October

We've been busy.

End of September Drew started preschool. He loves it. He attends Monday, Wednesday, Friday for two hours.

October 1st Drew and Claire had there well checkups. We've got big healthy babies.

October brought a lot of quintessential fall activities. Apple picking, pumpkin patches, beautiful fall leaves, Ithaca's Apple Fest, cider and donuts,  farm animals, eating a lot of root vegetables, and nightly walks to name a few.

For the last two years one of the best things about October has been fall break. First year: Boston, second year: Philadelphia, and now we can add Montreal to the list.

Every city we have explored we have loved. I think it has something to do with the time of year that we visit. The weather in Montreal was absolutley perfect. We spent 3 nights in a nice little hotel with an awesome pool and great breakfast. We explored the Montreal Botanical gardens (which had been decked out in a Halloween theme) Notre Dame and Old Town Montreal. We walked along the St. Lawrence river walk and spent a few hours at a park where Drew played with little French Canadians that he couldn't communicate with. We drove through a misty Mount Royale cemetery on Canadian Thanksgiving and ate more poutine than anyone should.

Spencer laughed and said that I spent my time in Montreal trying to relive my childhood. Although there are a lot of differences between Eastern and Western Canada I was still able to find a few things that reminded me of Calgary... Costco Poutine. The best poutine of the trip. Tiger icecream (which we ate in the car and tossed at the border) Ketchup chips and plenty of Canadian chocolate bars (not candy bars) that barely even lasted us the 5 hour drive home. We went to four grocery stores before we found the tiger ice cream but even after four stores I still wasn't satisfied with my findings (Old Dutch chips?). I guess we will have to visit Calgary for our next school break.

October also brought Drew calling me "Momma Sara" and "Dude"
He started swimming lessons at our YMCA. Considering he didn't want to get his hair wet when he started and now three weeks later he'll jump into the pool and put his head under- I think they have been worth it.

Near the end of October we got some family pictures taken. First time we've done something like that and it was actually pretty successful. Our neighbor, Elyse, did a great job working with the kids and being patient with our lack of modeling skills. Per usual, the Ithaca fall leaves did not disappoint as the perfect background to our pictures.

I should probably leave the Halloween part of October to another post since we did an insane amount of things. The kids wore their costumes (Tinkerbell and Jake the pirate) 7 times. Not to mention their "alternate Halloween outfits" for days when their costumes were being washed. Oh, and Drew slept in Skeleton pajamas just about everyday of October. To say that he loves Halloween, would still be an understatement. We went to almost every local party (including Trick-or-Treating at Wegmans) His preschool class party, two different parties at the YMCA, our branch party and a couple other things here and there. The actual day of Halloween was cold and raining. We decided to go out when the rain stopped and said we would only go for about 30 minutes. Two hours later we came home with a very happy 3 year old and way too much candy.

October has been good to us.