Update

Summer's over, now it's fall, just the nicest time of all!! Shelby has a little book with that poem in it and we say it often in the fall, because really, it IS the nicest time of all here. The leaves on the trees have all changed colors and dropped tothe ground. We have raked them all up (remember raking the grass clippings after Jeff had mowed the lawn, Andoni?) and put them in bags for the yard waste collector to pick up and now we are ready for winter snow to arrive.

It has been a lovely lovely fall and we have gone to the cabin, had six weekends of fall traveling soccer (Jeff coaches Aubrey's team and you would have loved to watch them Andoni, these girls knew next to nothing at first about position and ball handling, but they really came a long way in improvement), and tried to enjoy the beautiful weather. It is supposed to snow in a couple of days for the first time, but it won't really get snow covered around here for a few more weeks.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday, Andoni!! Was it full of lots of time with friends, cake and

ice cream? It was Gillian's 10th birthday on the 20th of October, but she was VERY sick and we had to cancel her party and rescheduled it for Halloween. Do you celebrate Halloween there? It is a real highlight for children in the United States, mostly because they get so much candy from the neighbors' homes, way too much candy, if you ask me. For Gillian's birthday,

we played games, had dinner and then went out Trick-or-treating for a while. Shelby was sick (of course, it seems recently that someone around here is sick all the time!!) and I had to wrap her up in a blanket and push her in the stroller because she was too sick to walk all over the neighborhood. She had a good time though, in spite of not feeling good, and Gillian and her friends had a blast!! Here, all the children (and even some adults...oh, and I saw some dogs, too) dress up in costume. Quinn was a nerd (do you know what that is?), Gillian was Joan of Arc, and Aubrey and Shelby dressed up likes babies.

About a week and a half ago, Jeff and I took a five day trip to Boston, Massachussetts and then on to Nantucket Island, which is off the coast of the state of Massachussetts and part of that state. Boston is a wonderful city. If you ever get the chance to go there, I think you should take

it. It is where the American Revolution started and the famous Boston Tea Party which you can read about in any American history book. Because it is right on the ocean (Boston Harbor is on the Atlantic Ocean), the seafood there is delicious. We ate clam chowder (a kind of soup), oysters, lobster, mussels, and different kinds of fish, all wonderful. We spent about 3 days on the island of Nantucket, which is about 30 miles from the shoreline of Massachussetts. We had to take a tiny little plane to fly out there and it was so foggy when we landed we didn't see the ground until the wheels of the plane touched down. Nantucket is an island that has a famous history tied to the whaling industry. Before the discovery of electricity and petroleum, the world depended on the harvesting of oil from whales and Nantucket was the center of this industry. Now that whaling isn't a big business, Nantucket is vacation island, and in the summer especially, many people (especially from the East Coast) rent houses or spend the summer there at homes they own on the island. When we were there, it was relatively quiet but still very beautiful. I have always wanted to go there, and am so glad we got to take the trip.

We are now in November, and that means Thanksgiving will soon be here. Remember the Thanksgiving dinner we had while you were here?? Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie? We will have a large group of people over to our house to celebrate (and eat) Thanksgiving, and it also happens to be the same day as Aubrey's 8th birthday. She feels like the whole United States will be celebrating her birthday that day.

I hope that you are happy and well. Even if I don't post often, I haven't stopped thinking about you and your time here. Say hello to your whole family!!