Happy Halloween!

We started our Halloween celebration by feeding the chickens pumpkin goops for breakfast.

 

Qate went to school as a boy.

 

I made two big pizzas before everyone went out trick or treating. My way of trying to get some reasonably healthy food in them before the candy craziness hits.

 

Sylvia was a crazy doctor.

 

Erik The Maroon.

 

Ready to go out!

 

Meanwhile Jane is roasting pumpkin seeds.

 

End of the night, all tired and candied out...

 

Four Letter Word, Starts with S...

I was not amused.

 

I think the rules say it can't snow before Halloween!

 

The chickens asked whether maybe they could come into the house. Poor dears! No, I didn't let them in.

 

Oma and Grandkids

One of the last days that oma was here we went out for yet another hike.

 

Glorious day, sunny weather, still some colorful foliage.

 

It was perfect, even if bittersweet knowing that oma would go back to the Netherlands soon.

 

But we saw that as a good reason to enjoy this hike even more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Granite Quarries

 

We took oma to the granite quarries in Barre, Vermont. It was quite impressive!

 

The picture doesn't do justice to the sheer hugeness of it all. We had a very nice viewing platform here and a knowledgeable guide.

 

It was pretty cold up there though, so I was glad when we could get into our cars again.

 

Afterwards we visited the Hope Cemetery, in which all the monuments are made out of granite. Quite impressive!

 

I had been there before while geocaching, but it was a totally new experience for oma.

 

 

Vietnam Memorial

One of our rest areas has a beautiful Vietnam Memorial. I always try to stop and meditate for a bit.

 

In addition to the memorial, it has 'green toilets' with the water recycled throughout a series of tanks and with the help of tropical plants and bacteria.

 

The nice thing about that is that there always is a piece of tropics in Vermont, even when there is snow and ice outdoors.

 

 

Here is the memorial itself. Very sobering to know how many soldiers gave their lives in that war :(

 

 

Hiking with a Friend

This time we invited our friend to go hiking with us. I hadn't been to this trail system for a while, and I knew it had suffered damage in a violent rain storm we had a few months ago. But I hoped it would be fixed by now. It would have been a lovely and easy hike.

 

Only it wasn't fixed, so we couldn't hike as much as we wanted. Who cares, we just enjoyed soaking up the sun and sitting and chatting for a while.

 

We decided since we couldn't easily do the trails, we would hike up the ski slope for a bit. Beautiful views over our town.

 

Although the hike ended up being different from what we expected, we cherished every single moment of it.

 

Rummikub

While I grew up, my family loved to play Rummikub, a game with numbers. A few days ago I suddenly realized that oma would enjoy playing it with her grandkids and that it would be a great memory for the kids too.

 

Serendipitously when I picked up Dawn from her job, guess what was there? Yup, a Rummikub game. Perfect.

 

So the last few nights we have been playing Rummikub. We have tried all kinds of new rules but oma is not very flexible. She clearly doesn't know Calvin ball! "Can '2,4,6' count as a sequence?" Oma "No!!!" "Oh, too bad. So no even numbers. That means '3,5,7" should be fine since it's odd, right?" Oma "No!!!"

 

See! No flexibility at all?! ^^ Word of warning: If you play Rummikub with OCD kids then there will be lots of time spent putting the tiles Just Right and lots of eye rolling from the non-OCD participants.

Yet Another Hike

We have hiked almost every day this week. We were blessed with like the best weather EVER for October. Did I mention it was raining in The Netherlands?

 

This hike goes up up up and up for a while but then at the top one gets a nice lake to relax.

 

Or to swim if you are a black dog.

 

It was a perfectly sized hike for a perfect day.

 

Did I mention how much we enjoy having my mom here? Very blessed that she was able to make this trip!

 

It always surprises me to see fire hydrants in the middle of the woods.