For the love which from our birth/ Over and around us lies

So Thursday, and Friday. What a blissful peace we enjoyed on Thursday. The snow had been busy again overnight. We watched the parade (did we ever love the Kinky Boots song!!) and Miles got to watch tap dancers (a current fascination of his). While both sleepy kids took a nap, I made my culinary contributions (mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries, and apple pie) while watching the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thanksgiving Marathon. BUH-LISS. 

While the food simmered, we enjoyed a pre-dinner snow romp.

Grandpa Jim gave Adele her 2013 snowsuit. 

And out the sliding door we went into the white.

Adele tries to process this. 

Dad's two Portuguese Water Dogs, Decker and Dorry, are also huge fans of snow romps.

Don't they look so hilariously fierce? They're really lambs, most of the time.

 It was really lousy packing snow, though there was so much of it. Miles did his best.

 Miles prepares....

And strikes! Fortunately he missed her face. We had a Talk.

Into the warm, then, for food.

Braggy picture of delicious sweet potato fries I made. 

Braggy picture of the delicious apple pie I made. 

The children quickly became restless, waiting at the table...

The dinner, by the way, was very much worth waiting for.

What a peaceful day it was!

Now, on Tuesday, as I described, I took the kids to Mendon Ponds. What I didn't mention was that my camera (or maybe the batteries??) died just before the most photographable stuff started happening. On the birdsong trail, in winter, if you bring sunflower seeds and stand very still, the chickadees will land on your hands to eat them! And on Tuesday, probably 10 birds sat on Miles' hands, to his eternal delight. And me with a dead camera. Ah well, I thought, I'll bring the camera when we return on Friday.

Friday dawned sunny and cold. To Mendon Ponds we drove. Leah and her kids met us there.

Needless to say, it was gorgeous. But yeah, fairly cold at 9:30 am. The kids were NOT so happy about the long cold walk. They did not see that their loud whining and crying was both unhelpful and counterproductive to the project of getting birds to land on us.

We went to Wild Wings, to the Nature Center Classroom, and then, when Leah had to take her bairns home, we tried again.

He waited and waited, bless him. 

We got really good at recognizing Chickadee song.

By this time, the sun had warmed things a few degrees. It was quite pleasant, actually.

And he waits. 

Adele fell asleep. The snowsuit in the sun will do that. 

The sweet chickadees were all over Miles on Tuesday, but they only wanted to sit on Jon on Friday.

He tried valiantly. 

We were at peace when we finally left. Miles decided it was okay, because Papa hadn't had any birds on Tuesday, so this made things fair.

Friday afternoon my good, old friends the Floros visted with their adorable offspring. I was stupid and took no photos. I did enjoy the visit enormously. They're practically family.

Speaking of family,

My uncle Doug and Aunt Lynda hosted a gathering at their house. Present were: Grandpa and Grandma (my mom's parents), Doug, Lynda, Leah, Matthew, Abby, Tai-Tai, Rebekah, Aaron, Dad, and my family of 4. What a long feasting table it was!

We have been gathering at Uncle Doug's house for holidays since I was a baby. He retains, and showed us while we were there, reems of home videos of my brother and me, and Leah and Joel, running in a cousin-pack together at holidays. We did that for years. So you can imagine how much this scene did my heart good:

Miles and Abby were much in each other's company all evening, though I grabbed no photos. She just grabs his hand whenever they're reunited, suggests something to pretend, and they're off, as if they had never parted. It rejoices me so, so much to watch them.

That was some game of ring-around-the-rosy!

Aaron entranced the kids with his remote controlled helicopter. 

There was such hearty good talk, laughter, viewing of home movies from the 80s. I can't thank Doug & Lynda enough for hosting. What a gift.

We really did play them to exhaustion. Smoothly we scooped them up and drove to Dad's for one more night; smoothly we drove them back to Blacksburg the next day. Jon is a road warrior, by the way.

So that was Thanksgiving in NY. Needless to say, I am so, so grateful.