Thanksgiving Road Trip (with airplanes)

I'm hoping to steal some pictures from family and friends and will update this post afterwards. We're terrible about using our camera!

We headed out for the Thanksgiving holiday a week early to take advantage of visiting friends near DC and attending a PSU game at FedEx Field. We flew out of Michigan (Tally's 3rd flight!) on Friday and landed in Baltimore, where we met some college friends and their little girl Sammy for lunch. Sammy just turned one this past weekend and is such a cutie! {insert better-Mommy pictures here}

We spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights visiting Mike's best friend from home, Matt, his wife Shannon, and their two kiddos Marcus (2) and Ella (4 mos).

While visiting, Matt & Shannon were so kind and babysat Miss T all day Saturday so Mommy and Daddy could go watch Penn State (from a luxury suite). Don't ask - we're lucky ##&!*s and will likely never have that chance again! {insert wishful pictures here}

Talia and Marcus got along wonderfully the entire visit and T was said to leave.

Late Monday night, we packed up the car and drove to Nana & Poppy's, arriving at 1AM. You wouldn't have known it was the middle of the night though - Talia ran around the downstairs upon arrival...... much to Mommy and Daddy's dismay. Tuesday was a jam-packed day of visiting with family. Talia had the chance to see both Meme and her Great-Grandma and Grandpa in the same day!!! {insert better-Mommy pictures here} She also got a sneak preview of her Christmas present from Nana and Poppy (her very own doll cradle).

On Wednesday morning, we packed up the car again and drove to Aunt Ann and Uncle Dan's! They moved to Bellefonte this past summer and we were so lucky to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with the Tripps and Grandma & Pappy (and Lucy, Gordon, and Bella). Little Miss Madelyn was all smiles and we miss her already. The girls were so cute and we look forward to many more holidays together! Unfortunately, it seems we were so busy we forgot to get out the camera since the following are the best shots we got - or, maybe high-tech Maddy erased them:)? {insert better-Mommy pictures here}

Amid all of the holiday fun, we drove downtown to State College to spend an hour or two with Aunt Kathy, Uncle Mike, and Talia's second cousins! We took over the downstairs of Irving's....

And, of course, no visit to State College is complete without a picture with the Lion Shrine. Remember the last time Talia visited (March 2010?). Does she look different?

Alysia

Cirque Mechanics: Boom Town!

Talia attended her very first show on November 14th with Mommy and Daddy - Cirque Mechanics - Boom Town! She thoroughly enjoyed watching the acrobats perform on stage, especially the woman who performed stunts while hanging in mid-air and the men jumping and flipping on trampolines!! We couldn't believe how much of a grown-up she was:) Here are Mommy and Tally all dressed up for a night on the town.

Alysia

Holy Hair!

Swim Lessons: The Sequel

Tonight was Talia's third week of swim lessons (yes, we're a bit behind on blogging). Recall that she was a "Swim class dropout" when she enrolled at 8 months old and whined / cried for the first two classes....... She LOVES it now! She smiles the whole time. We're working on getting her to use her arms and legs (they remain quite useless), but she's happier than can be just floating around in the water.

The first time around........

And now!

Alysia