THANKSGIVING 2016

This Thanksgiving was bittersweet - it was the first one without my grandma, and the last one in her house ever.

It was still a happy Thanksgiving. My grandma raised such a wonderful family (eight kids!) and I love my aunts and uncles and cousins so much.

(Even when I have to answer how I like to Chicago, how my job search is coming, how Joe is, and how the rest of the Appalachian Trail was to each and every one of them. ;p )

We ate lots, caught up lots, and laughed lots. My ten year old cousin also tried to school me on the concept of infinity... so yeah, there's that too.

Hope you had a good one. xo

Christmas Day + More Rochester

Christmas Day and the day after Christmas were spent with my other side of the family: The Gugel's (pronounced Googles). They're the one I always go to the 1000 Islands with. Here are some bits from those days... 

For the record this gnocchi recipe is out of this world delish. My mom has made it the last two years and both times it has been the first thing that runs out!

We did a white elephant with presents that were all under $5 this year. As it turns out, $5 can buy quite a lot. I ended up with a tupperware container. It probably doesn't sound exciting, but I was actually quite excited by it. Hah. 

From the very end of the night when the selfie stick came out. What an odd (yet fun) contraption. Am I allowed to say that without being judged?  

And then we made it to the day after Christmas. On this splendid day, the gang went for a long walk after breakfast. One of my favorite things about my Gugel side of the family is that everyone is so active. Our time in the 1000 Islands every summer is definitely a testament to that. Everyone fills their days with morning hikes, followed by afternoon paddles, followed by late afternoon swims, and then evening walks or field games. I hadn't exactly realized that until the first time Joe ever came with me. I had taken him for a hike in the morning and while we ate lunch he was like, "Well that was a fun day." And I was like, "But it's not over - the activities are only starting!" I do love my fam-peeps though. 

After we finally made it back from our walk, it was time for some lunch and goodbyes. Afterward, the immediate fam hit the road to the Adirondacks. Not without stopping at the Genesee Brewery first though! While we had just planned on getting a Christmas gift for our family friend who is a Genesee Beer junkie, we ended up sharing a quick flight before hitting the road again. This was my favorite.

Cheers!

Christmas Eve

So I'm back to regular posting and here to say, merry many days after Christmas Eve! After my birthday and a day in Westchester, the immediate Oliver Family drove up to Rochester. Our first stop was to spend Christmas Eve with the ever-so-extended Oliver Family. As I mentioned last Christmas Eve, they're a riot. (Do you have any funnies in your family?)

Here are some of the events that transpired:

- After chilling together all night, my cousin's kids never couldn't remember my name. Oh kids.

- However, my grandma didn't call me by the wrong name (always happens to someone in huge Oliver Family gatherings).

- My cousins and I still managed to not be so grown up and laughed during the meal blessing.

- My aunt made red velvet cookies that weren't red (???) and didn't contain gluten.

- I drank the perfect amount of whiskey sours.

- And ate three servings of mashed potatoes.

- My grandpa and uncles talked about all the crazy punishments their Catholic school nuns put them through.

- My aunts, grandma, cousin, and I all Facebook stalked (and gossiped about) the girl my cousin is dating that no one had met yet.

- My high school aged cousins obliged and accepted the older cousins' Snapchat requests.

- And somehow, I miraculously managed to stay up past eleven.

Thanksgiving 2015

Hello, hello! Just popping at the end of this Thanksgiving weekend to share some tidbits from Thanksgiving. This year my family celebrated at my cousins' house. Now that everyone in my family is post-college-aged, everyone talks to everyone and we didn't actually have a kids table this year. Or we did, except my aunt, uncle, and dad volunteered, and it was pretty funny. As for the picture above, that's nine of the twelve of us at Thanksgiving this year since, well, there's only so much you can fit in a photo without a selfie stick lol.

Here's plate number one. The amount I ate. Oh lordy. Three of these plates + four glasses of Pinot Noir and Riesling + M&Ms + a boatload of cheese and crackers and spreads. The fullness level... I haven't been this full in over a year. Also I hit that pants-unbuttoning, no pie for dessert level. Probably TMI, but it's true. 

The lady on the right is my cousin Kelly! We were born a week apart and sat next to each other at dinner. The whole time everyone kept commenting on how we look so much like sisters. Every so often, we'd find my aunt staring at us and we'd be like "What?!" and she'd say it again haha. I think it's just the brown hair, but what do you think? 

And this is Kelly's dog Coco! No one in my family has ever had a dog, so having a dog under the Thanksgiving table was a new experience. Coco was a total sweetie though and was spoiled along with the rest of us with more food than usual on Turkey Day. It only seemed fitting! 

More grandparent selfies! Seriously though, what sort of world would it be if millennials didn't take selfies with grandparents at family holidays (and help them set up Facebook profiles and the like)? Also, if you're looking to laugh, look up the hashtags #grandmasfirstselfie and #grandpasfirstselfie. 

After dinner, everyone played Trivial Pursuit. It ended up being the under 30 year olds against the over 30 year olds, except since the game was from the late 1980's, my team struggled on the answers. We still managed to get enough easy questions and hints to only lose by 5 points so it was a pretty valiant effort and the laughs were aplenty with our bad answers and the even worse hints. Anyway, that was Thanksgiving for the Oliver fam. How was your holiday?

Thousand Islands 2015 :: Part 2

So where did I leave off?

Day 3. That's right.
On the third morning in the 1000 Islands (to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas, of course), Joe and I went for a shorter hike to the water tower. Joe is such a good sport for letting me drag him out on adventure after adventure (whilst letting me taking funny pictures of him). This hike was pretty short and actually over before we knew it. On our way back, we managed to take a trail right into someone's backyard and the hike was over like that!

After the hike we got ice cream and sat out in the sun along the water before an impromptu jump into the river. (More like I begged him to be "spontaneous" with me for fifteen minutes before he caved, but we both enjoyed it).

Just a few "postcard worthy" images. I could totally see that middle one as a "Wish You Were Here"

(A vision is a vision.)

Joe's bartender. Dare I say that he was pint-sized?  

Our next adventure of the day was golfing. I figured it was only fair that I joined, since Joe had already gone on so many of the adventures I wanted to go on.

My mom got a par! 

Joe did too! 

I didn't, but here's me looking all professional.

(Spoiler Alert: It was the first shot of a hole where you have a tee so hitting the ball is 20x easier.)

 
More of me looking professional (and slightly blurry)! Because I'm all about looking professional (and slightly blurry?) ;p

All in all golf wasn't too bad (even though I was pretty bad). I took a bunch of chunks out of the golf course with my swings, lost track of my score, and sometimes had to pass off my real swings where I totally missed as "practice swings", but that's what learning golf is. I also think I'll judge people who watch golf on TV a little bit less now. 

The rest of our trip involved a lot of the same great sort of stuff as before. Walks around the island, swimming, kayaking, familying. All so good. 

On our last night my family had a picnic on one of the greens like we usually do. This picture is so good. It's Hannah being sad about being left out of Joe and Conner's bromance and all I can think is, Me too Hannah, me too haha

And here are a just a few more from our last night: 

And this one is from Sunday morning at Church. 

Since it's a pavillion-style church, sometimes people bring their small dogs. Someone's dog got loose and they didn't catch it for 10 minutes since it went back in the wings! Everyone was laughing so much. 

And that was 2015's trip to the Thousand Islands. A wonderful one as always. I love the Thousand Islands and my family. We've got something good going and it's nice to always want to go back each year.