Twin Hochstetlers for Thanksgiving?

We were shocked and delighted to find out a few weeks ago that we would be blessed with another baby. The day after we found out, we received some wonderful news that would sweeten--even more--and color our new pregnancy: my sister-in-law Allegra (Brad's brother's wife) found out the same weekend that she's expecting a baby too!

We've had so much fun calling back and forth and comparing notes. Neither of us was sure about our due date, but we thought they would be pretty close. We found out last week that our due date is November 25, and Allegra found out today that hers is November 23!

HOW FUN!!

I couldn't have asked for a nicer person to share this special time with. Allegra is my first and only sister-in-law (on Brad's side). She will always hold a very special place in my heart and in our family's memory because the first time I met her was when Jackson was two days old. We were blessed to host Allegra, Kevin, Brad's parents, and his sister Jill the weekend that Jackson came home. It was quite a houseful (in our tiny 3-bedroom), but what sweet memories. Allegra hadn't met any of us before, but you would never know it. She walked right in like part of the family. She immediately befriended Jonah and won all of our hearts in one short weekend.


And I'm so delighted that one of my kids will have a cousin close to his/her age. You would think that--with 7 siblings between us--there would be lots of similar-age cousins, but everyone else just isn't in that phase right now. We even thought initially that Kevin and Allegra would wait a while to start their family, but we're thrilled that they've taken the plunge.


Congratulations Aunt Legra! Thanks so much for sharing your enthusiasm with us and embracing this combined experience. We love you and can't wait to meet your new little one!

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

I have a thing for the Macy's parade. I can't remember a Thanksgiving EVER when I didn't wake up with a little thrill because I knew I would soon be smelling good food cooking and watching The Parade. I just can't get enough of those crazy giant parade balloons and, oh, the bands. How thrilling it must be to march in The Parade!


I know it's silly or juvenile or whatever, but maybe my fascination and affection are results of being a band geek. (Actually I should never call myself a band geek. See, in my very small town, the band was cool. Seriously! There were only about 300 people in our entire high school and almost 150 of them were in the band. Unfortunately, my group never got to go to the parade, but several groups before my time made the cut. How glamorous. As you can imagine, I was never familiar with the term "band geek" until I got to college. People in college called us that all the time!) Whatever you call me, I'm a girl who played in various types of bands for about 13 years. I love parades. Especially Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

So last year, as I was watching the parade on TV (for about the 34th time), I thought about how amazing it would be to actually GO to the parade. Believe it or not, we live only about 3 hours from NYC! So while we're living on the East Coast (ish) we should definitely make plans, right? I looked all over the internet and found the best places to stay for parade view, etc. Most of them start (and finish, I imagine) taking reservations on Thanksgiving Day one year in advance and the reservation fee (100% of the room charge) is nonrefundable. I wasn't ready to cough up $400-600 yet, so I put it off.

I sort of forgot about booking a room as the excitement of the Big Day wore off. It turns out that was very good luck and I'm glad I didn't decide to cough up the nonrefundable big bucks, because once again I will be watching The Parade on TV...

in my room on the 3rd floor of Hershey Medical Center. Do you think the smell of delicious food cooking in the cafeteria will be the same as all the other years?

Trip to the Air and Space Museum Annex

It's not the greatest photo, but how cool are we, standing in front of a Space Shuttle?!?!