November seems like such a blur already. We were thankful for TWO whole weeks to celebrate, starting with Devon's pre-K thanksgiving program at Landenburg.
The kids came in dressed as pilgrims and indians.
They said their memory verses, sang their songs, and generally wowed the audience. Carrie and Melina watched, amazed.
Afterwards was Devon's most talked about part: the big FEAST. My three ate their weights in chicken nuggets. A huge success.
Afterwards, we circled back home for the girls's nap and then back to Landenburg to pick up Devon. It was a good trial run for the real Thanksgiving.
The very next day we hopped in the car for the fourteen-hour drive to Nashville TN. It was the first long car trip attempted since our move and our only significant vacation of this year. Ten whole days!!
The route took us through Lexington, KY, right past the house where the kids came home from the hospital, the burger joint that nourished their little bodies in utero, and the castle park where we played with Devon the night before the girls were born.
Nashville was a pretty low-key vacation, which was just what we needed. We spent time at a favorite park there daily, reveling in fifty-degree temperatures as our friends from home posted snow pics on facebook.
Mama and Papa's house is home to the toys of Craig's childhood, many of which came out to play.
But the best part was the cousins. Four older boys for Devon to look up to, and three girls for Carrie and Melina. We enjoyed Big Hero 6 together. My favorite part of the experience was having to make the girls share a chair with somebody because they were so light that their bodies wouldn't keep the chairs open.
Devon discovered the foam sword. And life will never, ever be the same.
It felt awfully ambitious to get everyone out at 9 am on Black Friday to take a professional family photo, but it went really, really well. And when is it NOT ambitious to get ten kids dressed, looking, and smiling? This is an amazingly good result if you ask me.
We were lucky to be able to delay our return until Monday after Thanksgiving, when most everyone was already home and not on the roads. We decided to drive it all in one day, an ambitious choice that ended up working pretty well. We left at four am and were already back through Lexington before these cheerful morning faces made an appearance. We ate meals in the car and stopped to run around and stretch instead of getting out to sit and eat more again. Come to think of it, we pretty much ate recreationally all day. It's something to do in the car... By seven it was dark again and we were almost home, and that's when the sitting-too-long energy explosion happened. You wouldn't believe the noise in the car as the kids trilled, sang songs, and told each other incomprehensible inside jokes. We pulled into Elkton around 8 and poor Ally Kitty must have wondered what tornado was hitting after a quiet ten days at home.
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