Thanksgiving

Okay, right off the bat I need to apologize for the lack of pictures. I did an embarrassingly poor job of packing for this trip, and one of the many, many things that got left behind was my camera. I didn't even get a picture of Gabriel. And granted, I had my phone to take pictures with which is why I have the few that I do have, but it is not the fastest method in the world and I had my hands full as it was.

So! Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here is our thanksgiving!

This year, we have Thanksgiving in Ponder at Gigi and Papa's house. Michael asked off for this time a month ago so we were certainly going to make it, which was exciting for me. It has been a long time since I have gotten to see most of them because the children and I do not travel well, what with me being pregnant most of the time and the kids being relatively teeny still.

We were hoping to leave Wednesday after Mike worked a half day, but his coworker lost a niece in a fire, so Michael agreed to work late Wednesday before Thanksgiving so that coworker could go to the funeral. When Michael got home at 7, I was supposed to have everything packed and ready to be loaded into the car first thing in the morning because we wanted to hit the road early. Suffice to say, I did not. Normally, I am relatively good at packing for travels. Perhaps a tad over-prepared, but on time and efficient. I don't know what happened this time. Michael comes home, and I have all the laundry washed, but I cannot figure out what to pack.

We kind of toss some bags together, thinking that we will leave Thursday morning and come back Friday--we wanted it to be a longer trip, but it didn't look like we would be able to work it out that way. We figure that what we have will probably suffice, and worse comes to worse we can buy anything else we need while we're there.

Glo and Pawpaw come and see us Wednesday night so they can say goodbye before we leave and give us a card. Our fourth anniversary was on Thanksgiving day this year, so for the most part we would be riding in the car. On the ride down, we actually recalled the trip back from Lubbock after we got married--it was snowing hard and very dark, so we were having trouble reading the road signs, and a trip that should have taken five or six hours took nearly twice that.

Thursday morning, we load up the car with kiddos in warm, fuzzy pajamas with toasty blankets and hit the road by 6.15. It is about a six hour drive, all things said and done, so we expect to get there right before the 1pm lunch. Emerald, Gabriel, and Benjamin, as usual, were very well behaved. They do car rides very well. The night before, we had run to the store and got a new $5 DVD of Pocoyo for if they got too bored. The whole thing went remarkably smoothly--we stopped a few times to go potty and get food or drinks, but we still arrived on time.

Before Michael had even fully stopped the van, the door slid open and I was mauled by my sister, who missed me a great deal. I missed her a ton too--she is one of my bestest friends. Everyone in my family met us as we were getting out of the van, but most of them had yet to meet Mr. Ben Reilly. They all expected little tiny baby, but that has never quite described Benjafriend, lol.

Gabriel did pretty well, all things considered. He only had a few real meltdowns, and only one bad one--a little while after we had gotten there he got overwhelmed and started sobbing, so Amber and I took him outside to sit in the van and have a fruit snack snack.

I love Thanksgiving food--Uncle Robbie fried a turkey and Granny baked one; there was ham and baked squash, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green salad, broccoli rice, asparagus, green beans, rolls, two types of cranberry sauce, and gravy; plus dessert of pecan pie and sugar-free pumpkin pie, lemon bars, and lots more. If it weren't so much work to prepare and about a billion calories, I would want Thanksgiving dinner every month.

After lunch, we went upstairs to try and take a nap, but because the kids had slept on and off all morning they were not terribly interested in resting. When we got up, we took the kids outside because Papa was saddling up the horses.

Emerald loved riding on Fancy--Papa led her around for a bit, and then she rode on Murray with Justin. My cousins Justin and Tyler have goats and live next door to Granny and Papa, so we took the kids to see them. There is one that was bottle-fed because his mother died, so when you try and pet him he nips at your fingers which Emerald thought was hilarious.

There was this one big billy goat that was super chunky. Unneutered male goats will sometimes pee on their own beards or faces for whatever reason--maybe to attract female goats or something--but they smell just absolutely wretched and if you pet them, you will reek too. This fella, Rutger I think they named him, was jealous that all the mama and baby goats were getting all the attention so he would stand on his hind legs with his front hooves on the fence trying to get us to come over and pet him. It was really funny because he was this enormous goat, but he has a soft, high bleet that made me giggle.

For dinner, we had leftover Thanksgiving. Gabriel was spinning in a swivel chair in the computer room and got a little dizzy, ended up puking banana all over himself, including his weighted vest from ECI. We had to run laundry that night, and Gabriel took a bath so he wouldn't stink. When he got out, I dressed him in his warm jammies and fed him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; just as soon as he had taken the last bite, Gabe leaned his head back and fell asleep right there at the dinner table.

I went ahead and took all the kids upstairs to lay down, but after about a half an hour, Gabriel woke up and started crying and would not stop until the wee hours of the morning. You see, one of the many things that Mama forgot was a pacifier for Mr. Gabe, which meant that he was having difficulty soothing himself. Michael ran to the store and bought some, but Gabriel was so worn out and stressed from his long day that he couldn't comfort himself, even after he got the paci.

My family was encouraging us to stay a bit longer, so Michael and I discussed it and decided to try and stay one extra day to get more time with everybody.

In my family, we tend to get up pretty early. Though we had been up most of the night with Gabriel, we still got up at about 7 and were some of the last up. Julia and Mom wanted to go out shopping for the Black Friday sales, so Emerald and I tagged along. Gabriel stayed with Michael, and Benjamin spent the morning with Gigi.

Gabriel and Michael went with Grandpop to Cabela's, a really neat store that has a big fish pond and all these animals about to look at, plus samples of homemade fudge, and outdoorsy stuff. Michael said Gaby really liked the fish the best, and it was nice that him and Daddy got to do something fun just the two of them.

Aunt Julia, Oma, Emerald, Andrew, and I loaded up in the van and went to Justin Boot Store, hoping to find a great deal on baby boots. We didn't find any with great enough prices, so we left there and went into Denton to Famous Footwear. Their clearance shoes were all about $30! I know I am cheap, but at this age, the kids generally wear shoes maybe a handful of times before they outgrow them so sturdy but inexpensive tends to be key. Sears is actually a really great place to get kids shoes because if they wear out before the child outgrows them, Sears replaces them for free. Pretty sweet deal.

We walked down to Old Navy--it was pretty hectic in there. Emerald was struggling to behave and had to be put in the umbrella stroller. Children's Place was a lot quieter and had some really great deals, but I didn't find anything I liked enough to buy. The last place was Mardel's and that was the only store I really struggled in not to buy everything! They had a Veggie Tales DVD special that select titles were only $3, and they had all this Veggie Tales stuff that I just knew Gabriel would love: a Bible illustrated with the characters, books, stuffed animals, puppets, a Pirate ship, umbrella, rain boots, and so so much more. Gabriel hasn't been as interested in Veggie Tales in the past couple of weeks, but I went ahead and got him and Benjamin a DVD each for Christmas anyway.

For lunch, we went to Carl's Jr. I heard that everyone loves there, and maybe my downfall was getting chicken strips instead of a burger, but I was not that blown away. I didn't want to deal with the pomp and circumstance that revolves around me ordering a burger, so I copped out. The chicken strips were good, but nothing to get too excited about--I prefer spicier chicken.

Back at Granny's, we lay down again for nap and rested for a little bit. When we got up, Aunt Cindy and Mom volunteered to keep an eye on the kids so that Michael and I could go out for dinner for our anniversary.

Because of all the recent travelling, we didn't have a ton of extra money to spend, so we ended up at Taco Casa, Michael laughing the entire time about how classy it was to go to a fast food Mexican restaurant for your anniversary. The employee that brought us our food couldn't have been older than 12. Wal-Mart was right next door, so we walked around there for a while and talked about Christmas; got some ideas about what we wanted to do for the kids. I took pictures of things that interested me so that I can kind of get it in my head what sort of things we would like to do before we buy anything. It sounds cheesy, but it was actually quite lovely--Michael and I had not been able to go out since my birthday in June because of the pregnancy and then I don't relinquish new baby very well, so it was wonderful to not have to worry for a few hours and to talk without getting interrupted and to enjoy one another's company.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast before loading up the car and getting on the road about 9. I don't regret staying the extra day, but the wind was blowing us so hard all the way home that I wish we had left Friday or Sunday. It felt like we were getting pushed off the road the entire way. Mom and Butters rode with us back to Abilene; Butters had terrible dog farts that made the whole car stink, lol. For the most part, that trip too was uneventful disregarding the wind. We got home worn out around 4. Ken and Rhonda wanted to take the kids for a couple of hours that night, so Michael and I got our second "date"--this time we were too worn out to go anywhere, so I made us a good dinner at home. It was really nice to have some peace and quiet, we were both so worn out.

All in all, great trip, great family, great Thanksgiving :) I wish that we could do it more, if there wasn't a six hour car ride involved both ways--blech!

--Andie--