November Phone Pics

Looking back at November, it was a pretty beautiful month with lots of time spent outside and with family. Time at the park with friends, hiking in Germantown Metro Park, seeing the Trolls movie with Leslee, Quinn, and Connor, and of course, Thanksgiving were some of the highlights.

My eager little voting partner. This is when we were still filled with
hope and excitement before the devastating results came in.

enjoying the carpet of ginkgo leaves at Smith Shool

our beautiful street

Olivia's beautiful school

 The following group of pictures are from Germantown Metro Park. Such a lovely hiking spot.

enjoying more beautiful weather (and throwing pebbles
in the water) at Hills and Dales

at Olivia's Thanksgiving Luncheon at school

silly faces with Aunt Sarah

the whole group at the "yellow springs"

Zoo Lights

The day after Thanksgiving, ALL of our family (my parents and sister, Yusaku's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and our niece, and Yusaku's cousin) joined us at Zoo Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo. This is something we like to do with the kids every year during the Christmas season but it was great to be able to experience this with so many family members.

hot cocoa/snack break

the whole group except my parents and sister

Yoko was so kind to let Olivia look at every inch of the insect house
(her favorite part of the zoo)

Thanksgiving 2016

We enjoyed a lot of great family time over Thanksgiving. Yosuke, Manami, and Lemi came in from New York, Sarah came in from Chicago, and Yusaku's cousin, Yoko, came all the way from Japan! We are so lucky that everyone came to us. It was wonderful to see all of them! The girls especially enjoyed getting to play with Lemi and getting to know her a little better. She is a such a sweetie!

Yusaku's parents hosted this year and we had a delicious dinner!  Looking forward to next Thanksgiving when we'll have FIVE cousins! Should be lots of fun and craziness! 

We got to spend more time together in the days that followed, but I will include those pics in the next post.

Learning to play chess with Uncle Yosuke

Obaachan and Ojiicahn with all the grandkids

Comparing baby bumps - new cousins coming May and March 2017

Takashi and Kazumi with their niece, Yoko
It was so nice to see her!

So much cousin love!

Halloween 2016

We enjoyed a nice warm day right before Halloween for carving (and painting) pumpkins. Yusaku carved. I painted (with some help from Natalie).  They turned out pretty cute!

For the first time in a few years, we had decent weather for trick-or-treating. It didn't rain and wasn't terribly cold. Natalie was a little under the weather, so after the first block or so, she was worn out. Olivia, however, tried to hit as many as houses as possible to get as much candy as she could. :)

Olivia's 6th Birthday

It's hard to believe my sweet, smart, spunky first-born is 6! This year, we celebrated with a small group of those who are most important to Olivia - her grandparents, her cousins, her best friend from school, and of course, Yusaku, Natalie, and I. What she wanted most for her party was to have a pinata, so we had one and it was a lot of fun! We had beautiful weather that day and even took a little walk in the woods (and stream) near our house beforehand.