I have to keep asking myself if I am in heaven several times a day. I have only experienced fall in New England twice, but I have to say that this year beats last year and I thought it was gorgeous then. The colors, the mild weather, the sunlight are all beyond description. Even the pictures I have tried to take do not do the beauty justice. I invite you all to come here immediately to delight in the loveliness that surrounds us here. If you can't come tomorrow, you will have to try to be satisfied with my weak attempts at capturing what I can with my camera. Here are some photos of the house and yard:
I have to pinch myself to realize that I am not dreaming and this is really right outside my front door!
The scenery makes an excellent background for portraits as well. Here are some pictures I snapped of all of us earlier today:
Even though this was a hard week for Alice and me (she had a high fever and was in pain due to a virus the entire week), I am so grateful for all of my many, many blessings. The biggest one is that my sweet baby is feeling much better now. I also am grateful for the opportunity I had to give a talk in a special meeting for adults in my church on Saturday night. I felt the Spirit strongly as I worked on my talk and I shared certain things with my children and husband as I prepared that I would not have otherwise done. It stretched me and helped me to grow. How grateful I am, too, for the input my mother and my mother-in-law gave me when I asked them to help me edit my talk. They are amazing women and I love learning from them! It was challenging preparing, but I would do it all over again in an instant because I gained so much.
Now, I am looking forward to a new week. Hope it's a good one for one and all!
It is officially time to catch up. A lot of life has been happening here at the Pulley house and I have found fitting in a blog post to be difficult. I even pondered possibly not doing any more posts once I hit the year mark, but that didn't feel quite right. I enjoy taking time to reflect on the blessings that have come to my family and making a record of various events and activities that have taken place in our lives every once in awhile. Thus, I am going to move forward and quickly recap the last few months of our lives. . . .
Starting with August, this month brought about the celebration of another birthday in our family. Jonathan turned 15! I can't believe how grown up he is already! I really enjoy this oldest son of mine. Here are some pictures of his birthday:
He got french toast for breakfast and a cookies and cream homemade birthday cake. For this round of birthdays, starting with Jonathan's, the kids have requested that I make a candy birthday card for each of them. I don't think the picture of the card pictured above is very legible, so I thought I'd reprint the words on Jonathan's card below:
Dear Jonathan,
We decided to make this "Jumbo" card for you because we think you're a "Watchamacallit", oh yea, a "Whopper" of a son and brother. We definitely don't think you're a "Dud". We think you're "M&M" (marvelous and magnificent)! You're growing up really fast; you're not really a "Kid" anymore. We're also glad you don't have a "Lemonhead"; otherwise, your "Evil Twin" may come and send us all into "Orbit". We know this card doesn't make much sense, but we all want to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Totally silly, but, of course he and the other kids loved it. We also went out to dinner as a family per Jonathan's request.
The next significant event to occur here, was the temple groundbreaking ceremony. The Hartford Connecticut Temple is to be built in Farmington, less than fifteen minutes from our home! I am beyond thrilled! The temple means more to me than ever and it was utterly thrilling to participate in the ceremony and then later go as a family to the temple site and take a few pictures. The kids even got to turn over some soil and ride (and a few drove) a cart around the temple site. Such a wonderful, wonderful day!
Toward the end of August school started. The kids are doing great and I couldn't be happier about the education they are receiving here.
Here is a collage I already posted on Facebook of the kids' first day of school:
It is always bittersweet to send them back, but it was time and we are all settling into our school rountine nicely. I was honestly the most worried about how Alice and I would fare with all her friends and my helpers gone all day, but it has turned out to be quite lovely. She either entertains herself or follows me around and has had regular play dates as well. The biggest bonus for me is that she will happily watch a "show" as she calls it while I take a shower and/or clean up around the house. I am trying to be mindful of not taking too much advantage of that fact and have made it a point to play with and read to her everyday as well, but boy, is it wonderful be able to have her sit still and watch something when it's really needed!
The older kids are all in soccer and Jonathan even made the Varsity team at Simsbury High this year. Even though that means less playing time for him, it is an honor for him to be on the team and he has been putting in his full effort at practices and is as committed as ever to the sport. I really admire his overall great attitude about it. Thomas is on a travel soccer team and Haley is on a rec team. I don't think I have ever spent more time in the car! I have continued to listen to audio books and have recently finished Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice and Matched. I actually feel like I am accomplishing something while being chauffeur!
September came quickly and that meant it was soon Haley's birthday! We had several of her friends over for pizza, a movie and hairstyling. She didn't want an actual cake for her birthday so we had frozen yogurt instead. Here are some pictures of her big day. Eleven already and in sixth grade now! She is growing up so fast!
The paper Haley is holding in the collage above the card is her flight information. For her birthday this year she really, really wanted to go to Utah for her Aunt Rochelle's wedding. She got her wish and we had such a great time! Here are some pictures of that amazing day:
The tricky part about going was that Dave had to go to a business conference in Minneapolis at the same time. Dave is good at figuring things out, though, and he managed to book our flights out for the same day so we drove to the airport together. He hopped on his plane to Minnesota and then Haley, Alice and I waited for our flight to Salt Lake. Dave was able to fly the next evening from Minneapolis to Utah in time for the wedding Friday morning and then he flew back to Minneapolis again early Saturday. On Sunday, the girls and I had a layover in Minneapolis and then Dave planned to meet us there and fly with us the rest of the way home. I actually saw him every day for at least a little while all five days of the trip. I am always impressed at Dave's logistical skills! I almost messed everything up when we were flying home, however. Even though we got there an hour before our departure time, the security line was so long that we missed our flight out of Salt Lake! That made me nervous. Fortunately, we were booked on the next flight out and made it just in time for our connecting flight. Dave was waiting for us when we got off the plane. It was good to see him and finally make our way back home. The interesting part (or is it a coincidence?!?) was that Alice was the worst she was out of all four flights once Dave was with us. I am just glad that we were all together. :)
While we were gone, our children were in wonderful hands. When we arrived home, the kids left behind were happy, the house was clean and dinner was five minutes away from being ready. We were really blessed to have some new friends of ours watch our children while Dave and I were gone and I couldn't be more grateful. We brought them back a Blentec to show our gratitude, but they assured us that they would have done it even without that. It was truly an answer to prayer to have everything work out as well as it did since this was the first time I had to leave my children with someone other than family.
The last thing I wanted to share was that just before we left for Utah, Dave's parents came to visit us here in Connecticut! There is nothing we love more than visitors and even though the fall colors here were only just starting to show up, it was still lovely to have them here and they made a point of letting us know that they actually came here to see us and not the landscape. :) While Doug and Kathy were here, we made a run to Costco, did some shopping around home, the adults had a delightful and delicious dinner at Abigail's here in town and to top it all off, we made a trip to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. Absolutely a pure delight to have them here! We hope that they will come again very soon. Enjoy the following collage of our visit to Sturbridge Village. We ended up getting a membership there, so if you visit, we may end up making a trip there with you, too! It really was an incredible window into the past:
We are happy and healthy. I really can't complain. I was surprised by my sadness when I left Utah because I do feel so settled and content living here, but it is still hard to leave behind the family and friends I love. A big part of me still lies in Utah and I don't think I'll ever be able to erase that. However, the beauty and life I have here are magical and I wouldn't trade them for anything! Coming soon, I will do my best to capture the majestic glory of autumn here. I am not sure I will be able to do it justice, but I will do my best. I hope to post again sooner than I did this last time. . . . . . .wish me luck!
