Dad's dream come true!

We recently took the Young Women to see "A Christmas Carol" at Proctor's in Schenectady. It was the musical version, and was very well done. We ended up with one extra adult ticket, so dad got to tag along as our Priesthood protector (a vital component of any trip to downtown Schenectady!) As you all probably know, "A Christmas Carol" is one of dad's favorite musicals. He was very disappointed though that they didn't include "I Hate People" in the Proctor's version. I have included the song at the end of this post for your personal enjoyment!

The funniest part of the whole evening, I thought, was watching the Young Women all rush out during intermission to purchase armloads of candy and soda so that they would make it through the second half of the show.

Back by popular demand....

Okay, we're going to do the Christmas gift exchange again this year like we did last year. Bekah and I performed a completely random pull-the-names-out-of-a-hat routine, and this is the list we came up with:

Rob gives to Rachel
Mindy gives to Nicole
Matt gives to Jake
Amy gives to Rebekah
Jake gives to Matt
Nicole gives to Jeff
Rachel gives to Rob
Jeff gives to Mindy
Rebekah gives to Amy

Also, Dad and I were talking, and we'd love to have everybody get together at some point around Christmas at our house in Heber. Right now we're thinking of possibly getting together on Christmas evening for dinner and the gift exchange. We don't want to make people feel like they have to come on Christmas if they have other plans though, so please let me know what you think. If you'd rather do it the day after Christmas, or something like that, we're flexible!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

We are officially in the Christmas season now. I know because we made our annual trek to the JCPenney Doorbuster Special this morning. We were lax this morning though - we didn't get there until 8:00 a.m.! We did have a nice Thanksgiving, with all the trimmings. Grandma and Grandpa Field came, and we enjoyed a nice meal. It was fun to visit with them. They are doing great.

We hope you all had a great day. We love you and are thankful that you're part of our family.

Brandon and Julie's Wedding

I'm back from my trip to Nauvoo for Brandon and Julie's wedding. It was a lovely wedding, and apart from the tediously long 8 hours spent in Quad Cities Airport trying to get on a flight to get home, it was a great trip! I finally made it to Albany, via Atlanta instead of Minneapolis, and only 5 hours later than I was supposed to get here! It was fun to see the Hendrickson family. Brandon and Julie looked very happy, and Todd, Becky, Matt, and Nate all looked great as well. It was fun to see Grandma Allred and Emily Pitts again, and to spend time catching up with all of them. Here are a few pictures.

Lazy Sunday afternoon...

Today was a nice, quiet Sunday. Dad went to the Hudson Branch Conference, Bek and I stayed in our ward. After dinner we had FHE. It was stimulating, as always. Here's a picture of Bekah when we were finished. She was actually sleeping like that, believe it or not.

In other news....I'll be flying to Nauvoo on Wednesday afternoon. I'm going to Brandon Hendrickson's wedding. Grandma Allred is picking me up at the airport (the Quad Cities airport in Moline, to be exact!) Emily is flying in about the same time as I am. We'll be staying together in Moline that night, then going to Nauvoo on Thursday morning. The wedding is Thursday afternoon, then I fly home Friday morning. Should be a fun little trip!

Pumpkin Carving

Well, it's definitely fall on the east coast. The leaves are getting really pretty now. For Mutual last night, we had a pumpkin carving contest. We were really focusing on missionary work - it was a "Bring a Friend to Mutual Night". I thought it was a great success! We had 12 YW there, including one girl who has been totally inactive for several years, and we had 5 nonmember friends. The girls had fun carving their pumpkins, and just being together. The downside was that we had those yucky cider doughnuts for dessert. I hate those things! Anyway, here are some pictures from the activity. Bekah brought Carly, and they both had fun.
The winners of the contest received the much coveted prize of googley-eye glasses!

Fun at the local Price Chopper

Oooooh! Look at my cute Halloween blog! Thanks Bekah, it's adorable! I, of course, don't know how to do a single thing on my blog other than type words. For everything else, I have to get Rebekah's assistance. But that's okay - that's probably the highlight of her day (as you can tell from her latest post!)

I really don't have anything exciting to report, but I will tell you a funny thing that happened the other day. I was at Price Chopper doing some grocery shopping, and I rounded the corner and practically ran into the funniest thing I have ever seen in a grocery store: There was a little old lady (I'm guessing around 70), short and kind of hunched over. She was shuffling along pushing a grocery cart, and (here's the funny part)... she was wearing a blue troll doll wig. Do any of you know what troll dolls are (or were?). They had this stiff, colored hair that stuck straight up. Well, that's what this little old lady was wearing on her head. I wished I'd had my camera with me, because it was hilarious. The funniest part was that she didn't look like she was doing it as a joke - she was all kind of grumpy and cranky looking, and oblivious to the stares from fellow shoppers. I can only hope to be able to have that kind of fun when I'm 70!

Conference Weekend

We went to Millbrook on Sunday to watch conference with the family and to celebrate Grandpa's birthday (I'm not sure how old he is). It was nice to see Grandma and Grandpa - they're both doing very well, I think. Grandpa got his usual stash of candy for his birthday, which we all liberally partook of! John and Kathie Baardson were there, as were Blaine, Robin, Heather, and Aaron. It was fun to see everyone. The drive down was very pretty. The Taconic Parkway is beautiful anyway, but the leaves are starting to change colors, so it was especially nice. John and Kathie are living in the D.C. area, at least for the next year or so, so we are thinking of planning a trip down there to visit them and to see all the sites. Bekah hasn't been there since she was way little, and of course, doesn't remember much. It would be a fun trip!

How to distill the excitement of our lives down to just a few paragraphs??.....

Okay, Rachel says it's time for a new post because the last one was boring. SO, this one will be so much more exciting since so many more things are happening now....

Let's see...I'm still working in YW's and liking it (I give my thanks every day that I don't have Rachel's calling!) Dad and I recently went on the stake youth temple trip to Boston and had the pleasure of riding on a school bus for 6 hours. That's when you know you have a testimony! (Why else would you squish your abnormally long legs into seats meant for 8 year olds for 3 hours at a pop?) But the temple experience was really nice, and it was fun to share it with Dave and Bekah. I'm trying to plug forward with my classes. Unlike Rachel, I did not get all my learning taken care of while I was at BYU. Believe me - I wish I had! The assignments are challenging because they require DRAWING. Yes, it's true. I'm supposed to DRAW. Any of my children who grew up being entertained by my stick-figure masterpieces knows that this is quite a stretch for me. And unlike Mindy, I don't seem to be improving much! Dad's finally going skeet shooting tomorrow. He hasn't been for a very long time, so hopefully that'll be fun for him. He's going with our duplex neighbor. (Our neighbors are a cute young couple with an adorable little one-year old name Andreas.) Also tomorrow we're going to go apple picking. The leaves are turning, and it's starting to look really pretty back here. Yay for fall in New York!

Back to the coal mines.....

Well, we just returned from a veeerrry extended vacation to Utah. Bekah and I were out there for close to a month! Now it's back to New York and work, school, etc. We're trying hard to get back into a routine,but it takes a while. Meanwhile, we did have a great trip! It was so fun to see all of our kids, and to catch up on their lives. I'll mention here some of the highlights of the trip:

Jake and Nicole's wedding
This was, of course, the main reason for our trip out west. We are so happy that Jake found such a wonderful young lady to add to our family (and to our already stellar daughter-in-law collection!). We love Nicole and are so happy to have her as a Field!

Here are some pictures from the wedding.




Getting re-acquainted with baby Abby
Abby's at that stage where she's not sure she's all that fond of strangers. And we're strangers, unfortunately! But we had lots of fun playing with her and trying to get her to like us! She's a real cutie, and it's fun to see how she's grown!



Weekend at Bear Lake
Some of us took a little trip up to Bear Lake for a weekend. While there, we decided to try our hand at wakeboarding. Turns out we have quite the talented family! It was lots of fun. We also did to ATV riding up in the mountains - it was beautiful as always up there, and we got nice and dirty!



Other miscellaneous fun stuff
We also did lots of other fun things, some of which included: helping Amy sew roman shades for her new house (they came out super cute!); spending a day in the neighborhood park in Heber playing with Mindy, Abby, Rachel, and Bekah; going to BYU's opening football game (which they won - go Cougars!); Bekah spent a fun-filled weekend with Jeff and Rachel; visiting with family who came to the wedding; and in general just spending time with family. What could be better!

New digs

We're pretty much settled in our little duplex. It's not bad - other than the fact that half of our clothes are stored in wardrobe boxes in the basement! Other than that, it's almost a perfect fit! (Well, it would also be nice to have one more shower in the place - Bekah definitely could use a bathroom of her own.) Here are some pictures.

Moving.....again

Moving day is fast approaching. We've started boxing things up, taken pictures off the walls, packed up knick-knacks. We're at the point now where it doesn't look so much like a home - mostly just a house! Sigh. Oh well, I'm actually really glad to have this contract and to be scaling back. Who wants to spend 4 hours every Saturday mowing the yard, and hours and hours cleaning toilets (5 of them!) and dusting? Not us! So we are happy about downsizing. It just feels kind of awkward in the interim. Not to worry, though! Soon we'll be in our lovely (well, not OURS, really) little duplex with only 2 toilets to clean and a teeny little lawn to mow! Yay!!!

Things to see before leaving the East coast

We have lived on the east coast for a total of 21 years (man, I was practically a baby when we first came!) It looks like after all those years, our days back east are numbered. There are a lot of things on the east coast that I would really like to see and do before we leave (some of them we've already seen, but they're worth seeing again!) because who knows how much we'll get back out here once we make the trek west? So here's a list of the top ten places I want to visit before we leave.

1. Nantucket and/or Martha's Vineyard (I've heard that fall is the perfect time).
2. Historic sites in Boston.
3. The White House (an official tour this time) and other sites around DC.
4. The Washington DC Temple (for old time's sake).
5. Niagra Falls and the Niagra Parks Botanical gardens.
6. Lots of cute little Vermont villages.
7. The Keene, New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival (and other important historic sites around Keene, such as the birthplace of Jacob Allred Field).
8 Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home).
9. Prince Edward Island (once again!).
10.The coast of Maine.

Now we just have to find enough unencumbered weekends to do some of this stuff. That'll be the trick!

Summertime fun!

Bekah's favorite time of the year is here again.....swimming time! Yay! The only problem with Bekah and swimming is - that she wants ME to swim with her all the time. And let's be honest here - swimming doesn't rank in the top 10 of my favorite things to do. Unless, of course, it's 95 degrees and humid outside, and I've been working out in the garden, and I'm sweating like a pig. THEN I like swimming. Anyway, Bekah's back in the pool and having fun. Here's a picture of her perfecting her skills.

New family tradition is born!

Okay, I think we have a new family tradition (or traditions) - and they're called....Klondike Carmel Pretzel Bars!!! They are so yummy! You know how dad always (well, he doesn't do it as much as he used to) would go and get pretzels to dip in his ice cream? Well, someone finally got smart and put pretzels, ice cream, caramel, and chocolate together in one super yummy treat! This may even have the power to rival Chipy Whichys as a Field family favorite. They've been on sale at Price Chopper for the past couple of weeks (you know how we Fields feel about bargains!). So we bought some, (and then some more, and them some more....) and now we're hooked! Go out and try them. And think of us while you savor every delicious morsel!

Almost 4 months later....

Well, here we are almost four months down the road! I never have been much of a journal writer, but I'm repenting here. (At least for today!) There have been at least a few important things that have happened during that time. Here's a sampling:

1. Rachel married Jeffry Brown on April 28th in the Palmyra Temple. It was a wonderful day, and so nice to share it with so many of our very favorite people! Jeff's a great young man, and we're so happy to have him in the family! (And he may even be getting used to us by now!)

2. Jacob is engaged to Nicole Apgood. They'll be married on August 18th in the Manti Temple. We're excited for them both and are looking forward to adding Nicole to the family. She's a wonderful girl!

3. We loved having everyone home in April for Rachel's wedding. It was fun to introduce Abby (our adorable little grandbaby!) to her great grandparents. Just having the house full of family was so much fun!

4. We've sold our house and are moving temporarily to a rented duplex. Now that will be interesting...

5. I'm still plugging away at school.

Those are a few of the highlights. A pretty exciting 4 months!

Snow, snow, and more snow....

Yesterday (Valentine's Day) we had a lovely snowstorm here in New York. It snowed like crazy all day long, and by the end of the day we had racked up over two feet of snow! Today it's not snowing, but the wind is blowing all that snow from yesterday around, so it's almost as dramatic! When the wind's not whipping around though, it's very pretty.

I'm a grandma!!! (ooh boy......)

On January 11, 2007 I became a grandma when Abigail Field was born into the world! The thought of being old enough to be a grandma is kind of scary, but actually having a grandchild is so exciting! So I guess I'll forget about the old part, and just enjoy the cute little baby part. Bek and I flew out to see Abby when she was 10 days old, and she's a cutie! We get to go see her on Saturday (for her blessing on Sunday). I'm sure she'll look way bigger.