Our Thanksgiving 2010

The afternoon before Thanksgiving we loaded up the car and headed over the river and through the woods to Grammy and Grammpy's house in Salem, Oregon! John thoroughly check all the traffic websites and and felt comfortable.  It was hit and miss their for a while and down right scary on Hwy 84.  The traffic websites had said spots of ice but it was more like spots of pavement.  We left at 1:30pm and arrived at 9pm. LeAnne had slept on and off the whole trip, but she was none to happy when she woke up and was still trapped in her car seat.  We knew exactly how she felt and we were never so happy to pull into Grammy and Grammpy's driveway.

Thanksgiving day brought the arrival of John's brother & his family.  It was great to see them and watch the kids play.  LeAnne has an absolute blast playing with their 2 1/2 year old son, Cash.  Their oldest, Emma, 4 1/2, brightened up the room with her beautiful smile and jokes. Oh precious little kid jokes. :-)  We had a yummy feast, Thank-you Grammy!  Then since LeAnne had boycotted a nap that day when her cousins left for the hotel she settled down and was fast asleep by 5:30pm.   This helped to convince daddy that we needed to get up early to participate in Black Friday, his first ever.  Amanda arrived at Grammy's later that evening and said she'd love to go with us. 

Black Friday LeAnne woke us up at 5am and we were out the door to Fred Myers by 6am.  Back up a second; I don't want to forget to include LeAnne's precious chatting in my arms as everyone woke up.  I don't recall what she said but it was so fun to listen to Amanda get a chuckle out of her sister. How I wish those girls had more time together.  Back at Fred Myers, we parked and headed to the electronics section. On the trip down we made the decision our princess needed an early Christmas present; a portable DVD player.  I have had mixed feeling about these things for a while, not wanting our girl to turn into a zombie and miss the scenery around her as we drove but daddy had a point when he said pick your monsters; screaming banshee or happy zombie. Then I thought about our sanity and gave into getting the DVD player.  We made some good scores there.  Next stop McDonald's for breakfast then Khols to score a great deal on a Leap Frog Zippity for our princess.  While at Khols we also found LeAnne a Christmas dress for a great price. Oh how I wish we had a Khols here in small town America. The shopping trip was a great experience and it was nice to spend time with our girls together.  The stores were packed but there were a lot less people there than a typical day at any Seattle Shopping Mall. I'd do Black Friday shopping in Salem again in a heart beat. 

Back at Grammy and Grampy's house we settled down to rest, chat and watched The Search for Santa Paws.  Overall I would give this movie a 5 on a scale of 1-10. It wasn't terrible but very predictable and the Santa Claus character was creepy.   Amanda and I thought he took advantage of the Holiday special we saw on a reader board in Salem; $9.95 Botox injections and went a little overboard. Just as the movie was getting over Aunt Carrie, Uncle Dave and their kids arrived.  WOW it is absolutely amazing how much those kids have grown up. 

While everyone was together I thought it would be fun to break out the ginger bread village I had bought.  This was one interesting project for sure.  The kids had a good time and were way better architect's than their oldest cousin and myself.  My house looked like an outhouse that was going to collapse at any moment.  The rest of the afternoon was filled with talking, foot balls games and the disappearance of LeAnne.  

While we were making the gingerbread houses LeAnne had been there to help or should I say eat the decorations for a short while then went back to playing with Cash.  After we'd cleaned up I realized I had not seen or heard LeAnne for a while. I looked where she had been playing and when I asked if they knew where she was they said we thought she was with you. So began the search and the thoughts of her wandering outside because she'd slipped out the door. By this time a few were helping to look for her when John thought She couldn't be under the kids tent but sure enough as he lifted it up there lay LeAnne fast asleep under the kids tent. We could not believe she had fallen asleep with all the noise going on around her.  She stayed there sleeping until everyone had gone home. 

We were so happy to have been able to see Amanda.  We had a very nice visit.  She is growing up to be such quite the beautiful lady with such a kind heart.  It's something to believe she will be 18 in April and graduating from High School June 10th.  Then it's on to a Linn-Benton Community College in the fall of 2011. We are very proud of our girl and miss her so much.  Please keep her in your prayers as she enjoys the last of her high school year, looks for a job and searches for her path in this world. 

Our plan was to stay in Salem until Sunday morning but the road conditions were not looking good at all. The road conditions for 84 were icy.  John had a bad feeling in his stomach about the drive home the way we came.  So I threw out the idea of driving up to the Seattle area Saturday, staying the night with some of my family and driving home that way instead.  After checking those road conditions the decision was made that would be a good idea so we packed up, said our good byes and headed out on I-5.  We made plans to stay with my Grandma and Auntie.  Then somewhere along the way the idea to go to Point Defiance Zoo lights came to mind and plans were made to meet my aunt in Tacoma.  LeAnne napped the first part of the trip, we had lunch and then oh my you should have seen her reaction when we started up Tinkerbell in the DVD player.  Oh portable DVD playing how I love you.  I was even able to finish reading a great book,  The Thorn by Beverly Lewis.   I can't wait for the next book to come out in April 2011.  I love reading about the Amish and Beverly Lewis is a great author. 

LeAnne was very excited to see Auntie Katie. We grabbed a quick bit to eat and headed off to the zoo lights at Point Defiance zoo.   I am so happy we were able to do the zoo lights with Auntie Katie!  LeAnne kept saying it's bootiful (beautiful) and gorgeous.  The way she says gorgeous is so adorable, Katie said it perfectly she says it like Sandra Bullock in Ms. Congeniality when Gracie Lou Freebush says "You think I'm gorgeous, you wanna kiss me".  Click here to hear a clip. The lights were amazing.  We heard a walrus barking, pet a goat, saw a lot of different fish including a rare glimpse of an octopus.

how she loves carousel rides

We got out pic taken with Prancer

It was so fun that Auntie road too!

Then we headed to Lake Taps to Grandma's house. We visited with Grandma, LeAnne had some tea with Auntie Katie then we headed to bed.  The next morning the first thing out of LeAnne's mouth was "Lets have tea" and she wanted to wake Auntie. We had a yummy breakfast, checked the road conditions and were on the road again.  It was a very non eventful trip home with great roads and Tinkerbell on the DVD player. 

This story isn't over... Somewhere in our travels we came in contact with a nasty flu virus.  LeAnne woke up throwing up Monday morning.  Poor girl threw up on and off through out the day.  This is the most sick she's ever been and had no clue why she was spitting this stuff out of her mouth. She kept trying to run away from it and it ended up on me, and if we were lucky the towel we were chasing her with.  She kept saying "I'm sorry". It was so sad.  She spiked a temp of 101 on Monday night, had a rough night of sleeping with mama Monday night.  Tuesday morning she seemed somewhat better but not 100 percent.  Then the bug hit me and oh boy this has not been fun.  My stomach has not rumbled and turned this much ever.  I keep wondering where when it will stop.  UGH!  I am home from work for the 3rd day and I am so done with this flu bug.  Oh I forgot to mention to bug also go daddy who stayed home last night too. Oh flu bug go away!!

LeAnne is really getting into Christmas this year.  She knows who Santa is, doesn't really understand all about him though.  She knows their should be presents under the tree and it really bothered her when Grandma Marcia didn't have any under her tree yet.  She even went into Grandma's room where she found a few presents and put them under the tree then said "perfect". We've been reading her Christmas stories and look forward to sharing with her the reason for the season.