Balch Family Blog

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We did! We joined my mom, Ken, Cheryl, Ben, Crystal, Traci, Lee, Pat, Stacey and Dakota for Thanksgiving dinner in Tucson. The company was great and the food was delicious. We had some new pies and the Gingerbread Pumpkin was my favorite. The boys helped decorate Gramma Tucson’s house and tree. Camden made our family out of gold ball ornaments! We spent a few days there and came back home Saturday morning. We have decked our halls and put up our tree. The house looks very festive and I have 2 boys that are very excited about Christmas! It is hard to believe that we are just about 3 1/2 weeks away! Can that be?

Here our some pictures from Thanksgiving Weekend:

Stacey, Cheryl, Heather and Crystal at Thanksgiving holding a picture that was taken 15 years earlier.

The big group out to dinner on Wednesday.

Our Tree:

While at dinner this evening, Carsten dropped his second fork on the floor (which happens to be covered in peanut shells). He climbed down to pick it up. I stopped him and brought him back up to his seat. He was so mad at me he bit me! It was the upper inside portion of my arm. It is very tender right now. Ouch!

We are excited to announce that Camden rode his own bike all the way to the park and back today. It is very exciting because he has been so apprehensive since his fall several months ago. Yeah Camden!

Mark went to the Cardinals Football game last Monday for his birthday. He had great seats and really enjoyed himself. I picked Camden up from school that afternoon and he kept asking when Dad was coming home. I told him not until late because he is at a football game. He burst into tears saying, “I want to go to the game too!” Poor guy he was devastated. Trying to calm him down I looked to see when the Rattlers play next. It turns out their season runs March to June. That sent Camden into another crying outburst. (Did I mention how tired he is after school?) To offer a bit of hope I told him I would ask Jodie (the school psych I work with, and her husband is a Higley High School football coach) if there were anymore games. We were in luck! The first playoff game was scheduled for this Friday and it was at Higley High. Last night we went to the game. We paid our $5 admission (far better amount to lose if the boys were miserable over the $100 Cardinals tickets) and we were off to find our seats. We sat with Jodie and her family. She has two boys very close in ages to Camden and Carsten. They were so excited! Carsten was a little nervous but had a great time! He kept yelling “Touch Down!” Camden cheered like crazy! We headed home after the third quarter and went to bed. It was a lot of fun and we might have to go to more next year!

I took Carsten to see Madagascar 2 this morning. He really enjoyed it. He sat through the whole movie and did great! Tonight Mark and I are going to The Salt Cellar for dinner to celebrate his birthday and then to see the movie Fireproof. The reviews of it are all glowing. The Reed’s have seen it and highly recommend it. The boys will be with Gramma Tucson and Papa Ken for the weekend. Mark is playing in a softball tournament all day Saturday and possibly into the night depending on how well they play.

I fear for our country.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Camden went to school, no costumes, no party. His teacher did work in themes: pumpkins, bats, monsters, skeletons and scarecrows each day last week. I think Camden had a lot of fun.

Last night we had some friends and family over for hot dogs, games, and trick-or-treating. It was a lot of fun!

Here is our family (plus Nathan 🙂 !)

Camden:Air Force Pilot *** Nathan: King *** Carsten: Darth Vader

Here are a few more pictures from last night:

Camden is holding his pants up because they were too long.

We had a quiet weekend that was filled with fun stuff. On Saturday morning we went to watch Nathan’s soccer game. He did quite well as a goalie. It was very cute to watch the kids run around after the ball. That afternoon was mellow. I had a baby shower that was a lot of fun! In the evening the boys and I went to watch Mark play softball. The kids had fun but got filthy dirty so it was straight into the bath when we got home. We had church Sunday morning. Afterward Camden went over to Brian and Carrie’s house for a swim. He had a lot of fun! My friends Wendi, Roger and Denver stopped by for a quick visit. Denver is such a sweet baby boy that is full of smiles and giggles! Then this evening we had a little BBQ with Mark’s parents. We had super yummy chicken kabobs. The boys are both in bed and I am ready to call it a night to get ready for the week ahead.

I have put pictures in our gallery!

We did and saw so many things that I am sure to leave out some important information, but hopefully I will hit the good highlights! A note about cab drivers….they were really good when compared to our shuttle drivers.

Day One: Sunday
It was raining a bit that morning and there was a bike race happening that prevented the taxis from picking up in front of our hotel. We walked around until we found some taxis and headed to midtown/Time Square. I had to tell the driver to stop because he drove past our location. I never would have thought I would be giving directions to a New York cabbie! We got our tickets for the hop on hop off double decker bus. Since we were in Time Square we decided to walk around. They were actually filming a movie there. We walked over to Rockefeller Center and saw the set of the Today Show. Then we decided to head up to FAO Schwartz and Central Park. We grabbed a hotdog and a knish from a vendor. Both were ok, not great. In Central Park we caught the HOHO Bus. We were tired and ready for a ride. The uptown loop took us up to Harlem and around the Upper East side. We saw many museums, where John Lennon was shot and lots of great architecture. We went into St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was amazingly beautiful! There was a Mass going on and the place was packed. We switched buses to do the downtown loop and headed toward Little Italy. We saw many spots from one of my favorite shows, Sex and the City. Greenwich village was quaint and I would have liked to do some shopping there. We got off at Macy’s and walked over to the Empire State Building. They were having a parade for Polish Day so 5th Ave was closed. Apparently there are many parades there. The Empire State Building was awesome. The wait was short and we had beautiful clear skies to see the city. There was even a marriage proposal while we were up there. Canal street was our next stop. Camden went down to check out the subway system. He liked it and was able to see the R train that goes up the west side of the island. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant in Little Italy. The pasta was yummy. The boys and I took a taxi back to the hotel because they were exhausted.

Day Two: Monday

We decided to start with the most somber site, Ground Zero. There is a lot of construction going on as the rebuild. The Tribute to WTC 9/11 was quite moving. The impact of that day was well portrayed and tastefully presented. We were all very sad. After that we decided to head to Seaport and get our Water Taxi to see the Statue of Liberty. Camden really enjoyed this. Carsten went along for the ride. He did seem to enjoy being with the family, but he wasn’t overwhelmed with any of the sites. We had a nice lunch and then decided to do the rest of the downtown loop. Traci and Lee had to hop off and catch a cab back to the hotel at Time Square to make it to the airport in time. We finished the Downtown Loop and walked back to our hotel. We stopped at The Stage Door Deli for a true New York Deli sandwich. We went back to our room to rest and eat.

Day Three: Tuesday

We took a shuttle to the Newark Airport to rent a car and drove to Hamburg New York. We arrived safely and had a quite dinner with Traci and Lee and Liza (their dog).

Day Four: Wednesday

This was a restful day. We walked down the road to the barn to see the horses and goats, played in the backyard and hung out. It started to rain in the afternoon. That evening many people came over for dinner including: Lyn and Leah (Lee’s sister-in-law and niece), Virgina and Vinny (Lee’s parents), Pat (Traci’s mom), Henry and Kristine (his fiance). We enjoyed and great BBQ dinner thanks to my super grilling hubby! A little rain never bothered him!

Day Five: Thursday

We had plans to go to the Finger Lakes and visit some wineries out there, however plans changed when Carsten wouldn’t walk on his foot. He made a visit to a local urgent care and got all checked out. It was just a sprain and he needed to rest it. Because most of the morning was gone we decided to go to Pumpkinville and Ellicottville instead. It was nice. The boys each got a very small pumpkin to bring home and then one a little bigger to carve. Then we went out to lunch in Ellicottville. The boys carved the pumpkin and we ate yummy leftovers.

Day Six: Friday

We had a leisurely morning. We played in the back yard and took some family photos. Then we headed to some closer wineries. While Lee, Traci and I tasted wine, Mark and the boys would explore the grounds finding millipedes, apples, ponds, playgrounds and many other fun items. We went to Mayville and had dinner on the Chautauqua Lake.

Day Seven: Saturday

We spent the morning coloring, playing in the yard, collecting acorns, finding leaves and packing up. We took some family photos and Henry and Kristine came over too. We had some chips and dip in the driveway and chatted for a bit. We left for the airport and we were on our way home.

We will add many of the 496 photos taken to our gallery. I will try to get that done in the next week or so.