October

 This past month has been full to brimming, and given that it has been a few weeks since I posted, I will hit some of the highlights:

The second weekend in October we celebrated Thanksgiving (the Canadian version), with pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin pie, fresh baked rolls, mashed potatoes (with potatoes from our garden), honey ginger roasted carrots (with carrots from the garden), cranberry sauce, and stuffing. It was quite a feast, which we enjoyed with our friends Vanessa and Jason.

The next week, Jeff went to Memphis for a conference. I stayed home, and continuing my spirit of exploring, headed to my local yarn store for Saturday knitting group. A majority of the knitters there were grandmothers, so a little bit outside of my age range, but welcoming and very nice, and the experience of being in that space surrounded by conversation and the quiet clicking of needles was very relaxing. I went back yesterday, and will likely make a regular practice of going when I can.

Last weekend, we went to Calgary (a plane ride of just over an hour) for Jeff's brother's wedding. We got to meet our new niece Ella (Jeff's sister's baby, three months old).

I got her to smile :)

Ella turned out to be a demon on the dance floor:

Maman wearing sleeping Ella, Mama, and Jeff

Jeff got a little crazy as the night went on (just because he's Jeff, there was probably very little effect of having had a couple of drinks), and unfortunately I didn't get a video, but he attempted to do a breakdancing move called "the worm," which he really did not know how to do. He got down on the floor on his stomach and started flopping wildly like a fish out of water for about three seconds. He immediately noted that his chest hurt, and after a couple of days of things not getting better I convinced him to go to the doctor. She said he may have a cracked rib, and he got x-rays done but we don't have the results yet.

The day after the wedding, we celebrated Jeff's birthday with a family brunch. Then back home and back to work. The house was festively decorated for Halloween, and we had about 15 or 20 trick-or-treaters. Then yesterday I made cupcakes (chocolate with cinnamon butter cream frosting) and we had friends over for a second birthday celebration.

Things should be settling down now, with a calmer month ahead. And although we had one day of snow already, it quickly melted and the weather has been decidedly still fall. All in all a good month :-)