Nov & Dec Recap

By comparison to Sept & October, November was pretty quiet.

November 2012
We had some incredible family photos taken by WildClover Photography. We did a short & chilly outdoor session. We only had 20 minutes with them (mini-session), but they really did a great job capturing us in that amount of time. Those ladies are AMAZING! I'd highly recommend them.
Here are a few of the photos by WildClover:

We were also lucky enough to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. The first was Nov 17, when our friends Deb & Eric hosted our traditional Friends Thanksgiving. The turn out this year was huge! There were 20 adults and 18 kids in attendance.  Eric is amazing in the kitchen and was able to pull off cooking a giant turkey with all the fixin's seamlessly.

On Thanksgiving day, we went down to my brother and sister-in-laws. Mike and Maureen are also amazing hosts, and we've been doing Thanksgiving with them for the last few years. We had another spectacular meal, and Maureen cooked two turkeys so that we'd all have leftovers to take with us. We are so lucky to have such awesome family members so close by.

December 2012
December flew by in a blur! We attended fun Christmas parties, decorated and did a ton of baking. However, in between all that I am proud to say that Corey earned is Orange belt in Moo Gong Do. He was thrilled that Nanna and Grandpa were able to attend his belt ceremony. I can't begin to tell you how proud we are!

Proud Grandpa with new Orange belt

This kid is *amazing*

We had a wonderful Christmas. We traveled to my parents  for Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. The kids adore opening presents with their cousins. Santa came through with all the right things...particularly a skateboard for Corey (yikes!) and a Nintendo DS for Alexandra. On the 26th we were lucky enough to have ALL my siblings and their families get together at my parents. We also took up the whole back room at Teo's the local & beloved hotdog joint.

Corey trying on his leather jacket

Look at that pile of presents!

At Teo's!

JJ experiences his first Teo's dog!

David helps out his cousin

 Then we headed off to see Ivan's mom and sister & got to celebrate Christmas all over again!

Grammy helps Alex open a gift

Lucky kids! Two Christmases!

While we were there we also got the chance to see Ivan's step-mom & step-sister. So much fun!

Gramma Sue & Corey

Alex adores Aunt Billie!

We rang in the New Year with a quiet night at home with Deb, Eric & Mary. I will confess that we did our toast at 9:30pm & were all in bed by midnight! Happy New Year!

Sept & Oct recap

I've had the makings of blog posts in my head for months. Months, I tell you! But somewhere between my head and the computer they never materialized. And then so much time went by that it seemed weird to post about stuff so far in the past, you know how it goes. So instead of the detailed posts I'd planned, I'm just going to do a quick recap, and hopefully stay on track for 2013 :)  Without further delay, here it is:

September 2012
September was packed full of fun stuff. Early in the month we headed up to Jay Peak for the weekend. I was supposed to run my first ever 25k, but chose to skip it at the recommendation of most of my runner friends because of my foot problems. We went up to see our friend Micah finish, and of course enjoy the water park while we were there. I'd highly recommend it, it was a great time.

Happy girls

Feeling like a big kid

Enjoying the view

At the summit

Both kids played soccer this year, so our weekends were full of soccer practice and games. They both had a great time!

And of course the highlight for me was the Spartan Race on Sept 22nd. It was by far the scariest, craziest most bad-ass thing I have ever done. My goal was to finish, particularly for those who couldn't, and I did it! 9 hours and 23minutes of swearing, crying, and bitching, but I did it!

Part of our team- Homer's Heroes

Sandbag carry

Slippery wall

Fire jump

The bling!

October 2012
October started off with a little medical scare for Corey. For the first time ever, he showed some symptoms of tethered cord so I called the clinic at Dartmouth and they suggested that I bring him in for a "couple" tests. That ended up being, head x-ray, kidney ultrasound, MRI, and urodynamics study. My friends in the SB community know that this means a FULL day at the hospital. The results were somewhat concerning, so we went back down a few weeks later for a sedated full spine MRI to look for distinct signs of tethering. Thankfully, there was nothing acute on the full spine MRI, so we are in wait and see mode & we go back for more tests in Feb.

Ready for x-ray

Kidney Ultrasound

Waiting for the neurosurgeon

Waking up from sedated MRI

The best part...

Popsicles!

Other highlights in October were our trip to Stowe with friends, Corey's soccer tournament & trip the the Dartmouth football game.  We also ran the CHaD hero races again and raised $1485 as a team for the children's hospital. Corey was proud to have raised over $400 himself.  :) Thanks again to all those who donated!

Corey ran the 1 mile Cam's Course

Alex running Cam's Course

Alex & Brandon almost done!

Lynne & Lily's first 5K!

Rock stars!

And finally, Corey decided right before Halloween that he wanted to have a "homemade" costume so he could enter the Shelburne Halloween Costume Contest! We decided on a Minion from Despicable Me, and he won 1st prize in his age group for Funniest Costume!

Prize winning Minion