Part one of Thanksgiving was officially a blast!
We went up to my parent's house on Wednesday evening to spend some time with my side of the family before hitting up Baltimore in the wee early hours of the morning today.
It is always so wonderful seeing my family, and especially my little niece Hannah above. I cannot believe the beautiful, gracious little lady she is becoming. She is so much like her mama with her kind soul and spirit, she is one of those rare people in life which fill your heart with joy every time you see her. I am so blessed to be able to take part in her life and help mold who she is becoming. She truly has my heart. And the best part? Now that we have our new home and I have all the time in the world coming up to get the house in order, it means Hannah sleepovers! We are going to drive Mike insane with our makeovers, cookie baking and girly movies. He'll just have to deal with it.
And my nephews, my not so little any more nephews! I can not keep up with how fast they are growing! The oldest is a sophomore in high school now (what!) and the younger two are in middle school (MIDDLE SCHOOL!) where has time gone when those handsome little boys were still wearing matching polos and trying to get me to play with their Legos? Unbelievable!
Mike spent some time helping Will (my youngest nephew) whittle some branches into a bow and arrow to play around with. It warms my heart to see him playing with the boys and Will especially. Mike was so similar to Will when he was younger and I think they both pick up on that. They just get each other and it is just awesome to watch.
My parents still find ways to make me laugh until my belly hurts at their crazy antics and my father and I still antagonize each other relentlessly (all in jest of course!) about every little thing imaginable. Mom found ways to spoil us (as always!) with sending loads of leftovers and some other random findings around the house for us to take home to the kitties. I swear we never leave that house empty handed, it's pretty wonderful.
Every time I see my sister I just want to cry I love her so much. We never seem to get to spend enough time together and every time we see each other we can barely get a breath in because we have so much to say to each other. I miss her so much!
All in all it was a truly wonderful holiday, the only not so wonderful part was having to leave Olivia with my parents while we venture off to Baltimore this morning. I could barely say goodbye to her without tearing up. This will officially be the longest Mike & I have ever been away from her. I hope it is harder on us than it is for her. I know she will have so much fun romping around the woods with my dad and exploring, but man I miss having her with me every where!
We drove back last night to spend the night at home before heading out to MD in the morning and to cut out some drive time. We got some bad news from my dad, my car needs some serious TLC (Thanks Lifetouch!) so we will have to take Mike's no cruise control tin can of a Saturn for our trip. My car will have to stay with my dad next weekend for a couple of weeks to get some love put back into it and I am going to grumble every day about having to drive Mike's car. At least we have two cars though right? And at least my dad is a mechanical genius and can fix my car without charging me my first born. He may just take Olivia as payment though, he has already threatened. :]
So up north we go tomorrow to see Mike's family for the weekend! We are so excited to see his brother, sister in law and niece Zoe! And of course eat his dad's prosciutto stuffed turkey breast tomorrow for lunch! I swear Mike & I will both be ten pounds heavier by the end of this holiday! We also can not wait to go to Wegman's and Trader Joe's. We don't have either where we live and we are definitely going to stock up on some goodies to bring home with us for the winter. I swear I could spend hours in both of those stores.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and was surrounded by those they love for the holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving!
