Weekend with the Family

On Thursday last week, Cory's parents made the long 10hr drive from Rochester, NY to Westfield, IN for a visit. This morning, we reluctantly had to say our good-byes as they make the drive back to NY. We've not been able to see Cory's parents since July '08 so this visit was long overdue!

On Thursday we all went out to Outback for dinner - courtesy of the Discover card rewards program! It was an early night for everyone because I had to teach on Friday, Cory had to work and his parents were exhausted from the drive. Cory and I both went to work on Friday and while we were away his parents discovered the charming town of Zionsville and did some shopping. Cory's mother is seriously the grand marshal of shopping - the woman can find sales & bargains better than anyone I know! On Saturday, Momma Albert made us all a French Toast breakfast that could rival any gourmet chef and we decided to go Tuttles to do some festive fall shopping.

Tuttles was packed as usual - however, I must say how bizzare it was going to pick pumpkins on an 80+degree day! We found our wagon, and hit the patches - with the help of everyone in the family, we found 4 precious pumpkins that we had to bring home with us! We won't carve them for awhile, but when we do, I'm going to use the same design that we used at our wedding and in one of them carve a scroll "A". In addition to the pumpkin family, we bought our limit of King David apples, apple cider, fresh rolled butter, apple butter, apple-cinnamon bread and some caramel corn from their farm store. We were very sad to hear that one of the tornados we had earlier in the year did significant damange to their King David apple trees.

Saturday evening I was able to make dinner for the family - usually Cory's mother wants to do all the cooking during their visits, so I very happy when she agreed to let ME cook them dinner! We had crock-pot BBQ pork & cornbread casserole - perfect fall food! Since we'll be spending Thanksgiving in NY this year, his mom asked me to make the cornbread casserole for the family - yay! During their last visit in July, we started a eucher game with boys vs. girls and sadly the boys won that first round in July - well, Saturday evening, Cory's mom and I won our round and we retired as the champions! However, I have a feeling that the game is still on for the next visit! Sunday, Cory and his dad cheered on the Colts from home while his mother and I did some shopping. Then Sunday evening, we took his parents out to Maggianos for the first time and had a lovely dinner.

While we were sad to see them leave this morning, we'll get to have them back in only a few weeks. Cory's cousin AJ will be returning from Iraq on 11/3, so his parents, Aunt Linda (AJ's mom), Ali (AJ's sister), Chad (Ali's husband) and Jessica (AJ's fiance) will all be staying with us on that Sunday night on their way down to Fort Campbell to greet him home!