I didn't get any pictures that night :(

On Thanksgiving we joined our family and our friends the Hubert family together for a Thanksgiving feast.  Everyone came here and we shared in making all of the delicious food. It was great to see Erin's sister Juli, Clint, Tanner and the newest addition Cameron.  It was a typical Military Thanksgiving with our Military family and our family full of great food, great conversation and plenty of laughter!

These first two pictures are from Ava's school Thanksgiving program.  They all looked so cute in their pilgrims and Indian's cosutmes.  They sang well too!

 Ava loved playing and helping with Ben

 The group picture using the camera timer

 The girls

The guys minus Ben.

Ava and Eva

Although I have enjoyed being here at Rucker and getting to meet many new friends as well as seeing old friends as their husbands come here for training,  I feel as though I am always saying goodbye.  Ava is just now at the age where she is realizing this and missing her friends.  Through my bunco group I met Rachel who is also a Kentucky girl.  She has a little girl name Eva who is 6 months older than Ava.  On the days Ava didn't have school we would try to get together to let the girls play.  They always had a great time and play so well together.  A few weeks ago we had to say our good byes as they move on to Ft. Drum.  Luckily the Aviation community is small so chances are we will see them again.  We wish them well on their adventure at Ft. Drum!

Here are a few pictures I took one evening before they left.  I watched Eva as they went to a graduation Banquet.

 eating ice cream in fun bowls and painting in the bath was fun!

 They had fun jumping on my bed and making goofy faces in the mirror

Shower for Bebe Hubert

On November 6th, some friends and I threw a baby shower for our great friend Erin. We decided to go with the Cirque du Bebe theme.  With the help of Erin's sister Juli who made the invitations and all of the printable cards and pictures and sister Haley who made an awesome wreath, the shower turned out super cute!

It was such an honor to be able to throw Erin a shower who always is doing so much for others! Many ladies turned out for the fun day to shower Erin and her baby boy to be with many wonderful gifts.  I can't wait to meet baby Hubert in just two weeks!!!!

 Everyone filling out their wishes for Baby Hubert 

Erin with the hostesses. From left to right Dawn, Me, Erin H. and Erin F.

Halloween Fun!

This Halloween weekend was pretty low key on the Halloween festivities.  Mark did a 10 hour bike race on saturday and came in 3rd place whoo hoo!  Ava and I did a little shopping and sewing that day.  On Sunday we did make a quick stop to the local Pumpkin patch.  Ava just loves going there!  We did the train ride and visited with the animals.  When we first got there the animals were hungary and making lots of noise.  Ava didn't like that too much.  The second time around after they had been fed they were quiet and she had a much better time.

 What happened?

 Ava loved doing the scary faces!

Today was Ava's class Halloween party and my friend Erin and I signed up to do the snack. I did spooky popcorn hands and she did spider cupcakes.

The kids enjoyed snack and exchanging their treats with one another.  Ava brought home so much candy I was wondering if we should even trick - o- treat.  We did and Ava had a blast.  I thought she would only want to go to a few houses but we went all the way around the block.  Many of the houses were decorated and that didn't stop Ava from approaching for candy like it did last year.  There was one house however that answered the door in a scary costume.  Ava covered her ears and would not get close.  Not even for candy!

 Excited about all of her treats from school!

 Sweet Pose

 Scary pose

 Visiting with neighbors and friends.  Jackson makes a cute pumpkin!

 Many houses left buckets of candy out.  Ava was always polite and just took one.

Once back at the house Ava had just as much fun handing out to the children who came by.  Since our house is off to itself in the neighborhood, we generally don't get as many who stop.  All in all it was a great day.  Happy Halloween All!!!

Bike Race with Friends

For two years now we have been traveling all over Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida for Mark to race in the SERC Mountain Bike races.  This Fall Mark decided to race some of the Florida race seres to stay in shape.  Most of them are too far away so we have only went to two so far.  The last one was the first weekend in October.  This race was in Gainesville Florida which is always fun but this year was even more fun because our friends Sean and Melissa joined us for the weekend race.  Sean's bike got damaged when it was mailed here so he ended up using one of Mark's bikes.   This race was one of the largest I had seen with 40 racers in their age group.  Both Sean and Mark did really well and it was nice to have friends along for the trip.

 Ava loved hanging out with Tyler!

 Sweet Leah

 Heading to the finish line.

After the race chat