It’s fall here so I swept some leaves up yesterday. Mirabelle saw her broom and started sweeping away today. I love this picture because she looks just like an adult here, just a lot smaller. Of course if Mirabelle could read this she’d be correcting me right now, “No, I’m big Momma; a little bit big.”

Now that fall has clearly set in (ignore today’s hurricane influenced weather), I actually caught myself day dreaming about the winter. I am now looking forward to cooler weather, a bit of snow, coming home to a warm house (it’s been a bit chilly inside since it’s too early to turn on the heat yet). It is funny how the mind works. One minute I am dreading winter and wondering why I live out here, the next I am looking forward to the change of seasons. Actually I think it has more to do with my thesis than the weather. I know that by the time winter really sets in the thesis should be done. Let’s hope that really happens.

An update on the toddler bed. We are also glad to report that Mirabelle now prefers her own bed to ours. She still wakes up at least once a night, but if she is having trouble sleeping we now threaten her with bringing her into our bed. I realize that wouldn’t work for many people, but it does for her so far.

We’ve done a lot since the last entry. We went to a wedding in California and Govind’s sister’s family came to Ithaca. There was a lot of people to visit and places to go. Needless to say we’ve had a great two weeks. Now back to business at home.

Mirabelle’s new academic year starts on Monday. Cornell has already started it’s fall semester.

Also, did you notice her hair in the last picture? I cut it for the first time. Sorry I didn’t mention it before. It looks nice and is a lot easier to handle. Makes her look older, but oh well, she isn’t really a baby anymore.

More pictures soon, I promise.

We had another fun, but busy weekend. We camped overnight on a friend’s property, had breakfast and said goodbye to other friends who are going to be abroad for a year, and went to a birthday party. Govind and I are tired, but Mirabelle loves hanging out with lots of friends.

We went to Maine to go to my high school best friend’s wedding. The wedding was a blast. Our pictures didn’t turn out that great, but I bet they had some beautiful ones. Here is one of the new couple and their dog. I think it’s cute! Congratulations Beck and Stuart!

We have more pictures of the wedding, some old high school friends and a lot of great pictures of Mirabelle in and around Portland. So check out the Flickr site. Just click on the picture and it’ll take you there.

In this picture she is showing off one of the many starfish she found at the tide pools. We took pictures of the animals, but unlike California, many people were collecting the animals in their sand buckets and showing them off to everyone. I think I saw at least 10 people with 20-50 starfish in their buckets! That’s a lot confused starfish. I feel sorry for these tide pools. Their inhabitants must have a hard life.