Thanksgiving Weekend

For Thanksgiving this year we drove to Iowa to spend the weekend with Tom's family. We don't usually travel for holidays since our parents both live within 30-45 minutes from us. However, all of our siblings live out of state. My sister in California and Tom's brother and sister in Iowa, ten minutes from each other. We usually try to visit Tom's siblings in Iowa each fall and it turned out that our trip worked best to be over Thanksgiving weekend. It worked out really nice as we were able to drive down Tuesday evening and stay until Saturday evening. It gave us plenty of time to have fun with Tom's family and for the kids to play. Especially now that the kids are better able to play without too much supervision.

The drive down was smooth except for a few "Are we there yet?" and "How much farther?" questions from William. We always bring toys and activities for the kids but they prefer to just sit and not do anything while we drive. So we broke out the dvd player after eating dinner and let the kids watch a movie for the last 1 1/2 hours of the drive.

Wednesday was a pretty relaxed day. While Brandon and Ella were at school Tom's sister and I had a little day out. We went to the local mall and did a little bit of shopping. Then we went and had lunch at Red Robin. William had a lot of fun playing with the cousins and all of their toys. Especially playing pretend and dressing up like pirates and playing with Brandon's legos.

Here the kids are in one of their many costume changes. Ella is wearing her pilgrim hat she had made at school that day. Brandon is a pirate captain. Possibly even Jack Sparrow. And William was the first mate.

Thanksgiving dinner was at Tom's brother's house. We filled up on lots of great food. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, broccoli salad, rolls, carrots, and of course pie. The kids all sat at the kitchen table while the adults got to sit in the dining room. We even were able to talk after dinner since the kids could go downstairs and play without too many problems.

Friday was spent getting up early to hit the Black Friday sales. Then we had to try out the Guitar Hero we obtained while at Best Buy for Tom's brother-in-law for Christmas. It was a lot of fun and very addicting. Everyone got a chance to play and there even was some good hearted competition.

In the afternoon we all went to the movie theater and saw Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. I think Bennett especially liked it as he started to holler 'monkey,' ' lion,' and 'elephant' along with making their sound halfway through the movie. That evening the older cousins babysat while the adults went out for dinner to celebrate Tom's dad's birthday early. The kids ate pizza while we went and had great food at the new Ruby Tuesday in Johnston.
We took a group picture of the grandkids which proves to be quite the task each time we attempt it. Between Bennett screaming, trying to get all the kids to smile and look the same way at the same time it's enough to make your hair fall out.
Bennett had a lot of fun with all of the dogs during the weekend. Tom's brother has two huskies which he kept calling 'cows.' But I guess when you see dogs as big as those one could get confused. Lyra and Keisha stayed out in the dog run or in their kennels since William is somewhat allergic to dogs. Bennett especially had fun playing with Tom's sister's dog, Daisy. He wasn't too sure of her at first but after a few days he was looking for her and wanting to play. On Saturday he was petting her and snuggling up to her. Unfortunately there aren't any dogs in our future as William has tested positive for being allergic to dogs. Playing with Uncle Rick and Daisy.

Saturday was another relaxing day of packing up and hanging out. Everyone came over for dinner at Tom's sisters. After dinner we loaded the kids up and headed out. It was lightly snowing so we had to drive a little slower. At Albert Lea we stopped to change the kids into jammies and for a quick snack. When we pulled into the driveway the boys were asleep. All in all it was an enjoyable weeknd trip and one I wouldn't mind repeating soon.