Family and Fall

As promised, a catch-up post to bring us up to date.

Last weekend we had the pleasure of spending Saturday with my cousin Eric and his girlfriend Jess.


We went into the city and ate lunch at the Stage Deli, where we enjoyed classic New York pastrami sandwiches. Now, a small apology for the following picture, but a picture trying to get one's mouth wrapped around a sandwich like this is a rite-of-passage, and so, I will shamelessly post one. :-)


We then walked through Times Square, and into the M&M's World store. There were whole walls of M&M dispensers!


We then walked up 5th Ave. to Trump Tower, took a coffee break there for a little while:


And then on to Central Park.



We had a great time that day, and were glad that Eric and Jess came to visit us!

Last weekend was also peak Fall Leaves viewing, so the next day, we drove up into the Catskills in up-state New York to look at leaves. Our destination was the largest two-tier waterfall in New York state, Kaaterskill Falls. You don't realize how many evergreens there are in the Pacific Northwest until you see fall leaves out here, because there are practically NO evergreens. Which means that EVERYTHING is changing color!

We had a great time on the somewhat challenging half-mile hike to the falls:




And we finally made it to the falls!





And a few more:




We captured a few pictures on the way home that really demonstrate how vast the color spectrum really is this time of year:





Drove past this place on the way home, thought it was funny:


All in all, a great time.

This past week, the boys had a school night at the Liberty Science Center, which is a science museum at Liberty State Park.





Never thought I'd get to give McCain rabbit ears!


There was a skyscraper exhibit, and this beam was from the twin towers. It was literally bent in half:




Well that's it. Stay tuned for the other stuff we have going on in the weeks to come!