Here's our Rosie waiting for the bus! Boo on Mondays!
What I look like this week.

Always a smile!

Breakfast time at the Gante house

These are lightning stripe tomatos. The last actually to come out of my garden this year. I picked these green about a week ago and let them ripen on the window sill. They taste as good as they look, I mixed them with some diced celery, Feta cheese and a splash of extra virgin oliver oil ;) Delish!!

Okay so here are the Halloween updates as promised. We ended up walking for two hours that night and my girls managed to get themselves, 10 and 1/2 pounds of candy, which was promptly confiscated by the mommy and daddy police!! But it was a great time, and seeing EJ with the realization that a porch light and a doorbell = candy! candy! candy! was priceless. It was like trick or treating with the energizer bunny!

The Gantes about to embark on a candy quest

My modest decorations.

My modest decorations lit up!

Here are Robin and the Tigress getting ready for the party at Ella-Jean's school.

Rosie making a goodie bag!

Go Robin! Defeat those evil apples!!

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

EJ with her teacher from last year Ms. Antoinette

About two weeks ago we made an excursion to the upper Hudson Valley to visit the home of one of the most beloved presidents of our time, Franklin Roosevelt. The grounds of his estate are kept wonderfully with may old buildings and gardens as well as quite a few miles of nature trails, which to our surprise eventually led along the scenic Huson River over to another estate of one of the Roosevelt's close friends the Vanderbilts. The houses on these properties required admissions for the family so we made the most of the good weather and explored the grounds and the surrounding lands. I also managed to get 3 new varieties of seeds for my ever expanding Iris collection at the breathtaking (yes even in the late fall) Vanderbilt gardens.

Our Rosie of the Blessed Sedum.

Rosie bean standing by a naked chick on a cell phone in the main garden at the Vanderbilt estate.

Always looking for a free ride, well as long as they stay little.

This was one of the biggest praying Mantis, I have ever seen. I still cant tell if it was gorged and getting ready for the long winter or if it was ready to give birth. I tend to lean towards the latter.

Little monkey just cant resist a tree

Either of them!!

This is the main house for the Vanderbilt estate. Little small, but I guess as starter house it could do.

Sisterly smooch!The back porch, again slightly on the small side. I always thought these people had money.
a cackle of Gantes!!

Just some of the detail work on the main house. Now I'm sure that not all of this was hand carved but asd you can see no expense was spared when it came to the details of this wonderful place.