The Thurber Gang

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's true... we're MOVING.  And, a planned move this time - no frantic rush out of the country because of Green Cards!!  (Thank goodness... don't know what I'm referring to?  Check out here .)  Milo's buying a Chiropractic practice in Kennewick, Washington.  It's a part of the "Tri-Cities", along with Richland and Pasco, WA.  We head out of the D on March 19th...  As long as we've been wanting this amazing opportunity, (a LONG time!!) I'm surprised at how sad it is to be leaving Detroit - the friends *and* the city - and I have to admit, I feel nervous having to 'start over'... it's so much easier for kids, I think... So, now I have about 10 days left to pack and squeeze in all of our 'one last times'.... We've had fun over the last month crossing things off our 'Michigan Bucket List'.  We went 'up north' (Mackinaw City, and crossed over Big Mac to the Upper Peninsula), we went skiing at Pine Knob, have

  Vivien LOVES to dance.  She gets down any chance she can!  When we were in Target before Christmas, she found a singing monkey and was dancing all throughout the store.  After several little impromptu performances, I finally decided to try to capture it on video.  She had a little audience and won them all over!  Love my dancing queen!

These are some of the yummiest cookies ever - and as the weather gets cooler and fall settles in, I always start craving them.  Almost every time I've made these, I've been asked for the recipe.  Just as my friend, Nona, shared the recipe with me many years ago!  I hope that you enjoy them as much as we do! Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies 1 cup    unsalted butter 2 cups   sugar* 1 sm can  pumpkin 3           eggs 3 cups   flour 2 t         baking powder 2 t         baking soda 2 t         cinnamon 2 t         nutmeg 1-2 cups chocolate chips (i prefer milk chocolate!) Combine first four ingredients until smooth.  Add dry ingredients.  Mix well.  Add chocolate chips.  Drop onto cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. * I use half of the sugar, and they still taste great!

This has been the busiest summer ever, I'm sure of it! Since there is so much to cover in one little post, I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves. I hope that you've enjoyed your summer as much as we have! The summer started out with my baby graduating from Kindergarten - *crazy*! Also crazy to think that all four of our girls were able to have the same kindergarten teacher - Renee Zentz. Lucky girls! We rescued an opossum! We had it for 3 days before we found a Wildlife rescue expert. We have faith that our sweet baby opossum is happily in the wild with his adopted brother (the expert had another baby about his age she was going to raise together until they could be released. June 11 was Madison's first Triathlon - It was on Detroit's Belle Isle . . . GORGEOUS but run down park. She raced with her friend from swimming, also named Madison. They tied for 1st in swimming, our Madison came in 2nd in biking and then 1st again in running