We flew out on Saturday afternoon, arriving around bed time.  By the time we got our rental car and drove to Hanover, to John and Pat’s house, it was too late to do much more than say hello and jump in bed.

Pat had decided to do Thanksgiving at her house on Sunday, and many, many friends and family were invited over.  Dave and Jen were the first to arrive with little Max, who is much bigger and cuter and way more fun to play with than he was last time I saw him!

He warmed up to all of us pretty quick and it wasn’t long before he climbed up in my lap and let me give him hugs.  Pat served a delicious dinner and we had a great time catching up with many of Wes’ relatives.

Max needed some outside time in the late afternoon, so I took him outside and he ran around Pat’s community for a while, then he discovered the fallen leaves in the yard! Before you knew it, Camden and Jake and Jayden were also out there jumping in the leaves.

Monday, we had decided to drive up to State College, PA, so Wes could show the boys and I around his old stomping grounds, Penn State.  John and Pat came along, and we had to visit all his old favorite restaurants, including Berkey’s Ice Cream Parlor.  We got our pic taken with the Nittany Lion and the statue of Joe Paterno, Penn State’s long standing football coach.

On Tuesday, we toured Penn’s Cave; an underground, water filled cavern!  It was a cold, dreary, drizzly day, but the cave was so neat.  At the far end of the cave, it emerges out onto a small lake.  While out on the lake, we got to see a Bald Eagle!  We drove home that day, and got to have dinner with Dave and Jen.

Wednesday, we drove to Annapolis so we could tour the Naval Academy (Camden hopes to go there someday).  Another dreary, drizzly day, but we had a great walking tour and saw the campus and the dorms.  Got to have a great lunch at a tavern there, and got some Navy souveniers.  On the way home we stopped at Maryland Homebrew, Wes’ old stomping grounds and saw Christiane.  Then we stopped at Dave and Jen’s again and had dinner with them.

Thursday we were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at Jen’s parents, Ken and Jocelyn’s house.  Got to spend all day with Max, who, it turns out, is not always a happy go lucky child.  LOL.  Got good cuddle time with him, though, when he crawled up in my lap and fell asleep.  That was pretty awesome!

We spent all day Friday with Dave and Jen and Max at their apartment.  Dave took the boys for a short ride on his new motorcycle.  They were thrilled to be so special to ride Dave’s motorcycle!  LOL.

Friday afternoon we had to fly home.  We were thrilled to be able to see everyone, but sad it was so short.  We are hoping to get a nice long visit early next summer though.

I’ve messed around with the pictures for over a half hour and can not get it to do what I want.  All pictures are on our my  Facebook account WITH captions and facing in the right direction.  The link is to the right, friend me.  I am on Facebook everyday, and post pics and updates much more often than I do here, so check it out!

Yes, we’ve moved again. But I’m pretty sure this will be the last time. I’ve got this website paid for like 2 years, and am not using it for anything else, so it may as well be my family website. I’m going to be working on getting a photo gallery, a forum and other stuff set up here. Just bear with me. I’ll figure it out eventually.

So, you ask, what are we up to?

Well, not much. Why else would I not have written in so long???

Camden is doing great in school now. He is in the Symphonic Band and they just had regional contests (UIL) and they did great! My favorite part was the sight reading competition. Each band has to play a piece of music they have never played before. The instructor, Mr Hutchins, had been practicing with them at school. At the competition, they had several minutes for Mr H to go over it with the band. They went measure by measure with him pointing out each change and who did what. Then in the second section, he sort of sang it to them so they had an idea what it sounded like. Then, they had to play the piece. Let me tell you, I was amazed!!!!! I expected missed notes, people playing off tune, and general mayhem. But OMG! They nailed it. It sounded like they had played the piece 100 times. They got the highest scores from each judge. It was great.

Camden is also “in” to the Rubic’s Cube. Remember those things? Well, he not only has one, but he can solve it. He has it down to around 2 minutes right now. I’m intending to take a video of it and post it somewhere on the web. Maybe YouTube. Just so everyone can see him do it.

Jake’s doing great! He’s letting his hair grow out. I need to get a picture of him. We are planning our next year’s curriculum and I was surprised to find out that the math he is doing for 5th grade is going to lead to him doing a new math program next year at the 7th grade level! Woo-hoo! We are going to study the Far East next year and learn about China, India and more. Looks really interesting and we are already looking forward to doing it.

Wes had been interviewing for a job in PA. We were hoping to get closer to Dave, Jen and the baby. But that didn’t work out for us… Lots of stuff going on here at Silestone, though. He’s gone from from being plant manager of US Stone to being a sales marketing manager for Cosentino USA to being plant manager of Silestone all in a few months. All without leaving the company. Anyway, he’s up to the challenge and is happy about everything as he can be.

My business is doing great. I am making money now and am very excited about it. If you haven’t looked at my website lately, please check it out. I’m doing some secret shopper stuff on the side, too. That’s not as fun as it sounds. Lots of reports go into each “shop” and if I really think about what I”m being paid to drive all over town and then fill out the reports, it’s really not worth it…

I’m also really “in” to budgeting right now. Believe it or not… budgeting can be fun. At least now I know where we have money and I spend SO much less of it now. Instead of borrowing from savings each month to avoid bouncing checks, we have extra in our account and are going to be able to pay cash for Christmas this year. Woo-hoo! I’ve read tons of budgeting books and online resources and have learned a lot. I can’t believe I fought learnign to budget for so long.

Anyway, what else? Dave and Jen are doing great. The baby is due around May 21st and they have decided to name him Max! We are all flying back there in June to visit and I get to babysit while we are there. Can’t wait!

I guess that’s about all. I’ll post again when I get the photo gallery set up and figured out. We do have a forum, if you like that kind of stuff. I don’t expect it to get a lot of use, but you never know.

Til later,

Sherri