Our last day in New Jersey

Friday was our last day in New Jersey!  And by the time this post is scheduled, we are already in Chicago, likely in a very messy house with lots of organizing to be done!  The movers came and got our stuff in New Jersey from Tuesday through Thursday to pack and load all of our stuff, so Wednesday was our last night sleeping in the house in Ramsey.  Each night our dog Griffey was on high alert as he got home and some things were packed into boxes (Tuesday night), everything but the bed was packed (Wednesday) and then nothing was left (Thursday).  Thursday night, we stayed in a hotel room in Allendale (town right next to Ramsey).  Moving here over 2 years ago was a fun adventure for the 3 of us - and the next few days will be a fun adventure for what has now become a party of 4.  With a 6-week old baby, the drive will move at a much slower pace :).

We're very excited to move to Chicago, but it is a little difficult to leave the place we've called home for 2+ years.  Sure, there are some things we won't miss about New Jersey - such as:

• Yankee fans (at least some of them) who seem to think it's their God-given right to be in the playoffs every single year,
• the way roads like Route 17 are set up so you can't make left turns and have to drive 2 miles past where you want to go just to turn around and go 2 miles back to get there (don't miss it on the way back - because this could end up costing you 8 additional miles of driving),
• the fact that we couldn't eat food from the Midwest - don't let anyone out here convince you otherwise, it's not better here.  The rare and more expensive dinners - yeah, they're possibly better in NY/NJ.  But for almost any type of your medium-to-lower priced meals, where we grew up and where we're going is much better.  Delis are the one notable exception to this rule; nothing holds a candle to NJ/NY delicatessens, 
• the poor cell phone / smart phone internet reception here.  Charlie has always noticed the difference, and his few trips to Chicago confirmed how much better it is there, and his mom noticed how bad it was when she was here,
• not being able to do any shopping on Sundays, except for grocery stores all stores and malls are closed on Sunday due to Bergen County being one of the last counties in America to still have what they call a Blue Law which outlaws all shopping on Sundays. 
• not being able to pump your own gas at the gas stations, although pregnant Katie really liked this because she didn't have to get out of the car, it just doesn't seem to be a job that is worth paying people once all the gas stations introduced pay at the pump.  And because you hand your card to a guy who then swipes it for you, we have heard on the news that there are a lot of incidents where credit card numbers have been taken from a side-swiper and the people don't realize it, which this would never happen in the rest of the country because you swipe your own card.  
• being so far away from where many of our friends and family are.

But New Jersey is the place our son was born, we've been married for longer during our time here than in Columbus (though not by much), and it's the longest Griffey has lived anywhere in his short life!  We did a lot of cool things while we were out here, and we'll miss that proximity to so much that the Northeast has to offer.  Griff will certainly miss the large backyard, but he'll like our new house (with a smaller yard) in Chicago, too!

Various "last time living in Jersey" things we did:

• Charlie taking the (really) long way home from work one night to get a meal at his favorite buffalo wing joint of all-time, Candlelight Inn, a couple of weeks before we moved.
• Seeing one last out-of-town visitor the week before we left - Julie, who coincidentally worked with both Charlie (at KPMG) and then Katie (at AEP).  Julie was in New York for a trip for AEP, and was kind enough to take the train up here to meet Brayden.  As promised - she got a picture with the baby on the blog!  

• Seeing friends Brian, Adrienne and their 11-month old daughter Charlotte came down for a quick visit to meet Brayden for the first time last Sunday morning.  Although we were an hour away from them, we always enjoyed meeting up with them and will definitely miss them. 

 

• Finishing all the frozen meals Charlie's mom had made to help us get through the early weeks with Brayden - since both our parents have been up here so much since he was born, this was actually the time when these meals were the most helpful!
• Spending Griffey's last 3 days at Best Friends Pet Care ("Doggie Day Camp") while the movers were here.  Griffey gets a report card each day, and he played with his best buddy Kirby most of the days.  He also got to have one last play day with his other friends (Charlie's co-worker's dogs), Dallas and Benji.

• Saying goodbye to both sets of co-workers.  Katie brought Brayden into her Toys R Us office on Thursday to introduce Brayden to her department and to say goodbye, which was really sad for her because she learned a lot during her time there and met some very nice people.  

• Eating Thursday meals from our most-frequented places in Ramsey.  Lunch was from Goldberg's famous bagels, which is about the best Deli place you'll find.  Dinner was pizza from Kinchley's Tavern, which we haven't gone to quite as often the past year, but was easily our most visited restaurant before Katie was pregnant.
• Walking through the house on North Central one last time Friday to spackle the walls and do some final cleaning.

So Arrividercci, Adieux, Adios, Auf Widersehen, Sayonara and Goodbye to New Jersey from the Mowry family!

Brayden's first time in the stroller!

There was a week in between when Katie's parents left and when Charlie's parents got here for a week.  Nothing too exciting happened - we just spent the days hanging out with our dog and son.  At 2-3 weeks old for the baby - that is a handful in itself.

The biggest thing was Brady's first walk.  We took him out in the stroller, which is a pretty cool set up. You put him in the car seat, which attaches to the stroller.

Katie walked Griffey, while Charlie walked Brady.  Griffey gets very excited for walks in general, and on this one he kept wanting to run ahead.  It was fun, though - our family of four making its way out into the world!  Below is a video we took - sorry it's a little bumpy!

A family of Reds fans

Today the Reds play a double header.  Very exciting for the Mowry family here in New Jersey!  All 4 Reds fans just got done watching a game 1 victory over the Cubs; hopefully we see another one in the night cap!

2 weeks till Baby Mowry (July 9th)

The week of July 9th, just 2 weeks before Katie's due date, Charlie had a training for work to go to in Boston so Charlie's mom, Leslie, came to keep Katie company and just in case she went into labor early.  Leslie flew in on Monday evening and the three of us went to dinner at our favorite barbeque place in Mahwah, NJ called The Mason Jar.  After dinner, Charlie drove to Boston so that he would be there for the training that started Tuesday morning.

Katie went into work on Tuesday but started having quite a bit of pregnancy discomfort so she came home early.  Katie was suppose to work up till July 20th, but it was proving to be too uncomfortable to sit at work and her doctor agreed that she could start maternity leave a week early to relax.  Luckily we haven't had nearly the hot weather as the mid-west this summer, but even still her biggest complaint are the swollen feet.  Leslie decided that to help us out that she would cook several meals that we could freeze and later warm up when the Baby is taking up all of our time and energy.  Leslie is quite a good cook and seems to enjoy it, so we picked out 4 meals - Asian Flank Steak with vegetables, Chicken with Spinach Casserole, Ravioli Lasagna and Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage.  Aside from keeping busy in the kitchen, it was very nice to have Leslie here to keep Katie company and calm while waiting on the baby.

While he was there, he did get to do a little bit of sightseeing.  Not much - but dinner with some past and future co-workers was a good thing, for sure.  Dinner Tuesday was part of the program (at the hotel), but Charlie did get to go out for drinks around Faneuil Hall, which we'd been when we went there a few months back.  Not too many drinks!  There was potential for him to drive home at any moment - he was on call!  The second night, a group went to Tia's on the waterfront, also near the hotel we stayed at in March.  After dinner, they all walked to Mike's Pastries, but the next door cigar bar, Stanza dei Sigari, caught the eyes of some of the men.  So Charlie chose to have his "it's a boy" cigar instead of a canoli!

He also stopped at Eagle's Deli, which was another restaurant featured on Man vs. Food - they're known for their specialty burgers.  Charlie got the spicy one with jalapenos, buffalo sauce.  Charlie tried to convince Katie he was doing the 5 pound burger challenge, but she wasn't buying it!

We were all relieved when Charlie got home safely from Boston on Thursday and didn't miss the birth of our son.

4th of July 2012

Independence Day fell in the middle of the week this year, which makes it kind of strange as you just get a random day off in the middle of the week.  We got a bit of shopping done and watched a movie at home, and Charlie broke out the grilling tongs.  He tried a special concoction (which tends to make Katie nervous), but it turned out very well.  We like burgers, and we've liked this Italian pulled pork dish that Katie makes - so why not try them together?  The pork is made in the slow cooker over the course of the day, so we started it around noon.  Then at dinner time we grilled up two burgers, topped them with a slice of provolone, then a couple ounces of the Italian Pork.  Top that off with a tomato and another slice of cheese, and we had a really good new kind of burger!  We also made some corn on the cob for a great holiday meal.

Ramsey's fireworks weren't actually on the holiday - they were on Saturday of the following weekend. We grilled out again - using up more of the leftover pork, and walked the short distance over to the park to watch the fireworks that night.  We just got a cool little toy - a camera-sized camcorder that takes videos and pictures.  Here's Charlie's first attempt at using it:

Libby's Lunch & Passaic Falls - weekend of June 23, 2012

One of our favorite books to bring with us when traveling is called "1,000 Things to do Before you Die".  The Northeast (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut) has more than it's fare share of entries.  One of them was a hot dog place about 40 minutes south of us called Rutt's Hut.  We looked it up and did a little internet searching, and found that there are a couple of hot dog joints in the area.  One of the places called Libby's Lunch seemed to have a lot more than hot dogs, which was good since pregnant Katie isn't supposed to eat hot dogs.

The notable thing about the hot dogs in this area is that they are fried as opposed to grilled of boiled.  Libby's calls their hot dogs Texas Weiners (Rutt's calls theirs "rippers"), but the coolest thing we noticed was they were founded by a Greek family and had a special kind of chili.  Sounds very familiar... So we got some chili cheese fries, and it did taste a bit like our beloved Cincinnati chili.  Charlie got a couple of those fried hot dogs, while Katie stayed with the greek theme and got a chicken gyro.  It was very good, and worth the drive.

There is a New Jersey State park right across the street, so we also took a little time to walk around the Great Falls of the Passaic River.  Nothing like Niagara Falls, but still pretty impressive nonetheless.

Baby Furniture & Stromboli - weekend of June 16th

We have been prepping for the baby, which includes Katie doing some of the typical "nesting" while Charlie put together some of the baby furniture we picked up over Memorial Day.  Charlie put together the majority of it downstairs so he could watch the the US Open (golf).  After going to the tournament last year in Washington DC, we just watched the Open on TV this year, so maybe he just missed watching some golf.  It must have been a bit distracting, because at one point he put the wrong screws into the back of the combination changing table / dresser.  But ultimately, it got completed and now sits upstairs.

Griffey was not too sure about this whole endeavor.  He got even a bit more nervous when the furniture made its way upstairs, encroaching his "sun room".

To celebrate, we made a drive down to New Brunswick, NJ - the home of Rutgers University.  One of our favorite show's is called Man vs. Food, which we've talked about before on this blog.  Aside from finding some of the craziest eating challenges, the host finds our kind of restaurants - he finds all different kinds of chow-down joints.  The New Brunswick episode caught our eye since it was so close, particularly a restaurant called...

Stuff Yer Face has a huge menu, with sandwiches and some really good appetizers (of course Charlie tried the wings).  But it's best known for stromboli, and it has the largest stromboli menu I've ever seen. With around 30 different stuffings, a bunch of cheeses and 3 different sizes, there are over 1 billion combinations!  Plus they have over 100 beers from around the world including Banana Bread beer, which Charlie had a couple of.  Needless to say, pregnant Katie was the designated driver :)

Baby Furniture & First "Lamaze" classes

After getting back from our baby showers in Ohio, we realized that we needed to go buy some baby furniture to store all the new presents.  Since Katie works at Babies R Us headquarters, there was no need to shop around at different stores.  She gets a discount and every little bit helps.  So a few weeks ago, Katie tricked Charlie into going to Babies R Us to pick out the furniture by telling him there was one just down the street from his favorite wings restaurant in White Plains (Candlelight Inn).  So after having some wings, we went to the store, thinking that this shouldn't take too long.  2 hours later we left the store with no furniture.  Although we did narrow it down to the furniture style that we wanted, we left the store a bit confused with what the best deal was.

Another week later, we went to a different Babies R Us location closer to our house (unfortunately no buffalo wings for Charlie this time) in Paramus, New Jersey.  Since we knew the exact style of furniture we wanted, this trip was a lot shorter, but we still left the store with no furniture....however this was just because they did not have our style in stock at the store, so we put our order in and the waited for a call in a few days when the furniture would arrive.  The store called a few days before Memorial Day to notify us that the furniture had arrived and to arrange a day to pick it up, so Katie called and confirmed that we would come on Memorial Day, when Charlie was back from a wedding in Ohio, to pick up our crib, changing table and dresser.

Now making it our third trip to Babies R Us for furniture, we figured this would be the shortest trips of all, because all we had to do was hand them our receipt and load up the boxes in our car...oh wait...our truck.  Obviously a crib, changing table and dresser were not all going to fit in our Mazda 3 or Nissan Altima, so Charlie rented a truck from Home Depot.  If you didn't know about this - it's a great deal!  You can rent a truck for 75 minutes for only 20 bucks!

However, when we arrived at the store it wasn't that easy.  We handed them our receipt and waited while they went to the back to retrieve the boxes and waited and waited....apparently they misplaced the boxes and couldn't find our order.  We were about ready to give up and return the truck empty handed, when after 45 minutes they found our boxes...thank goodness!  So Charlie go the boxes home and unloaded them all by himself......now all he has to do is put the furniture together :)  Stay tuned on how that goes.

Easter Weekend

Man, it is easy to fall behind on this blog.  We were caught up to speed, and then we went a few weeks without any posts.  We've got some catching up to do, but the first post we need to do is from Easter weekend - about a month ago.  We went to our friends' Brian and Adrienne's out in Somers, NY for Easter.  It was fun.

Their daughter, Charlotte, is getting bigger pretty fast!  Griffey is a pretty good measure.  A few months ago, we brought him and Charlotte was probably 3 months old.  As most 3 month old babies go, she was not very "mobile".  So Griffey kind of ignored her - he was more interested in sniffing out where the cats were hiding (in the basement)!  Well, now she is starting to roll over and Griffey seemed to think she was much more interesting - and she had toys that he wondered about, too!

We had a fun time at Easter; Brian cooked Lamb and we had a nice Easter dinner.  Charlie and Brian watched the Masters, but Charlie blew it with the DVR!!!  We were watching it on tape delay, and around hole 16 he hit "live" on accident and we weren't able to go backwards - so we were live to the last putt of the playoff hole where Bubba Watson (the notorious jerk - but that's a different story) won the Masters.

It was a fun visit to the Holtmeier's for all the family, dog included!  We got a good snapshot of Katie at week 25...

Ending Winter with Hoboken Green Beer Day

We've been a little sparse on the posts in recent months.  Since Charlie's parents came up in late January, we both got pretty busy at work: Katie's with the Toys-R-Us annual report, and Charlie with testing the 2012 version of KPMG's audit tool.  This is your typical winter for us bean counters!  But we've both, for the most part, enjoyed what we're doing at work - so we can't complain too much.

We have done some fun things.  We've visited our friends Brian and Adrienne - and their newest family member, baby Charlotte - a couple of times.  Adrienne gives Katie great advice on getting ready for our baby, and even lent Katie some maternity clothes.  Brian and Charlie, well... they still mostly talk about sports.

We watched a bunch of Michigan basketball games on TV - they had the program's best regular season in quite a while, winning a share of the Big Ten basketball title after splitting games with rivals OSU and MSU.  But they got bounced early from the NCAA tournament - by Miami's biggest rival, no less, the Ohio Bobcats.  Charlie didn't handle that loss very well.

As the very mild winter has started to drift away, though, we've had a bit more free time.  In the first Saturday of March, a couple of Charlie's buddies headed up to New Jersey for a tradition that he hadn't seen yet.  Charlie's fraternity brothers Jon and Greg took the train up from Baltimore and met with Charlie and Mike in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Greg is a doctor who is living in Baltimore for just a year before he heads back to Miami (FL) for a more permanent stay.  We've been trying to get the 4 of us together in NYC (or Hoboken) as he and I are newer transplants to the area.

Mike has lived in Hoboken since graduating college, and the first Saturday in March has always been a holiday in Hoboken.  They celebrate St. Patrick's Day a couple of weeks early - so this became the annual Hoboken Green Beer Day.  In 2012, the parade was cancelled but the party was not!  We met up a little before noon and picked up Fiore's famous "Beef and Mozz" sandwiches to serve as a "sponge" for the big day ahead.

The day was super nice for early March - sunny and temperature just under 60.  We found a bar we liked near the train stop called Texas Arizona - strange to go to a place named after the Southwest when you're in Hoboken for an Irish event, but it was fun nonetheless.

We met up with some of Mike's friends and, well, basically drank some green beer, watched some basketball, plotted our golf outing for the fall, and ... drank some more green beer.  At some point, North Carolina beat Duke, which was the joint bet we'd all made, so we took an advance on those winnings to ... drink more green beer!  It was a lot of fun to hang out with Greg, Jon and Mike - seeing friends is fewer and farther in between as we get older!

Ultrasound Pics and what we've done so far in 2012

Since the New Year we havn't done too much, other than quite a bit of work (Charlie had to go to Dallas for work) and Katie has been sleeping a lot.  In fact, Katie managed to sleep through most all of the college bowl games while still winning her office College Bowl Pick 'em Pool.  We also watched the Bengals disappointing playoff game at our friend Brian and Adrienne's house in Somers, where they got beat up pretty bad in the 2nd half against Houston.  We brought Griffey over with us - and he did pretty well being around their 2+ month old baby.  Actually, he was much more concerned with the cats in the basement!

Other than being fairly tired, Katie has been feeling pretty good.  This week she said goodbye to the first trimester and entered the 14th week.  Charlie came with to the 13th week appointment and got to see the baby on the ultrasound screen for the first time.  It was amazing.  The doctor measured all sorts of things to gauge if the baby was on track and everything measured just right.  The baby seemed very comfortable in there and started to wave its arms around to say hi to us.  The next 6 months are going to fly by, and although we have lots to prepare before his/her arrival, we can't wait for the baby to get here!

I'm not showing too much yet, but I have noticed a small baby bump starting to form. 

Thanksgiving 2011 - a visit from Katie's parents

For the second year in a row, we did Thanksgiving in Ramsey, NJ.  Unlike last year, we didn't do the Macy's Parade (though we did watch it on TV) and we didn't go to an NFL game (though we also watched plenty of that on TV).  Katie's parents came up to Jersey and we spent Thanksgiving with them.  They drove up on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and spent the week and the next weekend with us.  Griffey sure liked this, as it meant he spent hardly any time in the cage this week!  Katie's mom, Sue took him on at least a walk a day - and he got to spend some good "couch time" with Katie's dad, Bob.

Katie had to work some pretty late nights Monday thru Wednesday because her department was in the middle of preparing the 2nd quarter financial statements for Toys-R-Us.  Good thing for Griffey that he had the Grandparents to look after him.  Thursday, Katie and her mom got up and started cooking all the fixings while Bob and Charlie relaxed on the couch.  They did their part by carving the turkey.   Thursday was basically just spent relaxing and eating and watching football....but isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about anyways?  We watched the Macy's Parade on TV and was delighted to see the Miami University in the parade just before Santa Clause ended the show.

Friday, we had tickets for "Million Dollar Quartet" a play that used to be on broadway but moved off-broadway.  We first ate brunch at a local diner and then took the train from Ramsey into the City.  The play is about one night where Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash get together for a legendary jam session at Sun Records.  It was amazing show....we all loved it.  Afterwords, we walked thru Times Square.

Once we got back to Ramsey, we took Katie's parents to our favorite pizza place - Kinchley's.

Saturday, was the long awaited (over 2,900 days since a Michigan win for Charlie) Ohio State vs. Michigan game.  We made some skyline chili 3-ways for lunch and Charlie was jumping up and down when Michigan pulled off the win over the buckeyes the first time in 9 years.  Charlie had actually attended the last Michigan win - Ann Arbor in 2003.

Saturday evening, we took Katie's parent's to one of our favorite local restaurants called the The Village Grill.  They have really good food and on Saturday night they usually have entertainment.  We were lucky enough to have Katie's parents on the weekend that Lonnie Youngblood was playing there.   We knew Katie's parents would love him.  He is an old soulful singer who sings a lot of Frank Sinatra and songs from the 60's.  Charlie and I discovered him on our date to The Village Grill last Valentine's Day where  we closed down the bar and absolutely loved him.   It was a really fun evening with Katie's parents.

Sunday, Katie's parents helped us put up our Christmas tree and decorations and spent the day relaxing, which it was really nice to have the help.

It was a great week having Bob and Sue stay with us and Griffey really enjoyed having them too!

Some more visits from friends - Week of November 7th

We got to see a couple of Charlie's Theta Chi friends the week of November 7th.  Charlie's buddy Kris was in New York for work most of the week.  So on Thursday, I went down to New York to see him.  We went to a bar down near Union Square, had (what else) some wings, and I was excited to find some Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale on tap!  I was also excited to hear that Kris and his wife Tina are expecting a young one next year - so congrats to them!

That weekend, we saw another friend from Miami.  Our good friend Steve was a fellow accounting major in Oxford - and he did the Masters of Accounting program along with both of us.  Since then, while we've been "bean-counting", Steve has found a calling as an actor.  Steve lives in Philadelphia and was acting in a play in Trenton, New Jersey.  We met Steve in Trenton for a little while before his show at a restaurant called Settimo Cielo (7th Heaven) - which turned out to be an excellent Italian restaurant.  Trenton isn't too crowded on the weekends, but this is a real gem if you're ever there and want some nice Italian cuisine!

The play Steve was in is called "The History of Light", and was showing at the Passage Theatre Company a couple blocks from where we ate.  The Passage Theatre is a former church that has been renovated to house productions like this one.

The play has 4 actors - it's a really interesting story that mirrors two interracial romantic relationships.  Steve played Math, a successful lawyer of about our age.  He's recently re-connected with Sophia, his childhood and college friend / sweetheart who is a talented but struggling musician.  At the same time, Sophia has just received some letters from France from her father's ex-flame - a father whom she has never met.  The play re-counts the difficulties the older couple faced as an interracial couple in the 60's - which they were ultimately unable to overcome - and intertwines it with the changes Steve and Sophia have gone through.  Here's our buddy Steve with the actress who plays Sophia.

It was a great experience to see Steve "in action".  It was cool to see my old friend follow his pasion - a friend who me, Katie, and our friend Bryan shared countless stir-fry lunches at Bell Tower during our Masters year at Miami!  Steve was very good - I think I could almost sit back and see him as his character, which is pretty impressive for someone who I've known for 13 years.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Most Americans know the famous story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.  The short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was actually written by Washington Irving, whom lived and wrote about Sleepy Hollow, New York.  In Irving's story, the schoolmaster Crane vies for the attentions of Katrina van Tassel with Abraham "Brom Bones" van Brunt.  There are many ghosts known to Sleepy Hollow, most notably the Headless Horseman - a Hessian Soldier decapitated during the Revolutionary War who haunts travelers in search of a new head.

Sleepy Hollow is an area in the settlement of Tarrytown and happens to be right over THE BRIDGE (the Tappan Zee, not the one in the story :} ) from us.  Tarrytown has a number of events in the month of October in celebration of Halloween.  We went to three of them on Saturday night, October 8th.  The first is a storytelling of "The Legend" in the Old Dutch Church, which is the church by the burial ground where Crane is attacked by the Headless Horseman and also the cemetery where Washington Irving is buried.  This is told by local storyteller Jonathan Kruk - and was our favorite event of the weekend.  We'd really recommend, if you're ever around New York in the month before Halloween - this is something to do.  Kruk is dressed up in New England 18th century attire, and he really gets into the spirit of the story and halloween.  It's a great thing to do when the leaves are changing and it's Halloween season.  Here's the link to the website.

Before we went to the Old Dutch Church for the storytelling, we had a alittle bit of time so we took a stroll thru the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.  Irving is buried there, but he is not the only famous person there.  Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, oil baron William Rockefeller (brother of John D.) and auto Walter Chrysler (founder of Chrysler Corp.) are all buried in the cemetery.

After the story telling, we walked across the street to Phillipsburg Manor which is transformed into a haunted house for halloween called the Horseman's Hollow.  Katie is a wimp when it comes to scary stuff, so she opted to stay out by the gift shop and Charlie went in by himself.  Charlie was impressed, but things like that just aren't quite that scary when you're 31 years old.

Next stop was dinner and we found this cute little restaurant with great views of the Hudson and the Tappan Zee Bridge appropriately called Bridge View Tavern in Tarrytown.  Great hamburgers and a Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale to tide us over before the last Halloween event!

Our last stop was The Great Jack-O-Lantern Blaze a few miles up the road from Tarrytown, at Van Cortlandt Manor.  Thousands (seriously - thousands) of pumpkins carved into amazing displays.  There were all different sorts of themes - pumpkins carved into a large snakes, dinosaurs, pirates and undersea aquarium of pumpkins.  A really cool experience that definitely put us in Halloween spirit.

(this one was Katie's favorite)