Happy Turkey Day!

What better way to spend Thanksgiving than with family, and in the case of this year almost all the family. As I was trying to fall asleep last night I decided to count how many people there were at Mike and Eve's yesterday. I came up with 36! I think that's a new record. The meal was fantastic, and hooray, for the first time we didn't run out of mashed potatoes. Kudos for all those who put the meal together. It was great to see so many of the family and get caught up on their lives. Unfortunately I had movie tickets and couldn't stay as long as I would have liked (especially since the movie theater was insane!). Well until next year here are some pictures to enjoy...not that great but there were a lot of people there.

Pumpkin Carving

I was just doing a little editing and came across our Halloween fun for the year so I thought I'd post the pictures. We took Clay to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3-D to get into the spirit and then spent the rest of the night making our masterpieces. Now I'm not sure why the boys look stoned in the picture because I promise all we were drinking was Diet Coke :) And this year we had fun dressing up at work...or maybe I should say we threw on some witches hats just as an excuse to wear jeans for the day (but they were darn cute hats). Halloween is still one of my favorite holidays but yeah next week is Thanksgiving. Then I can officially listen to Christmas music...

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A Ghostly Encounter

So it may be a bit late to be talking about October since it seems that Christmas is already here, but whom am I to stick with convention. My mom and I took a very fun trip back East and spent a week traveling through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and back to our own back yard of Connecticut. Actually I was fulfilling a dream of visiting Salem, MA to see the old witch trial sites. It was so much fun, and so interesting since some of the original structures from 1692 are still there. We went through John Hathorne's (the infamous hanging judge) home. He was the one to sign most of the death warrants for the accused witches. We also visited the Rebecca Nurse farm. She was one of the first to be accused and her actual farm is still there. I could give a complete travel log here, but I will spare everyone the boredom of my ramblings and end with this. Our most exciting experience however was the Haunted Footsteps tour that we took. It takes place after dark and your guide takes you around the city center filling the evening with stories of murders, ghosts, and of course facts about the witch craze. Some of the stuff she told us was educational, some rather gory, and some just plain spooky. We were also invited to take any pictures we felt like along the way to see if we could capture a spectral presence. Now for those that know me well know that that is right up my alley. My mom can testify to what a ghost freak I am. Ever since I saw the movie Poltergeist I've been fascinated by the idea of ghosts and at that time ran to the library and checked out any non-fiction book I could on the subject...I was 11 at the time. My mom literally did think I was nuts! But, excitement, I was successful in my first ever ghost hunt! At the first place we stopped I was snapping some shots while the lady told us the story of the grisly murder that had taken place in the home of Captain Joseph White. When we got back to the hotel I was flipping through the pictures I was ecstatic to see some interesting things. It was a cold misty/rainy night so there were a lot of rain drops in the pictures but the one I'm posting seemed very spooky. I'm totally hooked now!

And in close up:

I know I'm probably silly but it was a thrill for me :)

Here are a few more pictures from the trip....

New Hampshire:

And finally the rolling hills of Connecticut: