Fun at the Cemetery

Yes, you read the title correctly, stayed tuned for reasons why.... :)

My sister wanted to know if I was alive due to my lack of blogging, and I told her I had taken all of three pictures over the last week and a half.

Here's #1.

Yesterday was Friday the 13th and Collin's eight month birthday.

He has mastered sitting up on his own. He even pulled himself up to a standing position by grabbing on a stand up toy we have. His bottom two teeth finally busted through. That was no small miracle. He was Mr. Crankypants for those couple weeks. Yesterday I went to put him on his stomach and he scrunched up his body so that he landed on all fours. Amused, I stood back and said, "Yea Collin! Start crawling!". To which he turned to me with a look of horror and screamed. You can see the panic on his face. He's looking at me like, "Why the heck did you leave me like this- it's dangerous!" (If you enlarge the pic, you can kind of see the intruding chompers in his gums, but it's blurry)The weather has been A.Mazing. Rach and I have taken advantage of these 50 degree blessings by going on lots of walks. We also went on a little outing on Thursday to the outlet malls in Niagra Falls. It's fun to pack the kids and strollers up and go play "mom". Sometimes it still feels like playing house instead of realizing it's actually my life.

Today it was in the 60's!!! Nov. 14 and 61 degrees. Go figure.

I heard about a really cool cemetery a few miles from our house called Forest Lawn Cemetery. I know what you're thinking, cool and cemetery don't usually go together. But for reals, this turned out to be a good time. Most of the graves were from the 1800's to early 1900's. And they were pretty elaborate. These people wanted to go out in style, and a bit ostentatiously if you ask me.

There were big cement seats here and there, but this one cracked me up. It's shaped like a big sofa! Got to love the self timed camera perched precariously on the stroller, threatening to fall off if Collin so much as sneezed.

This grave/monument had a "scene" going on inside.

It's supposed to be the parents standing over their only son who died of a year long illness.

We also had a picnic by the {mirror lake}.

It was all fun and games until these geese hopped out of the water looking for food. I thought they were going to peck our eyes out. Trav was warming up his foot to give em a swift kick to the head. We aren't animal lovers.

Trav likes to "fly" Collin.

These are the chapel doors. It seemed to also be part of the cremetorium. I was bummed because we were there during their "open" hours but the door was locked. We also went to the "Masoleum Garden" and went inside one of the buildings. I've never done that before and it was quite interesting. It was really cold and austere feeling. I thought it was most interesting to look at the old fashioned pictures of the people. Some had notes left by family members wishing them a Happy Father's Day or something. It was weird to think that their bodies were just beyond the granit "headstones". Why does this stuff fascinate me?

This was a colosseum monument. Pretty unique.

There were so many towering oblisk headstones. I told Trav to stand in the middle of some so you could tell how massive they were.

On our way out I spotted what I thought was a deer statue. Nope! It was the real thing. It was weird because it let us get really close. This picture wasn't zoomed in at all. This is really how close we got to it. I think Trav would have mounted it if I hadn't expressed some concern. Those pointy antlers made me just a bit uneasy.

Some video of the deer escapade.

Not a bad morning! :)