Tuesday, November 27, 2007

giving thanks
















we were fortunate enough to make the trek north to visit my family in virginia for thanksgiving. we left last tuesday, drove A-L-L day, and arrived at my parents' house around 8:45 that night. we thought by getting up before dawn and leaving by 7 would give us a good start, but it's just really tough to travel with 3 kids and a dog and not make a million stops along the way.

we had the best time catching up with everyone. my dad's sister and her husband even joined us, and the women all spent the night before thanksgiving in the kitchen assembling breakfast casseroles and baking a cake that was my grandmother's recipe. my dad even joined us for about 30 minutes and stirred...and stirred...and stirred the frosting for the cake. it was a blast!

gillian and aedan ran around and expended LOTS of energy in my parents' backyard. their yard is great for that--and there are NO mosquitoes like there are in our backyard this time of year! they collected leaves, played with the dogs, and gave their uncle john (my sister's husband) a real run for his money.

on friday, my mom, sister, and i went (against my husband's convictions for "buy nothing friday," although i appreciated his blessing to go ahead anyway) to potomac mills in DC. since rick didn't want to be trapped inside all day, he ventured to DC as well with gillian and aedan. they went to the zoo to see the panda bears and lions and went to the Museum of Natural Science since aedan is a big fan of dinosaurs.
my favorite part of the whole trip was getting to meet my sister's new baby, jackson. he was born 5 days before rhys, but he weighs almost a full THREE pounds more than rhys. guess our kids are destined to be peewees (except gillian, who will certainly end up towering over her little brothers for sure...she has her dad's long neverending legs!). it was weird and awesome seeing my little sister being such an amazing mother to her little one.

we finally made it back home late last night. it's always bittersweet coming home from a trip like that. there's the "ah, i'm back in my own bed" feeling. but then there's that sort of empty feeling, and lonely too.

here are the best pictures from the trip. hope your thanksgiving was as good as mine!

1 comment:

Amy said...

glad you had such a good time. i have missed you posting!