Showing Off The Wilderness

Yesterday we took the gang to one of our favorite local spots, the Bushkill Falls. A lovely system of staircase intertwine within the natural landscape between rushing waterfalls, frightening forges and serene lakes. We should all go.

Photo Recap

Madison finally caught a kitty

Yuula waits for no one

fueling up for the hike

this summer's new project

off-kilter

non-stopping

she tried every slide

taken a moment

so close

too close

the falls for the trees

it's like she can touch it

Yuula took every step

bath?

gang shot

Escher

hi Daddy!

end of the road

ooh a rainbow

as good a place as any

after a steep climb

and she's off again

crissing across

I could live here

gotta go some time

at least it was a lovely day

back to the house for beers and marshmallow

Madison charred hers

as did I

dinner was gone before I could take a shot

Madison decided to have KitKats for dinner instead

Today, the dreaded NYC. They have never been. They are kind of scared. And they should be...

Saffron Flavored Sparklers

And we're back. Back to life. Back to reality. Back to whatever else Soul II Soul sang about. Laura's home today and I had some workings going on this morning. Little afternoon hiatus before I'm back to it. Taking down some holiday decor. The branches over the table have almost completely shed all their needles off and if it weren't for our new ornament storage boxes showing up broken from FedEx we'd probably be looking at taking the tree down. Thanks to the nice lady at the Container Store call center, she's personally going to the store in Dallas to buy us new ones and ship them out post haste. Seems like the tree just gained an extra week of warmth. I ain't mad about it.

So!



We finally flipped thru photos from New Year's with Eric & Fatih. Good times. Turning of the calendar year draws good company for us. We had a nice dinner of saffron chicken over basmati & asparagus. I smell a tradition. Oh no, that's the saffron.




Yuula stuffed herself full and took a quick mama nap.



We exchanged a few gifts. We think Eric likes this one.



Then it was time to get down to business.



We started off small with some simple sparklers and us running about with them. I think the designs people make says a lot about them.


Laura/Yuula


Eric


Fatih


Travis


The Gang


Near


Far


Laura fell


Teaching Yuula to call cats

Eric had a message for you all




And a dinosaur firework


Then we played a rousing game of Shut the Box, the holiday classic we never knew could be so rowdy.



Shouting things at each other like "That's a high number!" and cursing the nines really made it for us. Plus Laura cheated so she won.



We went back out for a little more sparklers, just in the road this time.






You'd never know.





Then it was on to the big boys.




Mostly this is all captured on video, as you may or may not have seen in our New Year's wrap-up video yesterday. If not... do yourself a favor.



Then it was time for the countdown!!



and we were all too tired to care. We did do some small poppers in the house and then headed out for the grand finale of fireworks where I captured this series of events...






New Year's makes Laura clumsy

Happy New Year folks