The Best Of PA

Thanksgiving parade in Lansdale.  The kiddos got lots of candy. The older I get, the more I love Thanksgiving.  I love learning about our American history fromVirginia to Massachusets.  I love counting the things and people in my life that I am grateful for: I am blessed to have wonderful parents whom I live so close to, who are always there for me, whom I trust forever, who I consider to be friends and examples.  In preschool we have beein learning about the thanksgiving story through books and crafts.  Here are their pilgrim hats. I am blessed to be in a country where we are free, can vote for our president and have our freedom of speech. I am blessed to have so many relatives close by to get together watch parades, share delicious food,  catch up, take walks and play pinochle-even though I'm still not quite sure how to play it.  Cousins hanging out. I am blessed to have an adorable family, a ...

The Cooper family just had the best day!!  To save on cash and time we decided to combine the girls birthday parties this year, and to only invite family.  The first day of Fall was very fitting, considering what activities we participated in.  There was of course the usual: Eating, where we enjoyed some chilli cheese dogs, chips, fruit veggies, beer bread..okay seltzer water bread for our family, cupcakes and pumpkin dump cake.  The guys as always played ping pong and lawn darts. And the kids did this: 1) Hayride in our neighbors back yard.  Thank you Kunsmans for allowing us to use your land and wagon! 2) Pumpkin painting/decorating Elly's work of art 3) Face Painting   What a superific day and you could not beat the breezy beautiful weather!  

Our Thankful Turkey is Complete! Tomorrow we feast and express out gratitude to family! It's been a lot of fun watching our "grateful" work of art take form. Excited to continue this tradition for years to come! Funny side notes: I think Elly's most popular thing she mentioned she was grateful for was hot cocoa. Those days we wrote down more than one thing we were grateful for.

I'm lucky, my parents and in laws both live in the country, so whenever we visit one of them I try to take in the countryside, either in the form of walking their property or taking the road. And when the fall arrives I get giddy with excitement to traipse about and enjoy the view of peppered colors. Today, on this cool gray day, I got out there and walked the country roads. Cloudy days are perfect for Autumn walks, because it makes the splashing color even more vivid. I love wondering what each new bend will greet me with and I am always satisfied with what I get. The aroma of sweet burning wood filled the air. I witnessed and heard a constant crunching of leaves from scavenging squirrels and deer, crows cased, birds chirped and yet amongst all that, a calming quiet, as if the earth was settling for winter. Oh I love the fall! I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the scenery at it's peak, because before you know it, the trees will be bare and snow will blanket th...

Oh the heat!  It was stuffy and dry-yuck, where is my October weather?? It takes many pictures to get us all looking at the camera Elly striking a pose on the Carousel So the girls and I met my mom at Seiple farms. It felt more like a summer day in this eighty some degree weather, but still enjoyed ourselves. Nonna Ramsden with Brinley Yes more pictures of us A free hayride to the pumpkin patch was fun, but the hunt for the perfect pumpkin was absolutely challenging. Thanks to all this rain there was some major rotting to just about every pumpkin in sight. Entrance to the hay bale maze- which is free, oh how I love FREE!! Looking over top of the hay bale maze How's about one more pic...really Look at the Lovely pose! ;-) Thankfully we finally found one!

 By the train tracks and bike trails A B&B that I would love to visit with Danny someday  Tucked away in Pennsylvania's northeastern "Blue" mountains sits the quaint town of Jim Thorpe. Here resides an uphill village of twisting roads, restaurants, shops, a courthouse, old prison, opera house, old fashioned fire house and a couple mansions. Below, at the base of the town stands the amiable train station. My family and I were lucky enough to spend the whole day here with friends. As if it's charms weren't enough, we visited during the Fall Foliage Festival, when live music,vendors, and horse drawn carriages dapple the scenery. Our favorite part of the day was riding the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway. The tree speckled mountains towered above us while the flowing Lehigh river cut the path for us to follow. The trees even spoiled us with their turn of brilliant golds and amber. And the conductors looked sharp in their crisp black and whi...

Anyone who knows me, knows my favorite season is Autumn. The crisp chill in the air, wearing sweaters, hayrides, picking pumpkins, drinking cider, enjoying the ever-changing scenery of brilliant colored leaves gets me giddy with excitement. And I try to do it all, corn mazes, camping, scarecrow building, haunted houses, trick or treating with the kids, making applesauce and now add to to the list caramel apple making. My first semi successful attempt has me yearning to do better, sooner and with more ease. So maybe my caramel didn't stick as well and maybe most of the chocolate ran off in big splotchy puddles. These are lessons to be learned and improved upon. For example, next time I'm pouring the chocolate on frozen, but dried apples, then rushing it into the freezer for five minutes before attempting to douse it in hot sticky caramel. The first caramel apple I did was sloshed in caramel, then dredged in chocolate. Yeah, that didn't work, the chocolate slurped ...

It was a beautiful day to check out Peddlers Village and enjoy the Scarecrow Festival. The air was crisp enough for sweaters and the sun buttery enough to keep us warm. My friend Julie and I took the kids to enjoy the many unique scarecrows, as we window shopped along the tree lined streets. It felt like fall! And I love the fall! Even some of the leaves are beginning to turn yellow. We enjoyed a warm lunch on the patio of Sweet Lorraine's Cafe, where I sampled some delicious butternut squash soup, a club sandwich, french fries and chicken fingers with my girls. We then headed out to one of the two candy stores in Peddlers Village for homemade peanut butter cups and goodies. Mmmm Mmmm. My daughters enjoyed "free" balloons shaped into heart wrist bracelets, while Mommy listened to the live band. When it came time to head back to where we started, we ended up Giggleberry fair, where we all enjoyed a "free" carousel ride. To ...