Thanksgiving 2014

We headed west to celebrate Thanksgiving in St. Louis this year.  Since we decided to drive, we planned a week long visit.  We left on Friday around 1:00 pm and made it to Indianapolis that night.  This was right after the massive snow storm that hit Buffalo, so we had to take an alternate route to bypass the Thruway.  Both kids napped that afternoon, so that was a major plus:

Here is dinner at Panera on the road, in jammies and ready for the final stretch:

We stopped in Indianapolis for the night.  We arrived around midnight but by the time we got everything in the room and everyone settled (because, of course, both kids were wide awake after we got in the room), it was after 1:00 am.  Graham was up at 5:30 so I took him down to the lobby to let Greg and Parker sleep some more.

Yes, I let him crawl around on the floor of a hotel lobby, but the kid needed to burn some energy!  I washed his hands afterwards

I went back up the room around 7:00 and we had breakfast and went for a swim.  Here is Parker walking to the pool.  Her teachers tell me she does the walk a lot at school...a girl on a mission.

Here is Parker riding "the train" out to the car:

Our first night in St. Louis, Grandma and Grandpa watched the kids so Greg and I could join my longtime friends for a night out.  Many laughs were had, I miss these girls so!

The rest of the week was filled by fun play dates with Jack and Charlie, including one trip to Myseum.

We had hung out with my friends Jenny and Terri and there kids one morning and met up with Kathie and Mary and their kids one evening.  Jennifer came over for a visit:

We were also able to attend the annual pre-Thanksgiving Happy Hour at the Hefley's house, although I have no photographic evidence.

Here is a cute picture of Graham hanging out with Grandma, he sat like this for 30 minutes watching football.  It was amazing:

On Thanksgiving, we went to my Aunt Jan's for lunch and had a great time visiting with all of the Gibler relatives...

Then back to my parents' house, who were hosting the Lang side this year.  The Claytons were there for a while and then left to have dinner with Jason's family.  It was a quiet gathering, as Jimmy and I were the only cousins there, but the aunts and uncles had lots of quality time playing with Parker and Graham.

On Friday night, we enlisted the help of my parents' awesome neighbor, Mr. Matt (as the boys call him) to drive us all in a limo to see the Christmas lights display at Tilles Park.  We didn't tell the kids about it, so they had a great surprise.  It was such a great idea by my Mom and wonderful memories were made by all.

After the limo ride, we played a dice game.  Jack even joined in and caught on right away.

Disclaimer:  the child is drinking water

We left Saturday to drive home and made it back to Rochester about 1:30 pm on Sunday after an overnight stop in Cleveland.  We were so fortunate to have a very uneventful drive in both directions...and loads of laughs, hugs, & fun while we were there!