ramonat latest

We were planning to take advantage of the free babysitters (the grandparents) so that we could go skiing during Thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much snow this break where we were, so we had to nix skiing and other snow activities (i.e. tubing, cross country skiing, snow shoeing). In the end, we went on a hiking date near Nat’s parents house.

Here is where the “Man vs Wild”* begins. If you’ve seen this show, you know how crazy Bear is. Well, we’re no Bear, but it is probably the closest “survival in the wild” that Nat and I will ever get. Anyways, we started hiking on the trail we normally take, and then we decided to go a different direction**. It was a really nice hike through the forest and down through the wetlands. When we finished our hike, we ended up on a road that we hadn’t been on before in a neighborhood we hadn’t been in before. Nat had a general idea where we were, but he wasn’t sure exactly how to get back, so we walked until we hit a clearing. On the plus side, Nat knew where we were and how to get back; on the minus side, there was a long tall fence between where we were and the neighborhood we wanted to go to. I thought, “No biggie, we’ll just hop the fence”. It didn’t work out b/c I couldn’t pull myself up, and even if I did, Nat didn’t think I could get back down without hurting myself. Nat suggested we walk down towards the creek to see if we could cross there, so we did***. Luckily, there was space underneath the fence, so we were able to crawl through. Yay! We were so tired and cold at this point, we called**** home for someone to pick us up!

And that’s how we survived our hike!

* This is a show on the Discovery channel.
** Ironically, we decided to go on this different path b/c we thought it would be a shorter hike. It actually made our hike 30-45 minutes longer!
*** It took us some time b/c we were on the side of the wetlands where there were lots of bushes and not on the residential side (where we wanted to be).
**** Luckily, I reminded Nat to bring his cellphone, “just in case” anything were to happen.

I thought it would be fun to recount all that we’ve eaten since we’ve gotten all together for Thanksgiving.  Nat’s mom has been great at giving us a plentiful bounty!

Wednesday
Breakfast:  bacon, baked apple pancakes
Lunch:  carrot dumplings
Dinner:  antipasta skewers (appetizer), cheese fingers (appetizer), lasagna and salad (main course), apple pie (dessert)

Thursday
Breakfast:  bacon, chile rellenos casserole, fruit salad
Lunch:  lavosh with havarti, vegetables with vegetable dip, crackers with cheese dip
Dinner (it’s a big list):  turkey, gravy, dressing, sweet potato casserole, peas, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, rolls, pecan rolls, cranberry bread, pumpkin bread, jello salad, pumpkin bread pudding (dessert)

Friday (planned menu)
Breakfast:  sausage, blueberry pancakes
Lunch:  leftovers from the previous days (which we have A LOT of EVERYTHING!)
Dinner:  baked brie (appetizer), filet mignon, baked potatoes, pecan rolls, rolls, caesar salad, indian pudding (dessert)

I must start by saying that traveling with an infant is no cake walk. The flying, the layovers, and the car rides not only tired us out, but Sean as well. Despite the craziness, Sean did pretty well traveling to Denver! It took him two days to adjust after we arrived in Colorado–I think the altitude made the adjustment a little bit harder.

So far, we’ve spending time with the family–First Cousin Once Removed Brian, Great-Grandpa Bud, Grandpa Thompson. We’re looking forward to Grandma Thompson and Uncle Ethan joining us tonight. The next couple of days are going to be filled with lots of good food and great fun! It’ll be nice for me to have so many babysitters around. I just wish I could take them home with me!