a Virginia Thanksgiving

December 27, 2014

a Virginia Thanksgiving

Our family tradition while we lived on the east coast was to spend Thanksgiving at Brian's parents' house every year. I love Thanksgiving at their house. Unfortunately, when you move 3,000 miles away, you can't just head to VA every 4th Thursday in November. :(

But, this year, we went! I think we have had tickets since September! This was to be Evelyn's first trip to their house. We have learned a little something since living so far away from our extended families, and that is, if you are going to fly that far {especially with littles}, you have to make it at least a week. We went for 10 days-- yay!

The flights went smoothly. Now that the boys are a little older, an iPad full of animated movies + Tootsie roll pops are a win-win. Evelyn was a little wiggly, but did ok. I have learned not to stress over the "but they are supposed to be sleeping right now!" ridiculousness. On travel days, you just make do. And that we did. Hats off to the Chicago airport for having an awesome USO and an incredible kids' play area, complete with an air traffic control station!

We finally made it to Virginia and had a few days to settle in before Turkey day. It was so nice being there, helping with the Thanksgiving Day prep, and letting the kids enjoy time with grandparents!

Another special part of our east coast trip was getting to see Brian's Papaw, his mom's dad. The last time we saw him was on our trek to Washington when we moved in 2012. He wanted to meet Evelyn, so this 85-year-old man who hasn't flown since the 80's got on a plane and met our sweet girl. She didn't warm up to him quite like I had hoped, but he enjoyed her (and she watched him) from a safe distance. I think he was really taken with Levi and his ever-present ball cap! By the end of the few days, all of the kids had warmed up and we got a group picture with their great-Papaw.

Aunt Rebecca was Papaw's airplane escort-- we were so glad to spend a few days with her! We were also able to spend time with the Tulip family. Chris and Brian have been best friends since high school, and now their family (also in the AF) love in Ohio. We planned months ago to spend Thanksgiving together, so their entire family came over on Thanksgiving! We had 6 little ones running around, but it was busy fun!

Our trip spanned the holiday and allowed us a few extra days with Brian's parents. Brian and I decided to stay on west coast time and stayed up late watching Castle and other interesting shows with Brian's dad. We all were able to enjoy some outside time, despite the chilly weather, and the kids had a blast playing in the leaves in their backyard and venturing to nearby parks. We did our first Christmas-y thing of 2014 by going to Busch Garden's "Christmastown"-- the park full of lights, a few rides turned on for the kids, and Christmas shows. It was a nice transition to Christmastime, especially with only 4 weeks between the two holidays.

And, just like that, it was time to head home. Again, the flights went smoothly and we were back in WA just in time for the kids to go to bed. Unfortunately, the kids did not stay on west coast time, so they were up ridiculously early the next morning. But, hey, that's all part of this cross-country travel.