I'm Thankful for November

November has been a month of discovering new places and spending time as a family...what could be a better way to spend the month of "gratitude" then with the people I am the most grateful for?!?

Avery and I were able to cash in her birthday tickets to see "Alton Brown's LIVE" show in early November.  It was an interesting show.  Alton fancies himself a singer, and since Food Network doesn't really do singing, he has created a show to indulge...himself.  In addition to singing, he has some wacky food experiments involving making ice cream with a fire extinguisher, and pizza with a "Mega-Bake" which is basically an easy bake oven on STEROIDS!  It was good fun. Avery and I both giggled and oohed and ahhed over the spectacles.  However we unanimously agreed that his "gas humor" with farting and burping hand puppets was a little too over the top for our tastes.  It just didn't go with the whole food theme in my opinion.

We took advantage of an afternoon with really great weather, and visited the Chippewa Nature Center.  They have a great visitors center with a museum and hands-on-stuff for the kids.  They have numerous trails to hike, we chose the River trail which meanders along the Chippewa river.  We stopped off at a Homestead from the 1800's that still has a functioning animal farm and garden.  It was really cool, we found a spot to sit down and spent some time there having Parker's picnic she packed for herself...it was lots of fun WATCHING her eat all of the food.  Haha!  There was a momma cow and calf there having a feeding that was pretty hilarious.  The baby was obviously really big to be a baby anymore, and it was pretty obvious that the momma really just wanted to be left alone.  The baby would persist, and the momma would MOOOOO really loud and push it away, then the cycle would continue.  She had her eye on us in the funniest way...I couldn't tell if she was like, "do you see the pain I'm going through?!?" or "could you give us a little privacy please?!?"  One thing's for sure, we all got a good laugh out of it. 

 

One of the perks of living in Michigan is hands-down the beautiful fall colors.  It's just breathtaking, and just really symbolizes "home" for me.  The trouble with all of this lovliness is that eventually you have to rake it up.  We have a beautiful big red tree in our backyard that lasted for literally a week.  By the end of it, our backyard was covered.  This is how we spent one of our weekends, it took 2 days.  And yes, we were super sore for days afterwards.  Aye yi yi.

Another weekend, we decided to venture down to Frankenmuth.  I had been wanting to go since October...really wanted to do some of the Oktober fest activities, but alas our October was way too busy.  So we settled for before Fall was over...I'm glad we did because it is all set up for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and everything was just really festive.  I loved it!  It put me in the mood for the FEAST, as well as setting up the Christmas tree!!

 The covered bridge...I don't think Parker's a fan.  Look at that face!

Maryn and Parker were in LOVE with the MLP tree...I think they are thinking this is what we should do with the tree this year...mmmm, not gonna happen.

 Of course, we had the famous Zehnder's chicken...it was a lunch buffet when we got there, and we were seriously in PAIN by the time we left!!  Sooooo good!!

We had fun wandering around the shops at the Bavarian Inn.  I love the toy stores and the bakery down there!!

 Did you know it was built in 2000, year of my firstborn's birth?!?  ;)

 I love this pic...it just captures their personalities so well, doesn't it? 

 No trip to Frankenmuth would be complete without one of these pics!

This is serious fudge.  It is equal in importance and awesomeness to the Zehnder's chicken, don't you think?!?  We got the peanut butter, the classic milk chocolate, and mint chocolate this year...we still have a little...you have to make it last!!

 A trip to Bronner's got us all thinking "CHRISTMAS!!"

Enjoy your holiday season, everyone!!