Welcome to the Herb Family: "Over the River and Through the Woods to Grammy and Papa's We Go..."

...quite literally in fact! Last Tuesday morning, we loaded up the Xterra for a trip to Stayton, Oregon to visit Andrew's family. We packed all the essentials - one small suitcase for me and one for Andrew, reserving all remaining cargo space for our little princess. You just can't be too prepared when it comes to traveling with a small child. The amount of books and toys needed for the drive alone (factoring the very small attention span) is something of a wonder. Thankfully, we made great time, having to stop just once along the way with a minimum amount of baby drama.

We had a lovely 4 day stay which included romping through Papa Joe's christmas tree farm, a turkey feast that Dan, Kelly and the kids joined us for, and of course a ton of amusement courtesy of the little munchkin.

Samantha was a little shy at first as she became re-aquainted with her grandparents - it had been 11 weeks since their visit to see us back in July. One of the things that helped her warm up was a reading of her favorite book, "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes".

Andrew and I loved showing off Sami's ability to find a particular book after hearing us recite a portion of the story. For example, I can say, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?", and she will sift through her stack of books and pull out the right book and bring it to me to read. She can do this with several books including a nursery rhime book when I start singing, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", her Dr. Seuss ABC book when I sing the alphabet song, and of course if I say, "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes".

Finding a toy in grandpa's pocket - a game that Sami tried to play with me later, but my shirt didn't have a pocket :)

I always look forward to the crisp fall air with the fresh scent of the Christmas tree's in Papa's farm. I was particularily excited about introducing Sami to the farm where she can run around and explore in her daddy's old stomping grounds.

Lots and lots of pine cones and twigs to play with.

Running free! This place is so much bigger than our backyard!

Papa uses different colors of ribbon to mark trees that are for sale or reserved in advance for family. This year we plan to pick out a small tree for Samantha that we will decorate with ornaments that are baby proof. That was I can still have my gourmet tree that love to decorate my way (well, we'll just have to see how that works out).

So happy to be hangin' out with daddy!

Such a lovely backyard. Papa Joe has done a wonderful job on the landscape.

Posing on the backyard water feature

This cute little bathrobe was given to Sami by Andrew's sister Mary.

Cousin Brianna being so sweet to Samantha, sharing her apple. Brianna played and played with Sami. They played the piano, read books, danced the tango down the hallway...