Thanksgiving Day Photo Dump

As is the 'norm' for me, I realize on our last day with family that I didn't take enough pictures, and so I spend that day trying to get pictures of everyone.  Unfortunately, Gavin was still not feeling the best that morning and was napping while I was taking a lot of them, and when he woke up feeling better, some people were gone.  So, I didn't get pictures of the kids with every single person, but I did get a lot.  I haven't taken time to edit them, and the lighting/coloring isn't the greatest, but it's the memories that matter.  And since there are like a bajillion of them, I'm just doing a photo dump! :)

Love you all!!!

More fun memories made!

My two favorite nights of our trip to Ohio were night 4 and 5.  On Tuesday night, we headed to Skyline for dinner (minus Jarrod, Tyler, and Gavin, who stayed home to play video games since Gavin was still running a fever) and then came back to the house and had the absolute best time playing Pictionary.  Dad teamed up with both Ty and Bri, and then it was couples - Megan/Kyle, Travis/Ashley, and me/Jarrod.  We laughed so hard and had so much fun. 

After Pictionary was a rather boring game of Rummy that was made fun again when Jarrod got into dad's phone and posted to his Facebook account.  It was so hilarious, we were all in tears from laughing so hard.  Fun times, fun times!  The following night was our Thanksgiving Eve tradition - decorating Gingerbread houses and ordering Chinese takeout.  I LOVE this night. 

I think Mimi was really studying the picture hard here...

The kids especially liked it after Mimi showed them they could lick the icing...

Aunt Briana was a big helper, too!

I didn't get any pictures of our Chinese takeout smorgasbord but imagine $120 worth of takeout...yeah, it was that yummy! :)

Ohio Fun!

After Jarrod and I got a few hours of sleep, we were up and ready to go.  We spent some time hanging out at Mimi and Beepa's house, and then everyone got ready for a trip to the aquarium.  It was fun and the kids loved it.  We finished the day with pizza (from LaRosa's of course!) and gifts for the kids.  We always celebrate Christmas early while we're there, and it makes it fun because the kids have stuff to play with during our trip.

Can you tell in this picture how excited he was to get all the Star Wars DVDs???  And Riley's favorite gift?  New boots!  She immediately had to put them on and dance all around in them.  Somehow, the new boots taught her how to skip!  {Which I wish I had a video of to share...it was really like she was walking with a limp, but she thought she was skipping.}

Around midnight, my mom came in to wake me up and let me know that Gavin, who was sleeping in their room, was up calling for me with a fever.  And so began the remainder of our week dealing with up and down fevers and coughs, until he got meds for bronchitis on Wednesday.  Poor guy!  We missed out on a lot of what we had planned to do, but at least he was around all the family!

The next day, my college BFFs made the trek from Columbus and Cleveland to visit with us.  I was so thankful that they even wanted to attempt the trip.  It's a long way to ask people to come for such a short visit, so I didn't bring it up to them...they asked me if they could come!  Great friends. :)  I haven't seen them since 2011 and was thrilled at the thought of meeting Lilah and Claire finally.  It was actually the very first thing I thought about after I consoled Gavin the night before.  I bet the girls won't be able to come now.  But they did still come, and poor Gavin just had to stay up in my parents' room watching Star Wars and napping.  We all went to Skyline for a quick lunch and then hung out at my parents' house, catching up and letting the kids play.  Giovanni was a trooper; he was looking forward to playing with Gavin, but instead had to sit around with with 3 toddler girls!

Great send off!

We've been missing the Lee family since they've been in St. Louis with Maggie.  They've been a little homesick as well so they decided to head home for a little pre-Thanksgiving dinner with friends, but we were headed to Ohio.  So, instead we had a quick Zaxby's take-out dinner here before we got on the road to Ohio and let the kids play and we caught up with Amy and Pete and snapped a few iphone pics.

 

 Then, we decided to be crazy people and got on the road to drive through the night to Ohio!   The kids were really excited, especially when I busted out the glow sticks!

We made GREAT time and it wasn't too bad driving through the night, but Jarrod did do the majority of the driving.  The kids were troopers and enjoyed their 5am snacks from the cool bins I made from them.  We watched a couple movies and the slept for the rest of the trip! 

We pulled into Mimi and Beepa's house at 6:30am!  I'm sure they loved that wake up call. :)  They played with the kids and Jarrod and I went straight to bed.  More to come...