Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  We sure did!

This year we took a road trip to visit Bubbe in Atlanta.  Mom and Dad decided to make the drive part of the vacation so we took it over three days.  Mom, Dad, Hazel, Turner, and I all packed in our mini-van and hit the road.  We left last Thursday evening and spent the first night in a Holiday Inn Express in Longview, Texas.  Hazel and I liked the Holiday Inn because they had cookies.  Unfortunately for Mom and Dad, Hazel and I kept each other awake most of the night. 

The next day we stopped about halfway in Jackson, Mississippi, and went to an awesome Children's Museum.  I spent a while playing with a real car they have there, filling it with gas.  Hazel liked the pretend kitchen, boat playscape, and music room.  There was also a great park and playscape right next door.  Mom packed us a great lunch that we ate outside.  We spent more than two hours there, and we didn't want to leave.  But we knew that we still had a long way to go, so we reluctantly got back in the car and drove to Birmingham, Alabama, to stay with my great Aunt Susan and great Uncle Stuart.  They have grandchildren about my age, so they had lots of fun toys for us to play with.  Hazel liked feeding a toy pony and I pushed around a vacuum cleaner.  The next morning, we went with Aunt Susan and Uncle Stuart to the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, which was really fun. After a great morning there, we drove to Bubbe's house in Atlanta.

Staying at Bubbe's house was really fun.  We spent a lot of time with Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jonathan.  They are really nice.  They took us to the Georgia Aquarium.  Hazel really liked the penguins, and the penguins really liked me. Mom noticed that a whole bunch of them flocked to the window next to me. Then she realized why -- I was waving a piece of paper around, trying to show them a penguin picture I colored in the foyer. They looked like they wanted to eat it! I liked the whales and the jellyfish. Surprisingly, Turner really seemed to enjoy watching the fish. He was calm the whole time we were there and Mom really liked watching his eyes and head follow the fish around.

Earlier in the week, Hazel and I visited Bubbe at the dentist where she works, and I got my teeth cleaned.  The dentist said my teeth looked great.  He also looked at Hazel's teeth and said they looked good too.  She is still too little to get them cleaned but she seems excited about it happening one day. In the meantime, she has become really excited about a new book Bubbe gave us, Doctor De Soto, which is about a dentist who is a mouse.

We did a lot of other activities throughout the week. We walked a lot to the playground nearby where Dad went to school when he was little.  Bubbe took us to the Atlanta Zoo where we saw zebras, meerkats, ostriches, giraffes, elephants, monkeys, and panda bears.  Bubbe liked the panda bears the best. When we left, Hazel pointed out that the jaguars weren't out.

Dad made sure we visited his favorite restaurants several times - Krystals and the Varsity.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, cookies, green beans, jello, carrott soufflet, and sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. Bubbe made us a great Shabbat dinner too.  She was pretty impressed with how we excited we were about Shabbat dinner. We also got to visit Great Grandma Millie, who was very happy to see us. 

Turner got a lot better at crawling this week.  He had plenty of practice, as Bubbe made sure to have plenty of toys for him to crawl around after. Turner also seems to be growing some more teeth. 

Sadly, after a week, it was time to head home.  We were sure sad to leave Atlanta and especially sad to leave Bubbe, but she'll be coming to visit us in Austin soon. 

Here are our photos from the week, as well as some from the McWane Science Center photos, courtesy of Aunt Susan.

Happy Halloween!

Ha! I bet you thought I was going to mention another holiday. Today, however, I am wishing you a belated happy Halloween.

This year, Hazel dressed up as a monkey, so I thought I'd better dress up as a banana. It's healthier than candy, anyway. Turner dressed up in our hand me down pumpkin costume.

We really had a blast. We started early, at a Halloween party at an assistant living facility in our neighborhood. Other kids from my school were there, and it was nice celebrating with people of all ages.

Next up was the annual Halloween bash at Dad's office. We were happy to have another opportunity for an early celebration. Hazel really loved that they had a bounce house to jump in and I was really happy that they had -- you guessed it -- candy and other yummy snacks.

We took the day off Friday, then Saturday headed to a neighborhood parade. We joined everyone in the school parking lot out our back gate, then marched in our costumes to the next door park. It was short but fun. At the park, there was coloring, a puppet show and fun on the playground.

Sunday we went to one of Dad's favorite restaurants for lunch. Our food was free since we dressed up in costumes. This time, I went as a duck. Hazel stuck to her monkey costume and she was happy to find one of her favorite things, a motorcycle, used as decoration at the restaurant.

Over the weekend, Dad helped us carve a jack-o-lantern and Mom roasted the seeds.

Monday was the grand finale. We started off trick-or-treating with Mom and did half our street while Dad stayed home so he could hand out candy and stick with Turner, who had already fallen asleep. We wrapped up the other half of the street with Dad. This is the first year we really enjoyed trick-or-treating, and along the way, we ate a bunch of candy.

The other fun thing we did this year is we decorated our new house for the holiday. We hung orange lights and spiderwebs on our magnificent trees, and had a bunch of pumpkins and a skeleton by the front door. We also had a spooky jack-o-lantern glowing in one of the upstairs front windows. Next year will be even bigger and better in this department. Stay tuned! 

As you can probably tell by our lack of posts this month, we've been really busy. We had a fun trip to the Austin zoo a couple of weekends ago and have been enjoying the mild weather at our playgrounds behind our house. We've gone almost every afternoon!

Turner's coming a long way too. For the past few weeks, we have been able to sit him up like a tripod. At first he could only balance for a few seconds, but now he can sit that way for a while and play with a toy. He's really been working on trying to crawl, and he's coming pretty close.

For our Halloween pics, click here.

SF photos

Thanks to Tony Perrie for taking this photo.

Click here for photos from Mom and Turner's trip to San Francisco.