A letter from Lucy

I love my beautiful, smart, exasperating daughter Lucy. She devours chapter books but refuses to eat any food that isn't dessert, white rice, or macaroni and cheese. She adores her little brother even though she isn't always happy with her parents. She is friends with all the frogs, bugs and worms in our yard. Her life is full of emotion and I fear for her teenage years, when hormones will combine with her natural sense for the dramatic.

The other night, when she was supposed to be in bed, she wrote me this letter.

Dear Mommy. I love it in the morning wen I come in your room. And I snuggl you. And thank you for all the time's wen you have helpt me feel beter from sicknes all the way to deth. I love you so much you may not get me what I want all the time. But you will always be my mommy. And by the way you mak ecselent cokies, bronies, cacks, cupcacks, and food. I may not have tride a lot of things. But I bet you $1000000 bucks your coking is good. Wen you are around I alwase feel safe. I love you and I hope you feel the same way I do!

Yes, my sweet Lucy, I certainly do.

Family, Food, Friends, Football . . .

. . . if you asked Austin what he was thankful for this year, he'd probably list those things, in that order. So it was great that the unseasonably warm weather made it possible for him to have all of them together this year on Thanksgiving day.

The sunshine was glorious, the feast was delicious, and the backyard football game was great fun. If the snow holds off next Thanksgiving, we may have to make it a new Gray family tradition to host a Turkey Bowl on Turkey Day.

Hey Dudes!

Austin and I just got back from a weekend at a Dude Ranch outside Tucson, Arizona. Since my sister Christina and Austin's uncle Richard both live on *real* ranches, I never imagined us going to a tourist ranch to be "dudes." But it was a great adventure!

I was there for conference, so I spent most of the (beautiful, warm, dry!) days inside talking about history, while Austin went on hours of trail rides through the desert, on Guiness and Ice.

Me and my horse N.C. managed to get a few rides in during the afternoons.

Austin got on a "cattle penning" team and I think that was the highlight of the weekend for him.

The food was amazing -- this is a picture of the breakfast spot Austin rode to one morning (while I was in a meeting, sigh.)

It was so nice to get back to the west and spend some time enjoying a very different kind of natural beauty than we see around us in Vermont! It's funny how much it feels like home.

Happy Halloweekend

I'm not sure when Halloween ceased to be a one-night event and turned into days of activities. Count Floyd the Vampire (Gavin came up with the name and elaborate backstory) and his sister Laura Ingalls definitely made the most of it!
Lucy headed up the crafts crew to be sure our house was sufficiently festive. My craft project was figuring out how to make a Laura Ingalls costume. Pioneer costumes aren't really in fashion these days. Gavin's vampire suit was much easier to find at Wal-Mart. But you know our Lucy, she always has to choose the unusual theme, and she insisted on this one.
Lucy was certainly the only pioneer girl at her school's UNICEF parade.

There were Halloween parties at their friends' houses, and Halloween carnivals at church and at the school. . .

. . .and lots and lots and LOTS of Trick-or-Treating. Norwich opened the dorms to Trick or Treat on Wednesday night, the ward Trunk or Treat was Friday, and by the time the actual Halloween night came around the kids nearly opted to stay home! But in the end we went out and hit Central Street, Northfield's famous Trick-or-Treat row, and snagged a few more bucketfuls of treats.

The funny thing is they don't ever actually eat the candy. They just like to trade it with each other. There's been a lively candy exchange going on around here which the parents have managed to get in on a few times, scoring Kit-Kats and Twix and other good stuff.

Pumpkin Time!

The thirteenth-annual Gray Family Pumpkin Party was last night. It was too cold to carve pumpkins outside so we put some plastic down on the floor inside and still had a great time making a mess with pumpkin guts! (Clean up was so easy, I just wrapped up the plastic with all the mess inside -- a new tradition is born!)

The kids all made wonderful, creative jack-o-lanterns.

Here they all are making the face that's carved on their pumpkins.

My favorite part is always the food. The kids frosted and decorated pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (Gavin frosted his cookie multiple times) while their parents munched on on other pumpkin-themed treats.

As much as I love the pumpkin party, I love the morning after just as much. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies for breakfast, and leftover pumpkin-curry soup for lunch! Yummy!

Season Surprise

No! I'm not ready for the snow yet!

Lucy's Chemistry Party

This year Lucy wanted to have a chemistry birthday party. Gotta hand it to Lucy -- she always picks a party theme you can't get out of a catalog! Fortunately, we know some chemists (thanks, Jeanne and Troy) and have some good connections in the Norwich chemistry department.

The girls tested the Ph of household liquids, from Windex to Sprite,then made some cool slime out of PVA and Boron. The most exciting experiment was the big, smoky volcano I made out of hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide (a bit bigger and smokier than I expected!)

Then we had cake and ice cream and Lucy was thrilled with the gifts her friends brought her.

The girls worked off all their sugar and chemistry excitement by going outside to traipse through the damp leaves in the backyard, hold a pow-wow in the treehouse, then finish it all off with a good, solid round of trampoline tag.

So when the parents came to get them, all the girls were wet, dirty, covered in slime and frosting, and exhausted. I hope these girls are allowed to come back again next year, because I'm sure Lucy will come up with another great party theme.