Focht Family Blog

One of the big reasons we decided to visit New York was so that we could celebrate Samantha’s and Timmy’s birthdays with my in-laws and Nathan’s older sister and our niece. Nathan’s younger sister and her friend came to visit at the same time so we had a huge birthday party. Since we celebrated Josh’s half birthday this year we decided to add him to the mix as well. I arranged for us to go to a place called Young Chef Academy where everyone learned how to make pizza dough and then we all made our own pizzas. Then we decorated cupcakes. I wanted to find something that Josh would enjoy but that wouldn’t be boring for Samantha and Alex. Even the adults enjoyed the night.

Here is a picture of Samantha showing off her goodies from her bag. I bought all of the kids a personalized apron, a chef’s hat, an oven mitt, a spatula, a rolling pin, and a pizza cutter…

Here is a picture of our niece Alex and her dad Jim…

And all of the kids sitting down before we got started…

Here is Joshua helping to mix the dough…

Here is a picture of everyone that I could get in one shot…

Here is a picture of the biggest “kid” rolling out his pizza…

Samantha and Alex working on their masterpieces…

And the bigger kids finishing their pizzas…

Another picture of the kids while their pizzas were baking…

Now for the cupcakes…. I took a picture of each of the kids with their cupcakes that they frosted themselves…

When we were in New York visiting my in-laws we decided to take a cruise down the Erie Canal to go through the locks. Here are a couple of views going down the canal…

And some pictures of everyone sitting on top of the ship…

Here is a picture of an old grain silo that they have converted into an office building. I thought that was a cool thing to do with a grain silo…

Here are some pictures of the locks going each way…

During the trip we had to go under quite a few low bridges. When we were approaching they would remind everyone up top to not stand up. Here is a picture I took as we were about to go under one of the low bridges…

Thursday night was spent at a Walmart in Batavia, NY. This was close enough to Nathan’s older sister that she came over to visit for awhile with her family. The kids were happy to see their cousin Alex again. The next morning my mom and I decided we wanted a hot breakfast so we walked for a little over a half mile to a McDonalds and brought breakfast back for everyone. I bought the kids hotcakes and when they were done eating they decided to create a turtle (Crush from Nemo) from the leftovers…

On Sunday we left our camp and spent a couple of days with Nathan’s parents at their camp. On Tuesday we left and drove from upstate New York to Vermont. Here is a picture of one of the beautiful rivers we crossed over….

And another of Lake Champlain as we crossed over into Vermont…

Tonight we are sitting outside of the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. Tomorrow we have a long day of tours planned. We are starting out with the teddy bears, then heading to Cold Hollow Cider Mill, then to Ben & Jerry’s (I am hoping that I like the flavor they are giving out tomorrow), then to Cabot Creamery. After all of the tours we will be heading to Manchester, NH so that we will be near to one of my Garnet friend’s houses. She has generously offered to teach Samantha about horses and let her help with the morning chores on Thursday so she can earn her horse badges. :)

Nathan’s older sister Vicki graduated this year with a Masters. Nathan’s parents were throwing her a party the same weekend that Samantha and her cousin Alex were camping for Girl Scouts. So we checked into the KOA where the Girl Scouts were camping and got Samantha settled and we drove to Vicki’s graduation party with the boys. Here is a picture of Vicki with her cake…

Here are some pictures of Timmy and Josh playing on the playground before the party….