Growing Up Reissy Cup: October KY Trip

This year we elected to go visit our KY family in October instead of our usual summer and Christmas breaks. We had really hoped to go during the summer, but it took us awhile to find a new rental home and then we had to pack/unpack and get settled prior to school starting back. I'm really glad I didn't add a cross country trip for five into all of that madness. We still could have gone back for Christmas, but that would have been the third year in a row we flew at Christmas. We wanted to enjoy a simpler experience this year and have the children wake up in our home Christmas morning. When we fly home for the holidays, the cost of 4-5 tickets pretty much destroys the Christmas budget before we even buy one single present. My parents were in the process of building a new home and were scheduled to move December 30th. While I wish we could have been there to help them, we really wouldn't have had a place to stay in BG while we were visiting. So, for many reasons we didn't feel a Christmas trip would be great timing this year. We settled on October because it is one of our favorite months in KY--not too cool so we can still do lots of outdoor things and not too hot as it often is in the summer. I was hoping to see some beautiful fall foliage, but the leaves had just began to turn. We were a little early for the peak color. Also, our baby girl turned one Oct. 20th! First birthdays are meant to be shared with grandparents. It was so sad for me when Caleb turned one soon after we had moved to CA and we had no family to share in our celebration.

Emily did not get a full week off of school in October. Her full week off is in November for Thanksgiving week. We got approved for her to take some homework with her and we signed an independent study contract. This worked out nicely and gave us the freedom we needed to be away a week in October.

Here's some highlights from the KY trip! This is a long, photo-heavy post, but I'm just not making separate posts for BG and Louisville and Birthday, so here it all is!

Caleb enjoys sliding at Jackson's Orchard with Nan and cousin Maddie

Baby girl's first trip to the orchard.

Sand play

Sweet boy with his uncle Stephen.

Emily thinks that going to KY = horse riding.

We are all about the apple slushies

And the caramel apples!

AK was not really feeling this photo op.

Fun cake bunting courtesy of Etsy

Anna Kate's first birthday cake was a pumpkin spiced cake with cream cheese icing

Pic with the cousins minus the three Burnham boys. Can't wait to have them all together again summer 2016.

Cute smile. Love her!

Mom and Dad with the birthday girl.
(Nancy was traveling to NC to help Jennifer and the girls with the road trip to Louisville. We were able to see our Reiss family for the second half of our trip.)

Fun pumpkin painting

Thankful for presents!

This is probably their favorite thing to do when we come to KY. :)

Four generation pic

AK with Uncle Stephen and Becca on a casual Sunday afternoon at their home

Pop and AK look so sweet together

The grands

Last day with Nan and Pop.

This little niece is growing up way, way too fast! I probably won't be holding her next time we visit.

We started the Louisville portion of our trip with a park play date at the Beckley Creek playground.

And met our sweet little niece, Kathryn, for the first time

Poppy and Anna Kate bonded pretty well!

We enjoy visiting Huber's orchard and winery during fall visits to KY.

Sweet sisters!

So cute of these gals!

I included this pic because Jen and I had a good laugh that it looked like Jeremy was praying over Dinkney! In reality, he was just looking down away from the bright sun until it was time to say "cheese."

I just love this pic of Jen and me with our babies and Ergo carriers. The timing of our Huber's outing didn't work out too well for Caleb or Anna's nap time. Thankfully, she was still small enough to fall asleep on me when she too exhausted to go any longer. That meant no cute photo of the three of my kids together, but sometimes a mama has got to keep the peace. An overtired baby is no fun for anyone!