Thanksgiving & 10 Years Later...

For a second time in a month we made the road trip up to the DC area for Thanksgiving and my 10 Year reunion from good ol' Quince Orchard High School.

Thanksgiving has usually been done with Dave's family but this year we did it with Brian & Amy. It being only days away from Amy's due date we did a very low key ordered dinner at their house so that no one had to cook. Amy's brother, Eric & his wife, Michelle and their new baby, Lily came over. It was a low stress great way to spend the holiday.

The day after Thanksgiving we headed to Gaithersburg for my reunion. Very thankfully, we were able to stay at the Banig's house and they were willing to watch Arden the night of the reunion. That meant so much to us!!! It's still weird for me not to have a "home" when I go home to Gaithersburg since my parents moved, so it was nice to feel like we had one. I was also telling Mrs. Banig how it's funny to me how we spent so much time in high school trying to avoid our friend's parents and now that we're older they become people and friends that we want to spend time with. We had a really nice time staying there and I will forever be grateful to them for that!

The reunion was a trip. The combination of open bar and the awkwardness of conversations with people you haven't seen in 10 years made for a lot of funny stories. It's not very often that all 9 of us high school girlfriends are all in the same place at the same time to hang out, so that was great. The bar itself was also pretty comical towards the end of the evening once the "reunion" was over, but by that point it became a bit fuzzy. All in all, it was a super fun evening of catching up and seeing old friends and what people looked like now or were up to 10 years later. It's still weird that we graduated high school TEN years ago. Part of me feels like high school was forever ago and part of me feels like it was just yesterday if that makes any sense at all.

Halloween & A Baby Shower

Ok for anyone that actually reads this blog...I'm working on finally getting to post events because I have been super slack since Halloween!

Halloween morning Arden and I went to music class, where all the kids were in costume. Arden in her fish costume, which was a huge hit. Arden's favorite was Cade who dressed up like a Christmas tree complete with lights on his stroller. She thought the Christmas ornaments that his mom sewed to his onesie were fun to play with. Arden loves music class, especially sitting in Miss Suzanne's lap. She spends most of the class away from me the social butterfly that she is!

Then Arden and I hit the road up to Maryland because it was the weekend for my brother, Brian & sister in law, Amy's baby shower. The last part of the road trip was a bit hairy by myself in the car with a toddler that was DONE being in the car. It made me very much appreciate Dave's help on road trips! But we got there and Arden got to go trick-or-treating in Brian's neighborhood in Annapolis. I use the word trick-or-treating loosely, considering I don't think she grasped the whole collecting candy concept. She was more excited to be allowed to walk around in the street at night. Then Saturday we had Brian & Amy's shower. It was a lot of fun. I was in charge of "games" one of which I decided to do for the boys where they had to "chug" beer through a baby bottle.

Amy & Brian got lots of goodies for their upcoming baby girl and seemed to have a great time. Arden spent her time at the baby shower eating ice cubes from the drinks tub and ripping the tissue paper from the gift bags so she had a good time too!

Later that night, I was able to leave Arden with my parents and drive to Gaithersburg to meet up with my high school girl friends. It was Jen's birthday so everyone was hanging out a Greg's downtown in DC. It was a fun night!

Kid's Costume & Pumpkin Carving Party

So every year Dave and I host a pumpkin carving party. It's funny to see it evolve over the years. It used to be a late night event with a lot of alcohol and then we've all had kids. So it's become a lot more family friendly, and has morphed into a kids costume party and pumpkin carving get together. Last year Arden wasn't mobile so I was able to get a lot more pictures. This year, she's all over the place and even took a header off the back deck stairs (she's fine) but not as many pictures to post. It's hard to be a hostess, a mother and document the event at the same time! But despite the rain and my worries about having a bunch of toddlers in a small house, it was a fun party! Arden-the fish, Oscar-the pterodactyl, and Killian-the monkey- all seemed to interact fine in the animal kingdom.
I think next year we'll go back to hosting it in the afternoon after nap times, because it's kind of anti climatic to carve a pumpkin and then not be able to light it up. Of course, I messed up my Obama pumpkin anyway, so that was a bummer. But overall it was a good party!