Thanksgiving Day 2013

This year Thanksgiving was pretty low key for our family because we only had one place to go for a meal - our house.  I started the morning by going to a boot camp class with Ness and some neighbors which I paid for for three days by barely being able to walk!  Even though we were hosting the get-together, I only had to have a clean house and heat up some corn.  Everyone else brought all the real food.  We had a traditional Thanksgiving meal with 17 people.  Afterwards, we visited like normal, took naps, watched Trevor play and explore, and took turns driving Jacob's fast car.  I only took a few pictures.  

Everyone was gone by 4:00 and we had the whole rest of the evening to chill.  At one point we were all 4 snuggled in my bed - Allan was watching football, the girls were watching something on the iPad, and I was  on my phone doing Facebook.  But at least we were all together, right? We had a leftover picnic on our bedroom floor for dinner and we were all in bed by 8:30.  That's my kind of holiday!

 Honey and Trevor sit (for a whole 3 minutes) to read a book.

 Honey gets some snuggle time in with Jon before he leaves for Virginia in two days.

 The little ones (minus Fred) eat some pumpkin pie!

SLSC

We celebrated Delaney's fantastic PT conference and Daddy's first non-retail holiday in 16 years by going to the St. Louis Science Center on the day before Thanksgiving.  We got there right when it opened and it wasn't very crowded at all.  Mama and Papa came with us so they could go see the Jerusalem Omnimax while we did the Harry's Bug Adventure exhibit.  We had never been to SLSC before and it was the perfect time to go.  We all had fun goofing around.  Our favorite part was the huge contraption in the main lobby that balls would travel through.  I don't know how to explain it except that it was like the game Mousetrap on steroids.  After playing for a couple of hours we tried to go to the Boathouse for lunch but there was a 45 minute wait.  We went to Crepes, Etc. instead and had a delicious lunch of nutella crepes, quiche, farmer's cheese pancakes with lemon curd and blueberries, and chicken salad.  Yum!

 wind tunnel

 This captures our girls' personalities perfectly.  Delaney didn't want to get near the viewing hole for the highway underneath and Harper practically laid on it!

 She finally got up the nerve.  

 This is the contraption in the lobby that I was talking about.

 The girls dress up as Terminix exterminators to go find all of the bugs in the exhibit.

 Cutie!

 Harper and I let a millipede crawl on us but Delaney said No Way!

Fun with the Garman Gang

We kept the Garman kids for an hour while Scott and Sarah went to Alayna's PT conference.  It was two nights before Thanksgiving, but Gavin's dad was testing out his Christmas display, so we decided to take a field trip and drive by.  I'm sure it will be the first of about 127 times we will drive by this year.  Afterwards, the kids played puzzles, Legos, Barbies, and of course instruments.  Here is a video clip of them singing.  So fun!

Thanksgiving at Dad and Barb's

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Dad and Barb's farm today.  It was an especially good day because Dad is healthy, Jon is home on leave, and some cousins from the north, Charles and Isabelle stopped to eat with us on their way down to Lake Egypt.  We fed the horses, played in the leaves, let the horses in, played the piano, ate, and chatted.

 Proof that Dad knows how to work in the kitchen.

Boo, Grams, and their grandkids and great-grandson. 

 Charles, Belle, and the rest of us.

 Trevor's favorite game is "get her", otherwise known as wrestling.  Here he is attacking Harper, who is loving it.

Star Student

Congratulations to Delaney for receiving the Glen Carbon Mighty Miner award for showing cooperation this week at school!  She also brought home her 2nd quarter progress report that has all E's and E+'s!  Great job, star student!!

Great Wolf Lodge KC

Thanks to a super deal shared with us by our friends the Buschs, we took an impromptu trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City.  I just love KC and this trip didn't disappoint.  

 We left straight from school and got to the lodge around 8:30, just in time to watch the clock tower come alive, snap a couple of pics, and get settled in to our room to rest up for a day of water park fun.

 Harper had us all awake by 6:30 am.  We went to McDonalds for breakfast and had the whole playland to ourselves.  Both girls said, "This is the best place ever!"  I let it slide since we hadn't been to the water park yet, but I would have been pretty mad if the best part of their whole trip was McDonalds!

 Let the fun begin!

We spent all morning at the water park and tried every ride except for one that Harper wasn't big enough for.  We left the resort to get lunch at Chick Fil A and go to the huge Nebraska Furniture store - literally the biggest single store I have ever been too - probably 2-3 Sam's stores put together and twice as tall!  Then we went back to swim for another hour or so before getting cleaned up to go to a pizza party that was included in our deal.  Finally, we got to go to the Legends Outlet Mall that was right next door to the resort.  I had been itching to go there all day!  

 We were back for the 8:00 storytime in the lobby.  Harper was done, though, so Allan took her up to sleep while Delaney and I stayed down to get a picture with one of the wolves and dance at the dance party.

On Sunday morning, we went to LegoLand at Crown Plaza.  We spent a couple of hours there playing, building, and watching the 4D movie.

The outside of Crown Plaza had some beautiful fall colors and the weather was just perfect to eat some ice cream outside.

 We ate lunch and visited the Crayola store before heading home.

 Delaney and Harper show off their favorite colors.

Both girls slept 1.5 hours on the car trip home!