Labor Day Monday (you know, like a month ago) I headed to Lockport to spend the day with Gabby. We took the kids to Becker Farms! I remember going there on a few school field trips but hadn’t been in years. Ben had fun feeding and petting the animals, climbing on hay bales, going on a wagon ride, doing the duck water races and a ton of other activities. I think we were actually supposed to pay to get in, but didn’t realize it until after we’d left (since we’d come in a back entrance.) Oops. The rain held off until the very end of our adventure too, which was great because it poured.

Rec Center Church

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…at least that’s what Ben calls it. We’ve been doing training for our new church for the past few months and last weekend we finally opened to the public, at the community rec center. Ben’s used to doing kid’s activities and events there so he was so excited that church was there too.

We loved the church we’d been going to for the past few years but it was 30 minutes away and hard to be involved once we had kids. Our new one is actually a “plant” from the big church we went to. It’s here in town and I’m excited to be more involved in our community. We’ve met some great people being involved with the startup team and it’s getting even more exciting now that we’ve launched!

Grapes of wrath

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Ok, worst post title ever. The book wasn’t even about grapes…anyway…we went grape picking last weekend! A vineyard about 30 minutes south of us had juice and upick grapes for sale so we bought some Aurora, Niagara and Moores Diamond juice along with Niagara grapes. I had no idea there were so many varieties or that wine is named after the type of grape it’s mostly made from. So a Riesling wine is made of mostly Riesling grapes. That one is actually way out of our budget at $17.95/gallon. The juice we got runs about $4-6 a gallon. Upick grapes were super cheap though, our Niagara grapes were .35/lb.

Ben had a ton of fun eating and picking. We strolled around the vineyard for a bit too and just enjoyed the little family outing. Next week we’ll return and pick up some Concord grape juice and Concord grapes.

Coolest guy I know

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We heat our house with a woodburning insert in our upstairs fireplace. It’s worked great for us the past few years but there are a few problems with our little system. For one, upstairs is always 10 degrees warmer than downstairs in the winter. Secondly we have a series of fans set up around the house to try and direct hot air down to the kids’ bedrooms. And we have to leave their doors open in winter if we don’t want kidsicles. Another downside is that Andy has to haul firewood from the back of our property, through the downstairs and then all the way upstairs. Not so much fun. We had half the livingroom gated off so Ben didn’t get near the woodstove. He was really good about not touching (we even had the rule during the summer) but it’s just something you block off when you have kids anyway. Finally, wood stoves are dirty! Everything in the livingroom would get a layer of dust every single time we burned.

So we decided we’d look into moving the insert downstairs. We could tie it directly into the furnace that’s behind the fireplace, providing even heat in the house because the furnace would now pump the hot air around. No frozen children! Andy would only have to bring firewood in through the back door instead of up two flights of stairs. No gates everywhere because the kids don’t travel downstairs unsupervised. And I don’t care if it gets dirty because it’s not really a living space (yet).

Andy looked into it more and found out the size of the firebox was right and the flue was a straight shot down the chimney, it’d work out perfectly. Why we didn’t have the insert put down there in the first place, who knows. You live and learn. So Andy started to disassemble the old stuff downstairs and move the woodstove down there. We’re not all finished yet, Andy still needs a friend to come over and help him shove the new liner down the chimney and hook up a few other things (technical term)…but I’m excited! I have to think of something cute to do with the soon to be decorative fireplace upstairs. Old books, candles, mirrors? Who am I kidding, anything I put in there will be ransacked by Cassidy in a few months when she starts moving…

Wedding time

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Saturday morning the boys got ready at the Bed & Breakfast Andy’s parents were staying at. Andy donned his Batman socks he got in my brother’s wedding.

Becky and the girls got ready at the Inn where the reception would be held.

Cassidy was great while we waited for everything to begin. Ben stayed home with my brother and sister in law so we just had one kiddo.

While the weather for the rehearsal dinner was bright and sunny, wedding day wasn’t quite as great.

I actually didn’t get to see much of the ceremony because Cassidy started screaming in the beginning. I’d fed her before we left the Inn in Geneseo but she was hungry again by the time we drove down to Letchworth and got set up for the wedding. I don’t mind nursing in public but I’m not skilled enough to do it while holding an umbrella ;-) So I sat in the limo and this was my view.