Local Flavor: Familytime

This has been a busy season of family events -- visits, soccer games in the evenings, random school sick days, hustle-bustle, that sort-of stuff. Here we are with Bonnie's folks down at the river the other week, just as the colors were getting superb in the trees.

For cute points, here's Rosie one morning when I woke up. I have no idea how she managed to get that cuddled on her own.

Bonnie's grandma was also visiting and we managed to squeak-out this photo just in time before she headed back down to Connecticut. Bonnie ties-up our cornstalks to the porch posts each year at this time.

Soccer and baseball season find me out and about far "afield" and often leaving work a bit early to get to the games. This is up in Waterbury at Oona's first lit-up evening game last week. It was a novelty for us all as we're used to peering into the oncoming darkness to see if we can find the ball in play.

We did some appling and cidering and donuting the other week, too. This is at Happy Valley Orchard over in Middlebury.

Kids are the best at stealing your jackets and leaving you with a t-shirt in the cold. Hrm.

Bonnie made this amazing pot pie last weekend. She spends so much more time getting her crusts to look pretty.

The next day, I made an absurd amount of treats -- an apple pie and gluten-free crumble and some gluten-free cupcakes as well. I love using the spiky-flavored heirloom apple varieties in pie... so much flavor. I've gotten incredibly lazy about my crusts, though, knowing that within seconds of cooling-off they'll be destroyed anyhow.

It's crazy that it's sugar season already...!

Here's on more "extra cute" of Rosie enjoying a stove-warmed livingroom.

Also: how is it that sometimes we find ourselves in an aquarium center staring at axolotls?

Also, Bonnie and I did the "Wildwood Tarot" on our anniversary -- past, present, and future left to right. If you have half a brain, you know that these are meaningless and just fun. But... yet? Living as an otter might not be too bad.