New England Fall & a visit from Clay, Jen, and baby Navy!

 Viv was SO excited to discover our very first eggs after months of feeding, watering, and caring for our chickens. Wahoo! With our remaining 4 chickens, we usually get 3 eggs/day. Amazingly, they are all hens (yea!). We have found that sometimes they prefer to lay outside of the coup, so we have to look around the house. It can be like an Easter egg hunt year 'round.

 We attended an annual fundraising event in our small town. It was a charming event held near a white church with homemade stew, old-time games, and booth shopping. Even though it was chilly outside, Olivia was willing to dunk her head and get an apple prize!

Here is our "Ba-gok Cottage". We moved it closer to the house, under the "Climbing Tree" (where my monkey girls practically live) so that we could plug in a heat lamp for them during the winter. 

Viv is in the chess club at school. We decided to teach the girls how to play checkers as well so that Ruby could play something similar as well. They love board games. Right now their favorites are Battleship, Chess/Checkers, Clue (Carnival kids edition), and the Lady Bug Game.

Sweet Noma with bits of seaweed on her face. She LOVES seaweed. It is so fun to watch her eat it. She inhales it.

Adam went away on a business trip, so we decided to have a fun girl sleepover in my bed. It was so fun. I didn't sleep much, but it was a great memory.

 We have more leaves here than we ever before. There are just so many trees. We barely have to rake at all to make a huge pile. The girls are loving it! Especially when there is a gentle wind and a few leaves are continuously falling as they play. It's a magical wonderland. I love driving around right now. The canopy over the roads, the amazing colors, the crisp air, I'm in love. I'd always heard about New England falls, and now I know what all the fuss is about. One difference between the fall in UT and the fall in CT is the length. In Logan there was a window of a couple of weeks where the leaves peaked, but here, the window lasts a couple of months.
By the way, I am now trained to be paranoid about ticks when I see my kids playing in leaves (or when I see anyone laying on the ground or anything like that, even if it's in a movie), but happily, the chickens must be doing their part by eating the ticks, because we haven't seen them in a while. I just can't let my guard down.

This is the view from our driveway. Beautiful Autumn.

While Adam was still out of town, I tok the girls to Topstone Park. There is a beach, a playground, hiking trails, etc. Oh, and tether ball. So fun.

This picture is mostly just for me so that I don't forget the view of Mark Twain Lane from the bus stop where I pick the girls up every day.

Noma is our backyard. 

 Here is Ru feeding the cows at the Stew Lenard's grocery store. They also have chickens, goats, lambs, turkeys, and ducks that you can feed, just across the parking lot from the store. So cool.

The girls are playing with puppets at FAO Schwarts in NYC. We decided to go there and spend the day with Clay, Jen, and Navy before they left again for UT. We also went to Skyline Park, which was amazing. 

 FAO Swartz has over-sized candy. Here are just two examples. The girls are in heaven, and I'm disturbed. Yikes.

We were sooo happy to have Clay, Jen, and Navy come visit. It was our first time meeting their beautiful baby. She is too cute for words. We were all taken by her. My girls practically smothered her with love. We all went on a little walk in the "Enchanted Forest"with them, even though it was drizzly outside and we had to dodge a few giant puddles. The fall colors were still amazing, and we had a great time.