Mom & Christine's Visit

***I've been really behind the last few months with my journal, something about moving into this house and I just can't seem to find time to get onto the computer. The house and the kids take up too much of my time. Here goes, trying to catch up!***

Mom and Christine came to visit at the beginning of October. I warned them that I was going to put them to work in the yard because I needed their expertise in labeling and designing my front yard. It is all SO overgrown you just couldn't see what was what. We spent one full day outside planting bulbs and then another two partial days raking, pulling up flowers, trimming bushes, piling up pine needles, etc. It was such a big job! I'm so grateful for their help, now I can actually see the FOUR tiers in the front and all the beautiful rock! I'm anxious to see what it looks like in the spring.

We also went shopping to the local toy store to get a jump start on Christmas shopping and we had a few girl afternoons looking into some antique shops. One morning we went to the Finch Arboretum (I've never been before) which has a huge variety of trees and rocks. The unfortunate thing is that it is literally sandwiched right between the interstate and Sunset Highway. So the traffic noise is pretty darn loud but it was so pretty and the kids had a great time exploring. We ended that afternoon with a fun picnic there.

We had to go to Walter's farm to pick pumpkins and apples, play in the pea pit and huge slide, and devour some mini pumpkin donuts. Yum! This is probably Christine's last visit here for a while as Zander will start school next year so I'm very glad she made the long drive up to visit us!