A Visit from Marnie, Jed, Tara, Jason and Leonids

Boy, some people just won't stay away.

Back in June our friends Tara, Jason, Marnie, Jed (and baby Zoe) came to visit. Apparently our place isn't a half-bad vacation spot, since they were back this past weekend! This time, the excuse they came up with... uh, I mean the reason they came was to watch the Leonid meteor shower; Jason even brought his AstroScan portable telescope to view the stars.

Of course, the weather around here is a little different in November than it is in June; we warned them in advance that we might not see a clear sky during their entire visit. Thankfully, the very first night they were here was perfectly clear, and all 6 of us (minus the baby) laid out in the yard on a tarp, with several sleeping bags to keep us mildly not freezing. We only lasted about an hour before heading back inside, but we did manage to see some spectacular meteors blaze across the sky. Oh, and the Orion Nebula through the telescope. And it's a good thing we took advantage of that first night: every other night was cloudy and/or rainy.

Since this was the weekend just prior to Thanksgiving, we decided to prepare a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving meal, complete with turkey, dressing, cranberry chutney. Why not?

During the less rainy periods when we weren't eating, we enjoyed walking around the property, down to the river, through the trees, etc. We even managed to find a deer skeleton which had been picked clean in amongst the trees.

All kidding aside, at the end of their visit we were all trying to determine when the next visit would be!

- Mike (& Corinne)