Wednesday, December 10, 2008

a giant snowman in New York

I love Thanksgiving. Really, it's one of my favorite times of year. Being with family, focusing on what everyone is thankful for, it's great!

This year for Thanksgiving Jason and I journeyed to Binghamton, NY. That's where my mom grew up and her parents still live there. We had Thanksgiving with them which was super fun! If you've never had Grandma VanVorce's cranberry relish you're missing out big time!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was Grandma and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary so all of their kids, grandkids, and a whole bunch of other people gathered for a big celebration. My sister Rachel is a senior in culinary school and she is especially awesome at all things having to do with dessert. She made about 60 roses out of pale yellow fondant for the cake at the anniversary party and she let me paint the edges of them gold. They were sensational!

Me and Rachel hard at work:


The VanVorce clan at the party:


My grandparents had clip magnets made to give away at their party so naturally as we were cleaning up Jason decided to clip some of the extras to his beard and eyebrows. They made a lot of noise clicking around as he was talking... What a stud! hehe


One of the major highlights of the trip was the gigantic snowman that the VanVorce grandchildren built. We spent a few hours working on it. My grandparents live on a big hill so it was pretty easy to roll the snowballs down the hill and make them huge!

Rachel and I smoothing out the stomach before the boys hoisted it up:



Jason imitating the finished product:


I don't think that guy is going to be melting for a while!