The kids and I left on Monday the 25th, and flew to Seattle. We spent the night there in a hotel, and went back the next morning for another 4 hour flight to Houston. My mom picked us up and we were so happy to see her!! We had missed all the family festivities for Mon. and Tues., but we got there that night and we were overjoyed to be with everyone. We had a spectacular time. I threw a little slideshow together of some of my favorite pictures HERE, and my awesome SIL Kerri made a movie of all the video recordings she was so good at capturing while we were together. HERE. Here's a few highlights that I want to remember about this trip:
Hardly seeing my kids because they were so busy playing and having a blast with their cousins
Singing together around the piano--always a favorite tradition when we're together
The Thanksgiving program we did at the nursing home (my dad is the Director there at Southland, so we pretty much do some kind of program any time we're home :) ). Tyler played a piano solo for his first time ever in front of a group of people and played it perfectly. The grandkids all recited the poem, "Good morning Mr. Turkey" and it was so cute.
Staying up late every night talking and playing games with all the adults
The oven pooping out on us on Thanksgiving day--BEFORE we baked the 4 big pans of rolls my mom made. We tried to make them over the fire (some of us tried outside, some tried inside) and it was so funny. We finally used store-bought french bread and called it good.
Having pie and ice cream around the fire that night and talking about what we were grateful for
Lots of fires!
Seeing my cousin Charlotte and her adorable family! It was so fun to be with them
Sunshine and warm weather (most of the time)
Seeing my dad wrestle and play with my kids. I hope they know what a great Grandpa they have.
Just being together and nurturing those important family relationships
We really, really missed Kenny. I also swore that was the last time I'd travel by myself. But it's hard because if we're going to spend so much money on plane tickets to go see everyone, we want it to be long enough to make it worth it. Of course Kenny could never take off enough work to do that, so I'm sure it'll happen again. But I hate it every time. This time, coming home was a nightmare. We had heard there would be freezing rain in Dallas, so we made sure to check our flight status twice that morning, including RIGHT before we left. But with a 4 hour drive there, it must have changed from on time, to cancelled. By the time we got to the airport, the kids had already had it. They had been sitting in a car for 4 hours, no potty breaks or anything. But I didn't realize how long the line would be, so we got in line just to print off our boarding passes...over an hour later they were going crazy, we ALL needed to pee really bad, and we had only moved a few feet. Literally. Then, as a very direct answer to prayer, this random lady came up to me and asked if she could stand there by our luggage, so I could take my kids to the bathroom without losing our spot in line. I wanted to cry. I told her she was a saint and thanked her. Then we ran clear across the airport to find the bathrooms. I found the TVs and figured out my flight was cancelled, called Kenny, and he rescheduled our flight. I called my mom, dying from embarrassment that she had to turn around come back for us. It was dark now, the roads were really icy, and we still had a long night ahead of us. So we waited another hour + for her to turn around and come back for us. We got home around midnight and went straight to bed. The next day my dad drove us down to Houston (no ice there) so we could fly home. We had two long 4 hour flights, with a layover in between. Kelsey did not sleep AT ALL the whole second flight...which was the middle of the night. We landed at 12:30, but 3:30 to us since we were still on TX time. I had restless leg syndrome really bad, and Tyler got a bloody nose because he always does whenever it's dry. But of course we all survived. We didn't go to church the next morning, but we did sleep a lot. We were all so exhausted. It was good to be home and back as a family under one roof. Real life always sets in very quickly, but it's still good to be back to our normal, daily grind.
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