Heading Home for Thanksgiving!

We are getting ready to head home to Minnesota in one week!!  We haven't been home in 4 months and to say we are excited would be a giant understatement.  I am most excited to drive thru a Caribou Coffee first thing Saturday morning...followed closely by getting to see our family and friends!  We are flying in next Friday and staying until the following Sunday, so we will be able to get a fun filled week in!  We can't wait to get back to our house in Minnesota and Kaylee is most excited to see Remy!  She asks to see him every time we FaceTime with my parents.  The boys can't wait to meet up with their friends!  Charlie and Jack have a countdown going and when it hit single digits this week they were both ecstatic. 

A few days after I wrote the last blog we headed to Las Vegas to meet up with some of friends.  We were so excited to see them again and had a great time!  The girls even got to go to Britney Spears one of the nights which was pretty amazing.  We really miss our neighbors and community back in Eagan, but we are so glad that even if we are states away we could all get together like no time had passed.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas

We had a great Halloween weekend and night this year!  We even got to see uncle Joe!  He was in the Boston area for a Patriots game and so we met him for dinner in a town between his hotel and our home.  It was great to see him!  For Halloween the kids dressed up as a Lego Ninjago (Charlie), Jack Sparrow (Jack), and a League of Their Own Star by day and a puffy Unicorn by night (Kaylee).  The moms club that I am in puts on a Halloween Stroll in town and the people that volunteer to run are amazing.  It is quite the event and I think I read that over 5,000 people came this year.  The kids get to trick or treat through West Hartford Center and Blue Back Square and also they have other little activities set up for them.  On Halloween night we went trick or treating with one of Charlie's friends from school.  They had a lot of fun and were already asking the next day how long until Halloween again!   We have also been hitting up a lot of the fall activities in the area.  I get to take Jack and Kaylee during the week and have had some fun visiting different farms and orchards.  We were able to get in one on a weekend so Dad and Charlie could join!  

Halloween

Halloween Stroll

Halloween Stroll

Belltown Orchard Hayride

Belltown Orchard

One day a few weeks ago when we were walking Charlie to school we were walking by our neighbors house (across the street) and we saw a large black bear just lounging under a tree.  I pretty much lost my mind, thankfully the big guy never moved and we just quietly made our way by him and on our way.  One of the first weeks that I was here while out with some people I had been told about all the bear sighting around town and would also see posts on the local Facebook page about sighting near us, but to actually see one with your kids was pretty crazy!  The picture below was all I could get, but he is laying under the tree.  By the time we came by again he was gone so I couldn't get a better one. 

Bear!

Charlie continues to love school and is keeping busy with quite a few activities outside of class.  Hockey is definitely the biggest time commitment for us.  He is now at an age level where he actually gets to play real games with refs, which according to Charlie is a big deal!  In his first game Charlie scored 3 goals!  He was pretty excited and even more excited than Charlie was his dad!  Alan even started uploading all his videos of C on YouTube!  They have a lot of fun going to hockey all weekend together.  Last weekend Charlie had his second game and scored 4 of his teams 6 goals.  Other than hockey Charlie is also going to classes at church getting ready for his First Holy Eucharist next year when he is in second grade.  Charlie is having fun with Cub Scouts and has been enjoying the activities he gets to do with his pack including a hike to Heublein Tower.  He has an overnight at a museum coming up and it happens to be when Alan and I are out of town.  So Grandpa Elder is the lucky guy that gets to take him!  Last week we also started basketball!  He has a couple of friends from his class on his team.  It's just a Saturday morning practice and then a 30 minute game at the end.  He even scored a basket in the game.  Charlie is really adjusting well and making some great friends.  We have conferences next week and are excited to go visit his classroom and chat with his teacher.  Oh, we also got Charlie's 1st grade pictures back!  We love them, but seriously why does my baby look like a 10 year old?

First Grade!  

Hockey Man

Heublein Tower

First Basketball Game

Jack is also keeping busy and enjoying preschool.  He has made a good little group of friends in his class.  One of his friends has a brother that plays hockey with Charlie, so Jack and his friend get to play together while the big brothers play hockey.  Jack also started basketball last weekend and he is on a team of 3 and 4 year olds.  This might be the cutest thing ever.  Watching the little girls and boys dribbling and putting their hands up to play defense is so cute. And the parents that are willing to coach these little kids at this age...I mean they are amazing.  It was really fun to watch them.  Jack was pretty excited to have us all on the sidelines cheering him on.  Jack is also doing a class at the library once a week and really enjoys it. 

Flamig Farm

Baksetball

Kaylee is our little trooper and is just happy to tag along to all of her brothers' activities.  West Hartford has the cute little place called, My Gym, where kids can take age based classes.  Kaylee does a little class on Friday mornings and is absolutely loving it!  She tries to tell Alan about it when he gets home and asks to watch videos of her doing the gym activities when we get home.  Her favorites are the swings and the ball pit.  We also do a little class with her at the library.  I know I have mentioned it before, but West Hartford has so many great options for things to do with kids.  We are trying to take full advantage of what they offer.

Ball Pit @ My Gym

My Gym

Flamig Farm

Our where to call home dilemma is still very much that...a dilemma.  We have continued to house hunt and have even found a house that we really like here in West Hartford.  Charlie would also get to keep going to his same school.  We obviously aren't ready to take any steps at this point.  Our MN realtor is coming over while we are home over Thanksgiving to talk through our plan if we do decide to put the house on the market late winter/early spring.  We continue have regular check-ins with each other and the kids, and honestly depending on the day and sometimes even the hour our vote on where to live changes.  Although Jack doesn't sway his vote, EVER.  It is always Minnesota.  :)  While Alan still hasn't traveled over night more than 2 nights in the 4 months we have been here, he is slowly starting to end up in NYC more often than we initially thought.  So he is missing evenings with the kids now, but is usually home to put them to bed.  So the work life balance is much better, but some days/weeks can still be a struggle.  We are really looking forward to being home a couple of times in the next two months and hopefully helping us gain some more perspective on our next step.  We know that we can't make a bad choice, but making the best choice is is a little harder than we would have thought.

As we settle more and more into a routine I am feeling like this blog is starting to get a little repetitious!  I am going to work on that, but with hockey season upon us it is harder to do much exploring and traveling.  As always, thank you for reading the blog!

See some of you in one week!!!  YAY!!!

XOXO