Our fall visitors

John went to Malaysia in September so my mom came out to keep me company. Poor Mom--I talked her into bringing her sewing machine and then I kept her busy with projects. We made living room curtains, reupholstered my cedar chest and desk chair, made a cushion for the piano bench, and a bed skirt. We also found a pattern for a cute Halloween costume for Brooklynn (which Mom finished making after she left). Not much of a vacation I guess. She was great company though and my house was always spotless while she was here. Brooklynn loved blowing raspberries and singing with her Grandma and was more than happy to celebrate her birthday early by opening Grandma's presents. Just a short week after Mom left, John's sister Betsy came to visit. How we have missed Betsy since we moved from New York! Betsy is so easy going and fun to be around and it was neat to see that Brooklynn remembered her old "roommate" (fortunately, our place here is big enough so that Betsy got her one room). We had been talking about making this reunion an annual event, although I'm worried that since we made her watch all six hours of Pride & Prejudice she might not dare come back. While Betsy was here we did a lot of the things that we did while we were in New York--we played Settlers of Catan (Betsy-1, Emily-1, John-0), ate, listened to music, and watched tv! Of course, I also took advantage of having my own personal style guru around and made Betsy go shopping with me. Betsy, why again won't you move here? Just a few weeks later, John and I made a spur of the moment decision to go on vacation so Mom came out again to take care of Brooklynn and the animals while we were off cruising around. Luckily, Dad was even able to come out for a few days. John and I missed Brooklynn horribly while we were gone but we didn't worry about her at all--we knew she was being well taken care of and loved.

Dad, Brookly, and me