Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving!

(I know I'm late, but better late than never right?)

For Thanksgiving we went to visit our good friends, the Brown's, who recently left us and moved to Pennsylvania. We left Tuesday evening and drove to Sandusky, OH where we overnighted and then drove the rest of the way Wednesday. It took much longer to get there then we anticipated, but we made it!

We had a great time hanging out with the Brown's and Grandma and Grandpa Brown who were visiting from England. While we were there we watched lots of movies, played lots of games, stayed up way too late and ate lots of yummy food!

On Friday Jeff and I and the girls drove up to Hershey, PA. Can you say Heaven on Earth? For me, yes - endless chocolate! We took the tour that shows you how they make the chocolate and got free chocolate at the end, then we took the trolley tour of the town and got free chocolate at the end. I was really starting to like the fact you could take a tour a get free chocolate! We had a great time seeing the sights and smelling the chocolate. Hershey is definitely my kind of town!

Saturday we celebrated Amy's birthday. Her birthday isn't until the 1st, but her family wanted to celebrate with her while she was home from school. Saturday afternoon we went to Longwood Gardens to see the Christmas displays and lights and go to an ice skating show. It was really pretty and lots of fun, but really cold!

Sunday we got up early to drive home. The drive home also took longer than expected between weather (we were in rain or snow the whole way home), lunch and traffic. The bonus of the drive was that we got to take Amy back to Chicago with us! (I'll explain why later) We were making really good time until we stopped for lunch that took over and hour! We stopped at an oasis off the turnpike and it was really busy and short staffed at every place in there to eat. The girls and Amy got McDonalds and ended up waiting for about 20 minutes for their food and then it ended up being really gross. Jeff and I got sandwiches that weren't that great either. Oh well what do you expect from a turnpike oasis?

Once we got back on the road we hit some traffic, but not too bad. But once we got near the Ohio, Indiana border we got stuck in traffic waiting to pay the toll. 8 miles of cars waiting in line to pay. We were stop and go for almost an hour. But we did eventually make it home and we were all glad to finally get out of the car for good! We had our moments, but overall everyone were good travelers especially for such a long day.

Unfortunately Sunday morning Sarah woke up with an eye infection. So I knew Monday morning we were headed to the doctor - again. She is still sick from Salt Lake as am I. Plus Emilie and Ada still both have coughs. I swear for the last two months someone in our house has been sick - and quite frankly I'm sick of it! Then Monday morning Sarah's other eye was infected and the doctor told me she was bordering getting an ear infection. Seriously! When will it end?

Anyway, on Monday I kept the girls home from school and after the doctors visit we took Amy downtown Chicago so she could pick up her citizenship papers. What we thought would take maybe half and hour took over 2 hours. Her appointment was at 1:00 so we decided to get lunch after. Finally at 2:30 the girls and I left and found a McDonald's and waited there for Amy to get done. After that we drove her to the airport. Gratefully her flight ended up being delayed an hour because of the weather here. If it hadn't she would probably have missed her original flight because it took so long at the imigration office. But she made it and we finally made it home about 5:15. Needless to say we were all very happy to be done in the car yesterday too!

So after a very fun and very exhausting week, we are trying to recover and get everone well, catch up on laundry, cleaning and errands. I think I'll just go take a nap!

Watching a movie

Mark, Ada, Amy, Emilie, Stephen

Heaven on Earth

The pink singing cows on the tour

The purple singing cows on the tour

Me and Sarah on the chocolate tour

Jeff and Ada on the chocolate tour

Emilie - not sure what is up with that face!
Maybe the smell of the chocolate was overtaking her.

Me, Emilie and Sarah (love that face!) on the trolley tour

Jeff and Ada on the trolley tour

Emilie and I

We tried Sarah with Santa - she wasn't so sure about him. Emilie and Ada want nothing to do with the man. They just want him to show up Christmas Eve and that's it!

One of my favorite parts about Hershey is the kisses on the top of the street lights!

Seriously love this town.

Sarah and I at Longwood Gardens

Emilie, Ada, Jeff and Sarah

This is a fountain that shoots the water across over your head

Emilie

Ada

Sarah

Us in front of the big Christmas tree - it was amazing!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!