Monday, October 20, 2008

Family Traditions and More Fall Fun

Every year over Columbus Day weekend, we travel with my parents and two sisters to Manchester, Vermont for a day trip. When I was a baby, the tradition was started when my parents sat me on a rickety wooden fence outside of the Jelly Mill, a huge gift shop and restaurant, and snapped my picture. I was about 18 or 19 months old. Now every single year since then, we have returned to the same wooden fence and taken pictures, starting with me, then with me and my sister Chelsea, and then with the two of us plus our youngest sister Ashley. In our younger days, we would also go apple-picking while in VT, so we have always referred to this day as our "apple-picking trip." We still call it that, although now a more appropriate name would be "shopping at the outlets and watching football in a bar trip." It has been so awesome continuing this tradition with my kids!

Here's Seamus on his first apple-picking trip...


And his second...
His third, and Grace's first...(could NOT get both children to look at the camera!)



And our most recent! (Kim, does Gigi's dress look familiar?) We are getting nervous because some of the fence is rotting away, so we didn't sit on it this year, we stood in front of it.


A couple family shots. Pay no attention to my hair, I attempted to trim my own bangs. Yeah, don't they teach you not to do that in like, kindergarten? Did I seriously think I was exempt from that rule??






I really wanted to scan in some of the old pics with my sisters and I, but I didn't feel it was fair to subject you to so much bad hair in one post. So I'll save that treat for another day :-)


Here's a cute video from this weekend, visiting our friends the Weissers! The kids had a blast playing in this giant pile of leaves. I feel so cool now with my video-upload skills.

11 comments:

Caden and Mommy said...

Emily!
What a fun weekend and a fun tradition! I love the pictures of the kids in previous years - adorable!
Trisha

Alex said...

It's such a great idea to take a picture of the kids at the same spot each year!! They are so cute!

Unknown said...

I love your video. The kids look like they had so much fun rolling in the leaves. What a beautiful place to visit every year!

Melisa

Destini said...

Could they be any cuter? No way! Great video and I love all the fence pictures! Seamus is too cute for words and Grace is a little princess! I also cut my bangs recently - I got mine too short too!

Greene Family said...

I love the fence pictures - adorable! That is so great and so much fun to carry on the tradition with your kids now! The video is really cute too . . . you can tell that they had a great time visiting friends and playing in the leaves!

Mandy said...

What a great family tradition.
It looks like you all were having a great time.

Tonya said...

I love seeing kid's play in leaves! Big leaf piles to have fun in! The photo's of the kid's by the fence are too cute! It never works out with all the kid's looking at the camera, it's a rule! And you hair does not look bad!

Melissa Swartley said...

What a great family tradition! Fantastic photos too! Looks like they had a blast with the leaves! You hair looks fine! You should have seen the mishap I had with dye last year...Magenta is not a hair color!

Kim said...

Emily-Although I have seen all these pics, getting to watch the transformation is so awesome. I love the dress on GiGi! SO CUTE! I remember sending my friend Mel the pic of Seamus in the green pants and never even noticed the arm holding him up-she was like who is holding him up? Duh-there is me thining-wow he is perching so great! (Definite blond moment there).
The leaf video is so adorable. I absolutely love the belly laughs coming from the kids. It is so innocent and adorable.

Jennifer said...

Your children are absolutely adorable. I love all your pictures and the video is great. Love the belly laughs.

Danielle said...

What a great tradition, and it's so beautiful up there!! Adorable kids as always!