Our weeks ~ September 23 & 30 and October 7

During these weeks, we made a trip north to visit family and attend a family wedding.  My picture-taking wasn't so great, but the trip itself was wonderful!  We shared lots of laughs and adventures and have lots of happy memories of our time together.

On our way to NY, we stopped in NC to visit Bruce's parents and his aunt, who was visiting (and I forgot to take a picture), then we stopped in Maryland to visit Bruce's sister and her family.  The cousins love each other to pieces and they did a great job squeezing as much togetherness into our day as they could!

On our way from MD to NY, we did a quick stop in Gettysburg to introduce the kids to that history-rich area.  We did a speed-tour of some of the battlefields and stopped for a quick look in the cemetery to see where President Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address.  We plan to visit again for a longer tour.

Next stop, NY!  In between playing games with my grandma :), we went on some adventures.  Here are some highlights of our trip...

Salmon River Fish Hatchery

The salmon are running in NY at this time of the year, so we got to watch them fighting their way up the stream and then making their way up the fish ladder to the holding tanks.

This picture doesn't do justice to the size of the fish...most of them were around three feet long.

After a picnic lunch, we headed to Salmon River Falls.  It was gorgeous!

(This is the only picture from the whole trip with us and my grandparents smiling for the camera. Grrr!)

Next we headed to Pulaski, NY to watch the fishermen hauling in salmon from the Salmon River.

Last stop of the day was Oswego, NY, where we ate incredible, every-bit-as-good-as-I-remembered haddock sandwiches for dinner at Rudy's, on Lake Ontario.  The kids (and Bruce!) enjoyed skipping rocks on the lake.

Later in the week, we went to Abbott's Farm, where we watched cider being made, fed animals, and played in the corn maze.

We enjoyed time with extended family...

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...ate local favorites...

...and watched out the window until we saw a big barge headed up the Oswego River, then raced into Phoenix to watch the drawbridge go up and the barge go through the locks (with only about six inches of clearance on each side -- very impressive!).

We ended the week with a Minota family wedding...

...and then headed home, through the beautiful fall colors of southern New York.  It was a wonderful week; it was even worth the painful goodbyes!

It helped a little that we came home to our cats (who were VERY happy to see us after two weeks...this is the kittens watching the kids, who were playing outside)...

...our church family (this was set up for a ladies' fellowship lunch)...

...and our friends (Karen and I did our annual applesaucing and ended up with enough sauce to keep us going for a long time!  I got to use NY apples this year, from my grandparents' tree. :)  Adel took her first whole apple very seriously and impressed us all!).

It was a wonderful trip, and it was terribly hard to leave our northern family,

but there's no place like home...

and that is the dichotomy of having loved ones far away!