Vacation Pictures

We are back home from our trip to New York, as much as we love our family I can honestly say THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME! :o) We've been playing catch up with the laundry and in the garden...thus there has been no time for blogging.

OK, now to bore you with some vacation/family pictures:

As I posted last week, both of our families are in upstate New York so we spend most of our time running back and forth to see everyone. This picture is how most mornings were spent as everyone likes to gather on the porch with Grandpa (Jeff's dad). Grandma (Jeff's mom) has lots of flowers hanging in baskets and you can look out over the corn fields and watch for deer and turkeys...Grandpa's favorite past time! This is an old farm house that has been in the family for ???? years. Jeff and Emma helped Grandpa in his garden a lot and did a couple other home maintenance things for him, he has lost almost half of his foot over the past two years and has suffered from MERCA (staff infection). Jeff does such a wonderful job of honoring his parents.

Over at my grandmother's farm we got to help with getting the hay in, and the girls planted some flowers for their Great Grandma, affectionately known as GG! :o)

My uncle that lives next door rescued a pigeon that fell from the barn last year,
it was very small.

Well this crazy bird LOVES people.

She will follow you around and you have to be careful because she'll land on your head. She'll even fly into the house if you're not quick enough to out run him and close the door.

We weren't thrilled about him sitting on our heads, but it was kind of funny!
I wish I'd gotten a picture of Olivia going from the house to the car with an umbrella because she didn't want the bird to land on her at first.
Like Jeff, his brother Lynne is a Vol. Fireman. The department host Field Days each summer to help raise funds, it's kind of like a mini-fair, with a parade and fireworks. Lynne's family helps with concessions. Olivia, Cousin Katrina and Emma.

Olivia and her cousin Amanda.

We went bowling with Jeff's brothers and their families.

Jeff's nephew has CP, he is 17.
They have a ramp thingy so he can roll the ball down which is pretty cool!

Emma is a natural...just like her DAD!

Olivia did well too!

The girl's cousins (one is not pictured here) are the same age as they are
and their personalities are similar, so needless to say they giggle non-stop!

And of course ...

going to ride the go-carts is a tradition we have.

One thing about my husband...whether it be foozeball (sp?), golf, bowling, horseshoes, baseball, and especially pool, he will win! He is by no means competitive, he is not into sports at all, but he is naturally good at these things, even though he rarely plays any of them. Which is WHY I hate to bowl or anything else, what's the use if you are NEVER going to win? To top all that, he NEVER brags about winning. Now if I were to win you'd hear about it for years! ;o)

We had a graduation party for Olivia over at Jeff's parent's house. It went really well with about 80 people there, the weather was perfect and we had a good time. I'll post more about that later.


This year was our family reunion (my side), the first one in a long time. I guess it has been 20 years since I've been to one. Anyway, some of my cousins (and their families), an aunt and uncle and my mother came from out of state also and stayed at my grandmothers, she has a BIG, old, farm house.

The family reunion was on our last day there. Some people I knew, most I did not, but that is OK we've got to start somewhere. It was good to see my cousins! We had 85-90 in attendance, which I think is pretty good.

My grandmother (the beautiful one in red, we tell her she looks like Queen Elizabeth) is one of 6 siblings, her other sister died from cancer about 35 years ago. They are now all widowed. Anyway, they are a vibrant bunch. They all have their senses about them and some still drive and stay very active.

I thought since a lot of us would not know each other that each sibling's family should dress in one color to help us sort who belongs to who. The Conover Clan (my grandma's family) dressed in red.

We held an auction to help raise funds for next year's reunion. Jeff and my cousin-in-law were the auctioneers, this is another thing Jeff is a natural at...he can sell anything to anyone! lol... That was fun! This is a quilt I donated.

Here is Olivia and another relative outbidding each other over a hanging plant. It was pretty funny!

Olivia helped with signing in and and Emma got everyone registered for the door prizes. We've got lots of ideas for the next reunion! I just wish it wasn't SO FAR to drive!