'Tis the Season

I was more than ready to get Christmas decorations up and to start celebrating this year.

There is a cute town called Skaneateles not too far away that has an annual Charles Dickens Christmas Festival.
We went with some of our friends and their kids and enjoyed the fun festivities

We still wanted a picture with Santa!

cute Graham with the Hollbrooks

The girls watching them act out A Christmas Carol

Posing by the horse and carriage ride that we decided against waiting in line for an hour

The Christmas tree at the end of the pier

And of course sing along caroling at the center of town!

I decided that we were getting a Christmas tree this time, after having our ornaments hung on the chandelier last year!

Ben and I found a tree farm and decided to go for it

It was a bit chilly so we bundled up, me in Ben's jacket, and went to find the perfect tree

After much contemplating we found the "closest to perfect" tree.
Ben got to saw it down like a real man!

And carry it as well

They got it all bundled up nicely for us and somehow it managed to fit in our car!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

LOVE,
THE LEWIS'

Turkey and Things

For the past week Ben has been out of town in London..

London, Ontario that is.

While he was gone it was fun to get some girl time in at a birthday party and movie night


But it was weird not being able to call/text him because of the out of the country phone rates.
He didn't want to take my laptop (maybe because it is super old and slowing down)
so he borrowed one from Cornell instead.
This entailed not being able to download Skype and in us talking minimally on GChat a few times.

I'm not sure if the lack of laptop started the idea or just the necessity of it but Ben decided it was TIME to buy a new laptop. It just so happened to be Thanksgiving and Black Friday that same week!

After we ran that crazy 10K in June I decided we should try another race.
I found this 5K on their website and it was on Thanksgiving morning!

Ben and I stayed here to have our first Ithaca Thanksgiving this year, after our NYC Thanksgiving last year, so we got to run the Turkey Trot!

It was a lot of fun because you were supposed to guess how fast you thought your time would be for the race. Funny thing was that we found out it was 5.5 miles rather than a 5K when we got there!
Ben wrote a time down and I had to beat him so I wrote 2 seconds faster at 49:11.
Some of our friends ran too!

One of the rules of the race was no watches.
Somehow I managed to finish with a time of 48:50... only 21 seconds before my suggested time!

Then we decided to get cleaned up and I made a few Thanksgiving dishes for the first time.
Here is the Cranberry Jello... with the yams & apples and green beans cooking

We enjoyed a great feast at our friends' with some delicious turkey of course

Here is Ben checking out the ads with the girls... he was trying to find the best laptop deal out there.

And of course the delicious dessert table with pies and cutie pie Aubrey

The boys did some gaming while we dished out the pie.

Ben said he wanted apple pie with ice cream. Earlier the ice cream scoop was being used in the mashed potatoes. I mentioned it would be funny to put potatoes on top instead of ice cream... and soon enough that is what I served to Ben.

The girls and I watched in the kitchen and we were dying as Ben picked at his pie "a la mode"

We finally told Ben about the prank and he thought the ice cream was freezer burned and was politely eating it.

I'm grateful to have such a wonderful husband that doesn't complain
(most of the time)

Ben decided on an HP laptop at Walmart and went down at 10:30 pm to stand in line.
At 1:30 am I heard him climb into bed with me *(because I had early work at 5 am) stating that he had successfully purchased the computer and already got it set up!

Quite the successful Thanksgiving!

Halloween Time

It seems like Halloween just crept up on us!
I wasn't thinking about it at all as we have had a couple visitors recently.

Since we didn't have much time to plan, I thought it was a great idea for Ben and I to use our crayon costumes from a couple years ago.

Ben was not too fond of the idea, but at the last minute we ended up going with it anyway!
I mean no one in Ithaca had seen Ben in his crayon tube top dress yet, so they needed to experience it right?!

We got invited to the YSA Halloween Party

We ended up going "Trick or Can" rather than "Treat," and we went collecting canned food for a local food bank. Here is our winning team with a total of 85 cans of food (in 30 minutes that is!)
Thanks to all our friends who live at Winston Court who helped us out :)

And he said he wasn't excited about wearing his costume... I don't believe it one bit after this picture!!

My friend Nicole and I dressed up as cowgirls at work on Halloween! It was fun getting to wear two different costumes in one day!

We went back to the Corn Maze where we had been with my family 2 weeks ago.
Ben wanted redemption at the apple slingshot, so we got 32 apples to hit the bulls eye.
Ben was pretty successful, but it sure is tough. We also played a round of mini golf.
Ben and I tied! He may have a different story, but mine is the truth :)

NOTICE OUR FESTIVE ORANGE & BLACK GOLF BALLS

And then it decided to snow in October here?!
I guess it didn't stick and wasn't too bad but kinda crazy that it's already starting! Ah!

Oh yeah, we moved!

With a lot of help from family and friends, we successfully decorated and moved
1.1 miles away to our new apartment!
We are really enjoying it.
Here are some pictures of the downstairs.
Upstairs we've got our bedroom, Ben's office, and our washer & dryer (hallelujah).
It's not quite as clean and fancy up there!

So if you're ever around upstate New York, feel free to stop by... we love visitors! :)

The Lewis Crew

We were lucky to have Doug and Annie stop in Ithaca on their fun trip to New York.

The twins are quite similar in many ways, so it was fun to see them interact and to be with Annie to laugh about their quirks and antics.

We got to play games with them, hike Taughannock, tour Cornell, visit all of Ithaca's many waterfalls, enjoy pizza and thai food, and spend time together!

Thanks for the great quick visit!
Here are a couple pictures...

The cute twins on our couch
Ben thought leaning would be a great idea for a picture :)
There Ben & Doug were, reading EVERY sign on the hike
Doug wanted to help the Cornell bell chimes players with their concert
One of the many Ithaca waterfalls

My Family Visits

Last weekend we had a great time hanging out with our visitors...
My mom and brother, as well as sister and nephew came to NY.

Here are some of the highlights through pictures, starting from the end of the trip

We went to a corn maze close by and had to do the apple slingshot of course

We hiked at Watkins Glen and saw the beautiful waterfalls and gorges.

Another beautiful Ithaca site to see is Ithaca Falls

Mini tour of Cornell with quite the view

Saturday morning trip to Hollenbeck's

Made a delicious pie out of these apples

Bought some freshly pressed cider

Friday we went to Palmyra and saw all the church sites

Sacred Grove... in the rain, with the beautiful fall leaves

Whitmer Farm

And one of Ben's favorite memories, dinner at Dinosaur BBQ


It was fun to show off Ithaca and upstate NY and all they have to offer, especially in the fall!