Santa...

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we traveled back to my hometown for a quick overnight trip to see  some of my family (unfortunately with a short visit, we couldn't meet up with everyone) and celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday.  This is never a stress-free time as lots of precautions need to be taken with the farm to ensure smooth running, safety, and care of the animals (and the caretaker).  Luckily, we have Cindy!  Everyone should have a "Cindy"...sorry, ours is taken!  :)  Dave's cousin Cindy is really our life-saver in every aspect of our farm and lives.  She is always there to support us and takes over when we need to leave town.  Leaving town does not happen often or for very long periods of time (which I am sure Cindy is very grateful for), but it always occurs with some kind of issue prior to departing.  This time, while going for a run to release some energy ten minutes before our leave time, the dogs caught some kind of scent, or found some animal, and ran off for a bit into the woods before returning.  They came back completely covered in mud!  Whatever mud we couldn't get clean off of them dried and fell off while we were gone (piles of dirt covered our floor).  But that of course put us back time-wise which can be an issue when driving to the Philadelphia area around dinner time on a Friday evening.  Overall, all went well and it was a great time.  David and Ethan got to play with their cousins that they haven't seen in a year and mommy and daddy even got to go on a dinner date!

We did also visit Santa so we could tell him what we wanted for Christmas.  David of course was very excited to tell him about his 2 requests (seriously, the child never asks for anything, I have to pry it out of him...one of the benefits of no television), but Ethan was okay until Santa tried to talk to him.  So you can see below the picture on the left shows where life is alright on Santa.  He was a little confused with what we were doing, but all is well.  Then it started to fall apart upon looking up at the bearded man, and then it was all over when Santa greeted him and asked him what he wanted for Christmas (see picture at the top of our webpages).  Of course I ensured that I got one picture with tears, for his future wife to see!