November 2011

HD helps Doug drive through the mountains to go on our annual post-Thanksgiving Day hunting trip to find our special Christmas tree!

We're have enough hunting for today and are all ready to go home...being pulled around the woods in a sled in such rough work :-)

The Kavanaghs accompanied us on the outing and found a pretty sweet tree as well.

Here's Doug hauling our tree out of the woods, thank goodness it was DOWN-hill!

HD did such a great job helping us decorate the tree (we did suffer about four broken ornaments, thank goodness all of them were able to be superglued and were good as new!).

October 2011 - Part II

Visiting the corn maze at Rocky Creek Farms

HD picking out his pumpkin at the Rocky Creek Farms pumpkin patch

HD and his pumpkin :-)

We tried to get him to take a picture with the pumpkin but I don't think he really trusted it enough to take his eyes off it. I think he thought it was going to reach out and grab him!

HD and Jack ready for some trick or treating!

He became obsessed (and still is) with being a pirate after seeing the Veggies Tales movie "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything".  He loves to run around the house with nothing on except his underwear and his pirate hat and eye patch along with his sword stuck through the waist and out the leg of his underwear :-)

October 2011 - Part I

Master of the Strider!

Look Mom and Dad, no feet!

It took all summer long but he finally figured out his pedal-less bike and once he did we had to run just to stay up with him.

We'll see, he may be ready for an actual bike by the time he turns 3!

Our new little baby! Yes, that is our camper! We went in halvies with a some good friends of ours who also love the outdoors and were wanting to upgrade to a nicer camper. This thing has all the bells and whistles and even though we have only gotten to use it once this year we cannot wait until next summer so we can go camping all over the place.

HD and Kaitlin up by the falls near Hyalite Reservoir.

HD with dad's hat on faithfully carried his bug collector kit everywhere with him in his little backpack.

Hudson, Doug and Charlie walking around Hyalite Lake.

September 2011

Camping at Hyalite Reservoir with friends

Reid, Hudson, and Rachel

Hudson and Joy Taylor

Brynn - striking a pose in her camo fleece sleeper!

Hudson and Reid going on a bear hunt with their guns (sticks) at the ready :)

Mindy, Brynn, Reid, and Ryan relaxing after several bear hunts through the woods.

Getting warmed by the fire

August 2011

Hudson loved the boat this summer.
Even more so when it was in the garage than when we were floating down the river :)

Summer fun by the pool

HD and Jack

Hudson loved sliding down into his pool, eventually he wanted to take off the slide and just do cannonballs into the water! I don't know how that didn't hurt in only a few inches of water but he never seemed to mind.

He also LOVES bugs!

I think he was contemplating whether or not to let this little creature live to see another day, often they don't make it out alive.

This is possibly moments before saying goodbye to his new little friend, sorry, sad but true. But, he's a boy right, isn't that what they're supposed to do?

July 2011

Our little farmer...

Some of the first fruits from our garden - fresh green onions!

Hudson loved helping in the garden and he also loved eating veggies straight out of it. One morning he pushed aside his cereal and asked us if he could go to the garden and pick some carrots for breakfast! Both of us just stood at him dumbfounded for several seconds, then, of course, we were thrilled to let him go pick his veggies and chow down on them first thing in the morning. What could be better than that?!

I can't find my pictures of our full grown garden (which definitely got way bigger than what we had anticipated). Here you can see the beginnings of our onions, swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, zucchini, cucumber, and spinach. Unfortunately, our cauliflower never did well and we only got three cucumbers but the rest of the veggies were amazing!

This part of the garden had our tomatoes (in the blue walls of water), potatoes, green beans, peas, mixed greens, turnips, beets, and carrots. Mostly everything did pretty well except our green beans. The best part of the garden was just looking out our back door and the evening and deciding what we were going to have for dinner based upon what was ripe and needed to be eaten.