Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

So there we were in an average, over-priced hotel room while buckets and buckets of rain dumped down on the outside world.  We were just about to put on our bathing suits and head down to the unexceptional hotel swimming pool when my oldest daughter blurted, without thinking, "I don't even mind having a baby sister if I still get to go swimming with my Mom!" I wondered how long she had been waiting to say something like that.  Earlier that afternoon the two of us had climbed into the car and driven less than an hour away where we checked into a hotel and headed out to do some shopping.  She had hardly stopped talking since we left the house.  At one point she paused to take a big breath and then carried on telling me about everything important that happened in fourth grade, things I had never even imagined.   There weren't any toddlers to chase or sighing eight year olds to console.  All of my attention was focused...

Actually it was the first Snow Fest for ALL of the Carsons on Saturday in Frankenmuth.  The giant snow sculptures were certainly impressive, but the best thing about our day was reconnecting with an old friend who was in town with her adorable family.  She and I were pregnant together twice, and her boys and my girls seemed to pick up right where they left off about six years ago...but without the diapers and oral fixations this time.  Here are three of them frolicking amongst some typical Michigan winter scenery... And here is another particularly impressive snow sculpture.  It kind of makes our anatomically correct snow dude from last winter appear inadequate.  Poor guy. As spectacular as those snow sculptures were, we found ourselves even more captivated by the breath-takingly beautiful single snow flakes we kept finding on each other.  Here is a rather poor photo of a perfectly wondrous pair of tiny snow flakes that landed in Emma's hair... After...

George left us early Thursday morning and headed off for a "Lads Gone Mad" weekend in Cancun with his brother and a friend, so all of the Carson girlies have been here enjoying the beautiful Michigan autumn on our own.  That George does not know what he's missing. Back by popular demand: Everyone's favorite green, fleecy hoodie with ears On Friday the kids had the day off school, so we went out to a petting farm in Freeland called Baby Acres where Emma and Sophie got to pet and feed all sorts of friendly farm animals.  Everything about it was excellent apart from the incident in which two pygmy goats took offense to my sheepskin lined boots.  They repeatedly headbutted my ankles and rubbed their foreheads menacingly all over the sides of my boots.  We were visiting the farm with a Mom's group, and all of the other Michigan Mommies who were standing by me laughed and said (in that unmistakable Michigan accent), "OH MY GAHSH!  That is SOOO cute!"  Yes...