Living Life and Loving It: Hiking

Showing posts with label Hiking. Show all posts

November 7, 2014

Halloween 2014

Halloween was quite lovely this year. Some of the fall leaves are still hanging on and the weather was pretty good, until a few houses into trick-or-treating when it started to rain. Which was fine, since the kids really didn't need to go to more than a dozen homes to beg for free candy.

These first few photos are a walk we took the day before Halloween. I wanted to go on a drive through the hills just north of us to enjoy some of the last of the beautiful fall colors and I dragged Brian away from work to join Simon and me. The road we were on wove in and out, past the estates along the Bedford, NY and Greenwich, CT border. We happened to find the Greenwich Audubon Society, which isn't very far from our home and is a gem in our own backyard.

When we set out on our drive we weren't planning on going on a hike, but when life shows you a beautiful trail on a beautiful day, you have to go exploring.

A cemetery in Greenwich.

Jack-o-Lanterns

Halloween

Ready for school.

Kindergarteners do a little parade and sing along on Halloween.
This is the moment when Oliver spotted us in the crowd of parents.

My little Halloween getup.

Trick-or-Treating

with about 20 cousins in Connecticut...

It was a little crazy.

Isabella as a "fashion vampire".

Oliver as a pirate.

Simon as a dragon.
This photo was taken after the 4th house.
He was ready to munch on candy not chase after more!

October 30, 2014

Time Flies

It is really, really incredible how quickly time flies. I've been glancing at photos of just a couple of years ago and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the enormous changes that have happened to my kids. They are growing up so very quickly. I am so glad I take as many photos as I do because those memories, those moments in time are frozen for the brief second and I can revisit it and love that moment all over again. I hold those moments in my heart. They are so precious perhaps because they are so fleeting.

I spend a good portion of documenting our bits and pieces of daily life on instagram. But I'm hoping to do a better job of chronicling a bit more of the details here again. I miss the greater depth blogging can add to a story.

Here's a bit of a look at October this year. Halloween is tomorrow, so perhaps it will deserve it's own post.

Autumn in Connecticut

Celebrating Isabella's 8th birthday at Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Grandma came to celebrate Isabella's birthday and baptism

Celebrating at home

Brett, Alex, Kate & Annabell came to visit too

Isabella's Baptism Day

Bear Mountain

Wrestling on top of the mountain

Ramen at Ippudo

A different, but glorious day in the city.

July 31, 2013

July...in a nutshell!

Can you believe it?! I can't! Two posts in one week! I'm on a roll. July was a big, busy month. I had to narrow down the photos from 1500 photos (yes, that's right) to the "few" below. So, there are a lot of photos below...Enjoy!

Back in Manhattan

I love my morning runs. Especially in the summer.

Isabella's drawing of her neighborhood.

Fourth of July on the Hudson River

Watching fireworks.

We walked all the way home from the fireworks show--W 23rd St to W 76th St (plus a few avenues). It was a long haul for the little ones late at night, but this lovely break by the Lincoln Center fountains made it all worth it.

Requisite NYC playground fountain play on a hot day in the Lower East Side.

Brian and I did the midnight bike tour through Central Park. It was crazy and awesome.

Back in Connecticut

Harkness State Park

Upstate New York

Our big adventure in July was going to the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, NY with extended family. After the Pageant our little family continued touring around Upstate New York and explored the amazing gorges, Rochester, and the Finger Lakes.

Some friends from church were in the Pageant and saved us super amazing seats. The kids were captivated the whole time and talked about it for days afterward.

We visited the E.B. Grandin building in Palmyra where we learned more about the first publication of the Book of Mormon. It was fascinating.

The Sacred Grove: the forest behind Joseph Smith's boyhood home where he prayed to know which church to join and saw a vision where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Years later he translated the Book of Mormon and restored the Church of Jesus Christ.

At the Smith farm.

All the Carini's that joined us for our Palmyra adventure.

At the National Museum of Play in Rochester. If you ask the kids what their favorite part of all our adventures was...they will most likely reply, "The Museum of Play!!!" We hope to go back soon. We went two days and didn't make it through the entire museum.

Simon obviously pretty hotel savvy after months of travel...not that we ever talk on a corded phone anymore?!

George Eastman house--the guy that started Kodak.

Watkins Glen State Park

This state park in the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate NY was absolutely amazing! One of the most beautiful places. It was excruciatingly hot the week we were there. Not only was it 100 degrees, but the gorge held in the humidity and no breeze blew. I felt as if we were transported to another continent; perhaps we journeyed to the Amazon. It was "other-worldly". And one of my favorite stops in all our adventures.

This is up in the farmlands of the Finger Lakes. It was amazingly beautiful. Quintessential farm houses, barns and rolling hills. I always dreamed of living in rural Vermont...but I do believe Upstate New York surpassed Vermont in beauty and charm (at least in my book).

Another day we went to Treman State Park to see Lucifer Falls, located in another gorge in the Finger Lakes Region.