How do you like the new banner? That's what a half hour of boredom gets you, well me, I have no idea what it will get you, but find some boredom and let me know! Anyhoo, we have found the ho, ho, ho in holiday...nevermind, we are all jolly around here now.
Of course, it helps when family come into town to help you celebrate (hi Grammy!).
We were able to attend the Holiday Party at the CGA again. This is always a mixture of fun and anxiety, because you never know how the session with Santa is going to go. It was like Disneyworld all over again.
We were able to get our Christmas cards done and out in a timely manner, this is a goal I strive for every year. It's the little things.
And we are looking forward to the best Christmas present of all, we close on our house tomorrow (after a delay). We even marked the celebration by buying, painting and installing new gable vents for the new owner, Merry Christmas! 
But watching Seal Pup 1.0 perform in the mini-Christmas concert at church is always fun, too.
There are, of course more pictures in flickr; but, should you want that mosaic of Christmas card photos that weren't, here you go!
We spent the weekend moving and settling, but mostly moving. 
If we are being honest here, and I am, the whole process of moving has lost its charm. It's three weeks to Christmas; and, quite frankly, I would rather be doing other things.
But needs must. With the help of friends, we were able to clear out pretty much everything this weekend and now we are left with only the basement (which we have artfully avoided since Halloween). We only have a week left before the house goes to its new owner (hip, hip, hooray!) so we should probably tackle that soon. Soonish...now."
...It's your birthday.
He is feeling, decidedly, mature; as two year olds do, I suppose. 
Since we are in the middle of a move, we opted to do a small party at home with just the family (and I feel obligated to use the word "party" only because there were balloons). This laid back celebration was probably for the best for all parties (pun intended) concerned. There was a party at school though, and we rocked that like competitors for Parents of the Year, so you know, small victories.
Had we known that we would be in the middle of a move during the holiday season, we would not have planned to go away for Thanksgiving, but we also wouldn't have had as much fun.
We headed down to Orlando, Florida for Thanksgiving week. We stopped to visit with family on our way down.
We decided to just kick off Seal Pup 2.0's birthday celebration a little early.
It was a good time...
We have found that fall is a good time to go hiking in New England. We recently hiked Lantern Hill in Ledyard, Connecticut. It's fun and everything, but pretending to be a pack mule does make for a difficult ascent. 
I figured that catching up on things we did last month, like Coast Guard Aviation Day would be much more exciting than me talking about moving boxes from one place to another (we are moving, still).
CG Aviation Day involved bringing in an example of each type of Coast Guard aircraft for the 3rd and 4th class (freshman and sophmores) cadets to take a look at. One of the perks to being a member of the Coast Guard is that you can widgeon your family into things like this as well. 
I never really cared for Halloween before, to be honest. Quite frankly, it seemed like a lot of work for minimal reward--if I want candy, I can just go to the store and buy it. I am sure this quirk was fostered by my own parents who were nervous about me traipsing about in our own neighborhood at night for candy, sometimes from strangers...I mean really, people, the whole trick or treating business is a perfect risk assessment scenario...but I digress. This is the first year that I really got into Halloween. I didn't dress up at all, 
In order to fix the "no costume situation", I stayed up into the wee hours of the day of the Halloween parade and prepped robot gear. That is how Anderdroid 1.0 and Dashbot 1.0 were born.
You won't see many photos of Pup 2.0 in the bot-box though, he was all about the box before it was shiny and colorful, afterwards, you know, after I spent 2 hours making the costume, he was less enamored.
We did go to Rhinebeck, New York for a wool and sheep festival two weekends ago. And we had a great time.
The weekend was less about sheep and more about having fun and seeing old (and new friends). 
The pups found rides.
And Papa entertained the kids at a knitter's meet-up.
And yes, we saw sheep.
Last weekend we engaged in one of our favorite family fall traditions: apple picking. This year, as in years past, we wandered over the 
We measured ourselves to see how tall we've gotten.
As exciting as the apples are, prepare yourselves, next week: sheep. Get excited!
